[lug] Broadband in Eastern/Rural Boulder County?

[Nate Duehr]

Robert Racansky wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 9:34 AM, Ryan Kirkpatrick <linux at rkirkpat.net> wrote:
>> Does any one know of Internet broadband options out in the vicinity of
>> 95th and Valmont Rd (area code 80301) in eastern, rural Boulder County?
>> With SprintBroadband ending their wireless service (effectively cable
>> Internet over a micro-wave link) at the end of this month I am trying to
>> find my parents another option.
>>
> 
> Wispertel shows coverage in the area, although I don't know what it's
> like in Boulder.
> 
> http://www.wispertel.com/
> 
> http://www.wispertel.com/coverage/maps/NWmap.shtml

I know their former Director of Operations, and know where their POP's 
are in Boulder, and it's pretty likely that area is covered.  At least 
one of their POP's is co-located at a site I have gear at, and it sees a 
lot of territory.  (Although it's not a good apples-to-apples comparison 
because our system is on a much lower frequency, runs a lot more power, 
and generally "isn't

But, ultimately -- I believe their policy is that they'll have to come 
do an RF site-survey to check.  See their website for current details.

I have multiple connections to WisperTel at mountain-top radio sites, 
and all work almost flawlessly.

They've had a few outages, but I've met many of their networking/outside 
plant/routing guys, and they're all hard at work whenever something goes 
down.

Summertime is rough -- lightning hits a lot of their gear, even with 
commercial-grade lightning protection systems as are used at 
high-mountain radio sites, and they do some serious running around (at 
today's gas prices!  Yikes!) to keep things operational when the 
thunderstorms roll in.

The reason these guys and Mesa both survived and a large number of 
mom-and-pop Wireless ISP's have come and gone is a multitude of factors, 
but I would list these:

- Both companies had experienced RF people who worked with and 
understood microwave "shots" long before they went into the WISP biz.

- Both companies bought commercial-grade WISP gear, but watched their 
budgets.  (WisperTel mainly uses Trango Wireless gear for the customer 
premesis, Mesa uses Motorola Canopy gear.)

- Many mom-and-pop shops think that just buying some cheap 802.11 gear 
(and not getting away from 2.4 GHz noise of all the users of 802.11) is 
the right way to go, because it looks cheaper.  It is cheaper, and they 
usually get what they pay for.  Interference, problems, etc...

- Many mom-and-pop shops only have "data geeks" on staff, and never have 
been anywhere near a commercial wireless site, wouldn't know what an RF 
spectrum analyzer is if one jumped up and bit them in the butt, and 
generally have no clue about how RF systems really should work.

There's probably more, but WisperTel and Mesa will both be around for a 
while.  They both seem to know what they're doing.

Nate