Sub 200 CPE packages.

[David L. Vrablic]

I was just looking at some pictures of a single radio single NIC WRAP board in some of the pictures.
It kind of jogged my memory of talks we had about our ideal CPE that would run Star-OS and dreaming of getting it in the $250-200 range.

We were waiting for the X-POD and the PC engines..at the time..
So fast we got away from a simple little board with one radio and one nic and STAR on board..maybe POE.
Very soon:
It had to repeat, route, double clutch and divide by four" and now we have a minature drop and repeat router with "a gold plated flush handle" way overkill for a resi customer.
Don't get me wrong! What we have is great I am not knocking it at all BUT.
I have been putting C5000 ITX Motherboards in plastic irrigation boxes for less money than a full blown WRAP .
No I don't want to get rid of a single one.
Wait till you see the neat conversion I am making from a 23 Ghz dish to an ATHROS 5.x link set.
-----------------------
I guess my fustration is I really, really wanted Star on board for all clients.
It looks like I will have to join the others with the CB-3's and very little control if I expect to make any money in a $30 per mo DSL market.
-----------What happened to X-POD ??? any other options?

[lonnie]

Sorry to hear about the CB3 move. Hope it does not hurt you.

[go.fast]

I was just looking at some pictures of a single radio single NIC WRAP board in some of the pictures.
It kind of jogged my memory of talks we had about our ideal CPE that would run Star-OS and dreaming of getting it in the $250-200 range.

What happened to X-POD ??? any other options?

It is possible to get even lower priced wrap boards , but larger qty would have to happen to get the board down to about 84.00 or less.

All it takes is a concerted effort. I talked to the wrap man about it.
He needs a comittment of between 500-1000 units.

Imagine 5.3 to 5.8 cpe's for under 250.00?
George

[David L. Vrablic]

Sorry to hear about the CB3 move. Hope it does not hurt you.

I only got a couple for testing and I wouldn't use them for my "Good customers".
I am just looking for something that works in place of the few WET 11's that I have out there...
I am setting up a WRAP "Drop and Hop" box on my buddies house in the middle of a resi area. 200 Mw Prism in, Prism out. Horiz pol under the 80 ft. trees.
Only looking for 4 block coverage. It is a proof of concept study to see if I can compete with Verision and Frontier's DSL.
The numbers say 3 customers will pay for the whole mess in one year.
More customers shorter ROI.
We shall see... :roll:

[David L. Vrablic]

It is possible to get even lower priced wrap boards , but larger qty would have to happen to get the board down to about 84.00 or less.

All it takes is a concerted effort. I talked to the wrap man about it.
He needs a comittment of between 500-1000 units.

Imagine 5.3 to 5.8 cpe's for under 250.00?
George[/quote]

Yes I can George, and that is what prompted the post,,,,,
I am still looking for a simple, low cost platform to run Star on for CPE client. I have to see if that market exist around here before I can talk numbers of any kind.
I don't care about AP and enhanced modes. I have Wrap's for that.
I don't know if they even make the little single port/radio board anymore.
I just see picture of it every once in awhile. Every dollar counts overall.
I really got excited when I saw someone mention Star on a Linksys box....
Oh well, "as the market keeps shaking the tree something will eventually fall out of it that we can use."
There will always be a Star box on the other end doing all the dirty work.
In the meantime I have a couple of combinations that I know work and that I have control over.

[BurstNET]

What problems did you have with the CB3 that you feel so harshly against it?

SMA

[John Huszar]

I tried the CB3 and I sent it back to Eje. I just didnt care for the user interface plus the fact that it only has a web interface. I was trying to set the IP address on the darn thing, and then all of a sudden I couldnt talk to it anymore. I wound up hitting the reset button over and over again trying to get it to do the right thing. I finally got tired of it. I imagine the "g" version is about the same.

There HAS to be a better way! Anyone tried any of the DLINK stuff for a client, maybe in a Rootenna?

What about running Star on a Linksys box? Is that for real?

John Huszar

[georgew]

What problems did you have with the CB3 that you feel so harshly against it?


The cb3 is only what it is... The problem is that using these sort of simple CPE reduces your ability to diagnose and repair problems without truckrolls. I have found that 75% of the customer calls could be worked without a visit when you use StarOS, and when you use devices like the cb3, you have fewer things you can do to resolve a problem without a visit. Of course this assumes that you can use tools like tcpdump, cbq, and firewall/port/nat...

I doesn't take very many truck rolls to pay for the upgrade to staros from a cb3.

