felipevidal
01-20-2003, 11:07 PM
Hello,
I have been trying to find good information on WISP configurations. I have found lots of info on the net (esp on the Star-OS forums) but its all hard to evaluate. I am hoping to validate or shoot down my current view of all of the components needed to make a WISP configuration work.
The idea:
A friend and I are studying the idea of starting a consumer WISP in the Fort Lauderdale area. It is an area reasonably well serviced by Cable and DSL high speed services running about $50 a month (40 if you have other services with them). We believe there is an area at $25-27 per month where users that are on modem accounts but can't justify the monthly cost of broadband would be willing to use a medium speed access (192k)that is always on and doesn't occupy their phone line. This is not backed up by any heavy reseach. Mostly asking a lot of people that we meet what kind of access they have and presenting a set of options and seeing what they choose.
Basic POP setup:
Our thinking is to pursue building this organically (think low-budget!) and setup shop out of our homes. We would put up our first WiPoP at my friend's ham radio tower with 3 radios and 120 deg superpass antennas at about 65' to service our neighborhood. Backbone it with an SDSL connection at up to 1.5mbs. Use freeradius, freeside billing, and otsg help desk software. All open source, free applications to manage the customers. We pretty much decided on Star-OS as a WiPOP server/router. This first WiPOP will be located were the backbone circuit is. Which is why I will run the server edition and do caching as well. If we get far enough to add another POP then we would put in a dedicated radio/antenna for backhaul.
In a PC running Star-OS server its easy to install 3-4 radio cards. Its not so easy to do it at remote WiPOPs with backhauls (3-120deg AP and 1-backhaul client.) I am looking for a hardware setup that makes sense and works as expected. I get the impression that the Sokeris boards (i486) would choke under this kind of load given the specs the Star-OS guys usually quote for it. Any ideas? The mini-itx format with the Via C3 ship looks good but all of the boards come with tons of stuff like video/usb/sound that are not needed. I have yet to see one with PCcard slots.
CPE:
I am also looking for information on CPE configurations which I am trying to keep the price down on. Current thinking is that users will not pay more than $99.00 for the hardware (radio/antenna/cable/connectors) at sign-up which is also what they are generally used to paying to get a basic DSS satellite cable receiver and antenna. I see a few options;
1. Cheap and simple: PCI-based card like Linksys WMP-11 a 30' spool of LMR400 with connectors and a Superpass directional panel antenna. This would probably be the cheapest over all solution for a single Windows and possibly Linux desktop PC. (Overall cost: $120)
2. Expensive but even simpler: Integrated CPE that has the WLAN client built into the antenna and only have to run ethernet with PoE to it. The advantage is in deployment simplicity and flexibility as the user could plug the ethernet coming from it into their PC or their own NAT router. Remote management is generally part of these type of devices. (Overall cost: $400)
3. Expensive and possibly complex: A Star-OS CPE (sokeris/mini-itx) with external antenna. While this would provide the most control of the CPE operation it also is the most expensive in total parts and physical managment. (Overall cost: $500)
Any other options?
Auth and Security:
It seems like Radius helps with basic authentication but I am not sure how the client 'logs' in to be authorized without the user of virtual dial-up networking or PPPoE. I also don't see the mechanism to re-auth periodically to keep a spoofer from snarfing a customer's connection for any extended period of time. WEP will probably be used just as a rudimentary encryption but its obviously full of flaws and some customers may pay a little extra for better security. What could be used to provide that?
Bandwidth-management:
I still am not sure what the best config for bandwidth management (BWM) is. Looking at Star-OS it seems that BWM performed server-side with a set of rules applied to specific addresses or streams. I don't see an option to manage the bandwidth usage at the client without the use of a Star-OS CPE running. I figure that throttling bandwidth usage at the client would reduce radio time and result in better throughput versus just being wide open from the client and throttling only at the router/server to reduce backbone usage.
Logisense has a full WISP management produc that includes bandwidth management nicely integrated with accounting/billing and user mgmt. Very expensive though.
NAT (Network Address Translation)
The cost of a T-1 with resellable class-C address pools is going to be too rich. My current thinking is to provide this service on a private addressing scheme based on NAT using an SDSL circuit at 1.5mbs for $400 a month. (Any leads on affordable re-sellable ISP grade circuits would be greatly appreciated!) The advantage of NAT besides saving money is it restricts a lot of the oddball services that suck up piles of bandwidth like P2P and provides some very basic protection from attacks originating outside of the WLAN network from the Internet. It obviously does nothing to keep one sub from checking out another sub on the same network. Disadvantage - it restricts the services a user can use like VoIP or some streaming media services as NAT does not handle most UDP communications well. It also eliminates the ability of a sub run a useful server (web/mail/remote access) for their own benefit. It would not be practical to allow each sub to map ports to addresses either. I would brand the service as the essential Internet, web/email/ftp download/IM only.
Tell me if I am crazy. I am not sure the real-world economics of maintaining a WISP work out in this pricing model (without further research.)
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I look forward to a productive dialog.
Sincerely,
-felipe
PS: Its 1AM my time. If any of this is incoherent its just me being tired. Let me know so I can clarify it.
