Whatever happened to wireless internet?

[BirdDad]

And I don't mean the same as on your phone. I mean the ISP had a transceiver and you had one with an antenna on your roof and you would get like 80Mbps. What happened to that?

 

[sdifox]

Still available in rural area.

 

[Ertaz]

Still available in rural area.

This. I worked for a WISP about 4 years ago. Pretty neat technology. We didn't have any 80Meg stuff though.

 

[Fardringle]

Most aren't anywhere remotely close to 80mbps (usually 10 or less) and the signal is very unreliable, but they're useful when the only other option is satellite (small/rural towns, for example).

 

[kevnich2]

Unreliable? Not if they use the right equipment. I have a business running on a 30mbps connection with a 20ms response time to google.com. They have multiple 10gb upstream providers for their connection. Equipment is ubiquiti. Depending on equipment, we have options up to a full 1gbps if they really wanted it.

 

[Ertaz]

Unreliable? Not if they use the right equipment. I have a business running on a 30mbps connection with a 20ms response time to google.com. They have multiple 10gb upstream providers for their connection. Equipment is ubiquiti. Depending on equipment, we have options up to a full 1gbps if they really wanted it.

What spectrum are you running in? Do you have Line of sight to your tower?

 

[kevnich2]

It's running on 5ghz - yeah there's LOS to the tower. Signal is awesome, they said it can't really get any better and the CPE antenna is about 3 miles away from their tower. Stays up in all kinds of weather. Truly awesome stuff. Alot better than the equipment and technology we had around 12 years ago when I last worked for a WISP.

 

[Ertaz]

It's running on 5ghz - yeah there's LOS to the tower. Signal is awesome, they said it can't really get any better and the CPE antenna is about 3 miles away from their tower. Stays up in all kinds of weather. Truly awesome stuff. Alot better than the equipment and technology we had around 12 years ago when I last worked for a WISP.

I helped my former employer out the other day with a routing issue. They are using the Motorola WiMAX gear and the max package they sell is 6Mb.

 

[Pulsar]

I have line of site to my tower and dumped wireless because it was $60 and we rarely got over .5 mbps. Usually .25 mbps.

I used to have long-long range wireless. Was called Sprint Broadband Direct - they had a tower like 20 miles away. That was $40 / month and 1 mbps.

Now I use a sprint unlimited plan to give my house 4gLTE at 4-8 Mbps for $39 / month.

 

[Ertaz]

I have line of site to my tower and dumped wireless because it was $60 and we rarely got over .5 mbps. Usually .25 mbps.

I used to have long-long range wireless. Was called Sprint Broadband Direct - they had a tower like 20 miles away. That was $40 / month and 1 mbps.

Now I use a sprint unlimited plan to give my house 4gLTE at 4-8 Mbps for $39 / month.

I have no viable wireless options here. I could have VZW 4g at 20Mb but it is cost prohibitive because of their terrible pricing. I have 2.5mb dsl that sucks. I am supposed to get 50Mbps FTTH next summer.

 

[Fardringle]

Unreliable? Not if they use the right equipment. I have a business running on a 30mbps connection with a 20ms response time to google.com. They have multiple 10gb upstream providers for their connection. Equipment is ubiquiti. Depending on equipment, we have options up to a full 1gbps if they really wanted it.

As with most things, it depends on your location. Here in Utah, even right in the middle of Salt Lake City, the very best rated wireless internet company has about a 70% uptime rating, which is REALLY bad for an ISP.

 

[John Connor]

We have a company here in Northern Colorado that has this service. I hear on DSL reports that's a crap chute though. If given the choice between that and Sat I'd chose wireless.

Funny thing though. Living in California we had wireless cable and it was phenomenal.