Think about it this way... If you have to eat part of the StarOS cost on a set-up, you feel "bad" about it... But the harder it is to maintain the network without truckrolls, the more time the trucks are going to spend on repairs instead of installs. Unless you ue underpaid contractors without proper insurance, the excessive truckrolls should be costing around $150 each, VS $7 for a tech support agent to work the call over the phone.

If you are doing truckrolls yourself, you may not "see" the $150 cost as cash... But what you /will/ see is that you have less time to grow your business. A successfull business man once told me that to be successful you need to work ON the company, not IN the company.. and doing your own truckrolls will directly limit how much time you have to work on the company, so doing fewer is mobettah.

Cash is a harsh reality, but time, YOUR time, is impossible to replace or earn more of. At first you have more time than cash, but if successful that will reverse, and the pennies you save today will cost you in time down the road.

If you want to save money, do what I do... I buy small form-factor used pc's for about $75 for a 466 to 500mhz machine, which is complete, except for radio. I bolt them to the wall in out of the way spaces, so the size is less of a problem. If the user squalks at the box, tell them that for a few more dollars you can sell them a wrap box...

[David L. Vrablic]

AMEN! Brother George.
Between you and John I am not feeling so alone in my opinions.

The hurt will go away when we can get the elusive sub $200 star client box.

We need Star on both ends. Even if one end is "Drain Bammaged".
:)

[georgew]

Oh, and I'm paying top-dollar at $75... Goodwill and other used computer stores have machines as low as $25 that have more than enough umph to run StarOs.

[John Huszar]

My problem is that we are dealing with yuppies in the neighborhoods around our first tower. They have $250k+ homes, and I am not EVEN going to suggest putting a funky looking grid antenna on their homes. The Rootenna (or the zcomax CPE, have you guys looked at those? only problem is they are "b" only, for now) is probably the way to go as far as the unit itself.. compact, stylish, and possibly able to be painted in different colors (my sales guy told me this, a VERY good idea). The zcomax is white at least, while the Rootenna is this funky gray color..somebody needs to tell Pacwireless to change their color.

Oh add to that the fact that DSL and cable are in my areas so I am head to head with them. And they GIVE the CPE away!

Now, IF we can put an ATX motherboard into the Rootenna, that would be ok, but I dont know if its going to fit or not. In addition, I want to go with PoE, so now we are talking about some sort of power convertor (which I have seen only one or two, and they are spendy).

I completely understand what you (George) are saying. I have read many of your posts to this list and fully agree with your points. I too want to put the same OS at both ends. That would be the way to go.

But how :?: thats the $6M question..

John

[nepalken]

Nice reading everybody's idea on cheap CPE with STAR OS. I hope if we call work together we might be able to do it. I am also looking for cheap CPE that needs to handle only one computer at the client end.

Georgew:

I am trying to make a WRAP box and cheap CPE myself here in Nepal. I need to order some gears which are not available in Nepal. Could you please help me with the list. I think I can get everything here except the PCMCIA adapter, radio card, POE.

I need to know where I can buy it on cheap. I hope to buy everything from a single store. I heard you make a CPE under $125. If yes, then could I buy a CPE from you for $125.

I would only need to make the WARP board for the access point if I could get a CPE from you.

Any help is highly appreciated.

Nepalken

[unkyjoe]

I am currently using the Dlink 810+ bridge units. Combine them with a flat panel maxrad antenna and I am getting about 3-4miles with my 10.5db omni on the roof.

The only drawback is the fact that bridging uses 2 ips's and 2 mac entries on the staros. But the sensitivity is great on these little units. I have modded them to be placed indoors with about 25ft of 195 series rg58 cable that I solder directly in place to the dlink unit. You could use a rp-sma to n connector but I am cheap, this saves me about $8-10 per unit.

I know I know, this is an off the shelf component but trust me, they work really well and are cheap, about $55. Also signal strength indicator on them.

Hope this helps.

[georgew]

Ok, now that we have per-user wep, the low-end CPE just opened back up.

The low end CPE can be any cheap PCI radio that you put in the customer's PC. Then if the cable losses are too great, you buy a cheap $99 amp and create your own "antennafier" units. Using the RooTenna14 Panel Antenna at $50 from wisp-router.com, combined with an rflinx $99 g amp properly tuned for legal operation with the antenna and radio, and your choice of g mode radio card for up to $49, and you are at $198, plus coax and connectors... and it's only $99 if you skip the amp. Of course you need a 12v wall-ward to run the amp, that adds about $3 or $4 if you buy them by the case.

So the $150 to $250 price range should give you a pair of low-cost low and high power CPE solutions for home users, and let you save your wrap boards for customers wanting to have a more featureful and better supported lan.

Customers willing to support their own lan can use windows connection sharing to do the local lan work.

The downside is now you are running LMR400 instead of ethernet.