I have been trying to find good information on WISP configurations. I have found lots of info on the net (esp on the Star-OS forums) but its all hard to evaluate. I am hoping to validate or shoot down my current view of all of the components needed to make a WISP configuration work.
The idea:
A friend and I are studying the idea of starting a consumer WISP in the Fort Lauderdale area. It is an area reasonably well serviced by Cable and DSL high speed services running about $50 a month (40 if you have other services with them). We believe there is an area at $25-27 per month where users that are on modem accounts but can't justify the monthly cost of broadband would be willing to use a medium speed access (192k)that is always on and doesn't occupy their phone line. This is not backed up by any heavy reseach. Mostly asking a lot of people that we meet what kind of access they have and presenting a set of options and seeing what they choose.
Basic POP setup:
Our thinking is to pursue building this organically (think low-budget!) and setup shop out of our homes. We would put up our first WiPoP at my friend's ham radio tower with 3 radios and 120 deg superpass antennas at about 65' to service our neighborhood. Backbone it with an SDSL connection at up to 1.5mbs. Use freeradius, freeside billing, and otsg help desk software. All open source, free applications to manage the customers. We pretty much decided on Star-OS as a WiPOP server/router. This first WiPOP will be located were the backbone circuit is. Which is why I will run the server edition and do caching as well. If we get far enough to add another POP then we would put in a dedicated radio/antenna for backhaul.
In a PC running Star-OS server its easy to install 3-4 radio cards. Its not so easy to do it at remote WiPOPs with backhauls (3-120deg AP and 1-backhaul client.) I am looking for a hardware setup that makes sense and works as expected. I get the impression that the Sokeris boards (i486) would choke under this kind of load given the specs the Star-OS guys usually quote for it. Any ideas? The mini-itx format with the Via C3 ship looks good but all of the boards come with tons of stuff like video/usb/sound that are not needed. I have yet to see one with PCcard slots.
CPE:
I am also looking for information on CPE configurations which I am trying to keep the price down on. Current thinking is that users will not pay more than $99.00 for the hardware (radio/antenna/cable/connectors) at sign-up which is also what they are generally used to paying to get a basic DSS satellite cable receiver and antenna. I see a few options;
1. Cheap and simple: PCI-based card like Linksys WMP-11 a 30' spool of LMR400 with connectors and a Superpass directional panel antenna. This would probably be the cheapest over all solution for a single Windows and possibly Linux desktop PC. (Overall cost: $120)
2. Expensive but even simpler: Integrated CPE that has the WLAN client built into the antenna and only have to run ethernet with PoE to it. The advantage is in deployment simplicity and flexibility as the user could plug the ethernet coming from it into their PC or their own NAT router. Remote management is generally part of these type of devices. (Overall cost: $400)
3. Expensive and possibly complex: A Star-OS CPE (sokeris/mini-itx) with external antenna. While this would provide the most control of the CPE operation it also is the most expensive in total parts and physical managment. (Overall cost: $500)
Any other options?
Auth and Security:
It seems like Radius helps with basic authentication but I am not sure how the client 'logs' in to be authorized without the user of virtual dial-up networking or PPPoE. I also don't see the mechanism to re-auth periodically to keep a spoofer from snarfing a customer's connection for any extended period of time. WEP will probably be used just as a rudimentary encryption but its obviously full of flaws and some customers may pay a little extra for better security. What could be used to provide that?
Bandwidth-management:
I still am not sure what the best config for bandwidth management (BWM) is. Looking at Star-OS it seems that BWM performed server-side with a set of rules applied to specific addresses or streams. I don't see an option to manage the bandwidth usage at the client without the use of a Star-OS CPE running. I figure that throttling bandwidth usage at the client would reduce radio time and result in better throughput versus just being wide open from the client and throttling only at the router/server to reduce backbone usage.
Logisense has a full WISP management produc that includes bandwidth management nicely integrated with accounting/billing and user mgmt. Very expensive though.
NAT (Network Address Translation)
The cost of a T-1 with resellable class-C address pools is going to be too rich. My current thinking is to provide this service on a private addressing scheme based on NAT using an SDSL circuit at 1.5mbs for $400 a month. (Any leads on affordable re-sellable ISP grade circuits would be greatly appreciated!) The advantage of NAT besides saving money is it restricts a lot of the oddball services that suck up piles of bandwidth like P2P and provides some very basic protection from attacks originating outside of the WLAN network from the Internet. It obviously does nothing to keep one sub from checking out another sub on the same network. Disadvantage - it restricts the services a user can use like VoIP or some streaming media services as NAT does not handle most UDP communications well. It also eliminates the ability of a sub run a useful server (web/mail/remote access) for their own benefit. It would not be practical to allow each sub to map ports to addresses either. I would brand the service as the essential Internet, web/email/ftp download/IM only.
Tell me if I am crazy. I am not sure the real-world economics of maintaining a WISP work out in this pricing model (without further research.)
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I look forward to a productive dialog.
Sincerely,
-felipe
PS: Its 1AM my time. If any of this is incoherent its just me being tired. Let me know so I can clarify it.