Unger said his company, Wireless Infonet (www.ask-wi.com), began in Dec. 1993 and has one full time and 10 part time employees. They began by connecting LANs, but in Sept. 1995 they got started with wireless Internet connections as a result of being besieged at the Foothill computer mart. Service began in Jan. 1996 and now is offered from southern Palo Alto to Gilroy. The data rate (bandwidth) start at 128 kbps and go to 1 mbps. Serving small businesses is the best market now because it's economical for both sides. The wireless links connecting LANs in separate buildings can often be installed more quickly and economically than phone lines and are appreciated by the customers. Wireless Infonet is using ISM bands (900 MHz and 2.4 GHz) so no licensing is needed. A problem is that others also can use these bands, so interference is possible. The company uses spread spectrum, careful siting of antenna and their radio engineering experience to avoid most of the interference. The basic system consists of a Wireless Access Point (WAP) and many subscriber sites located within 2 to 3-mile radius. The antenna at WAP is located at higher elevation to insure clear line-of-sight from the WAP antenna to the subscriber antennas. The WAP is connected to an ISP by wireline or wireless link. Since buildings, large trees and power lines obstruct line-of-sight transmission path, proper siting of antenna is very important. The system can serve hundreds of subscribers, but may not serve thousands of users. They can scale to serve schools and libraries, but probably can't scale up to serve every home. The wireless Internet access system works well and is reliable. It uses spread spectrum and is not plug and play.
This wireless Internet access is not a universally acceptable solution, but it is an excellent solution for some users. There are many political and business pressures to limit the number of frequency bands available for these types of services, and to make it less widely usable. The phone companies have no interest in allowing this kind of competition. Metricom has a different kind of wireless service, aimed at people with portable computers. They have more points of access, but with shared bandwidth (902-928 MHz). If many people try using it simultaneously the connection speed drops. Every relay point or hop reduces the available connection speed. If line-of-sight to the user is restricted there must be more relay points (hops) but this results in lower speed. Leasing of rooftop space for wireless applications is a big business. Telephone poles and streetlights aren't tall enough to give a long line of sight and be economical for high speed access for Wireless Infonet. Metricom, however, use them successfully because they use many repeaters, each covering a small area at modest speeds; 14.4 - 28.8 kbps.
Jay said local wireless network might be useful for small neighborhoods which have a limited area and won't need many repeaters. Midtown (Palo Alto) is rather large for such an experiment, but part of Midtown or some smaller neighborhoods might work well. What would a 20 square block area cost to get a system installed?
Mary Jo asked what the future capacity might be and how it compared with fiber. It can be expanded with software, but if too many people try to use it simultaneously the system will slow down.
Any connection has both a cost to connect to the ISP and a monthly cost. A complete business system (router, antenna, installation and 1 year warrantee) costs $4000, which is far more than a homeowner needs. The fixed cost for a homeowner isn't determined yet. There are no firm figures yet. They should be known by the end of July. Wireless Infonet plans to serve the entire Bay area eventually . They worked at solving the technical problems and providing service rather than serving many users. Hardware cost for a central service point would be modest for the central router, the antenna system, plus time to design and install the system and design the frequency allocation. If a neighborhood were to participate, Wireless Infonet would be willing to work with them and probably offer some kid of discount. It would be the first such neighborhood to be linked in this way, and could serve as an example worldwide.
The fiber ring (backbone) owned by the City of Palo Alto has several breakout points to provide connection to the service providers and end users. It would be interesting to compare the cost of installing coax or fiber from the city fiber ring to homes vs. wireless access from home to the fiber ring. Right now there are no sound figures.
Paul asked what the monthly cost of the high speed wireless service is. That's significant, and is an important factor. No firm figures were provided, except that home service using a shared access point would be much less expensive than business service.
If Palo Alto wanted to serve as an experimental site the cost could be lower to encourage trying out the approach. Hardware is purchased by the user, but there is a flat monthly fee to the ISP. Businesses pay $400/month to the ISP. That includes maintaining the system. Wireless Infonet does not make the hardware, but they put it together to implement a high speed wireless access and assure reliability.
Tom asked what is the reliability and security of the system. It's very secure since spread spectrum technology was designed for use by the military. Although it went over the air it was designed to be undetectable. Power is 4 watts maximum. It is very difficult for unauthorized people to hear conversations by tapping into the signals.
The telcos are in the wireless business now and eventually will want to buy out any existing competitors. Margaret said she'll never sell out, even to Bill Gates.
Jack Unger concluded his remarks and was thanked by the group.
Keith reported that Internic approved PA-COMNET.org for our home page. The service was set up Monday at Coolware and can be accessed directly. It is available at www.pa-comnet.org. Booky is setting up the home page and information now. He has the last 2 months minutes on the home page now, but there isn't much else there yet. He is working to get the rest of it populated. The City home page should be linked to the new site directly. Mary Jo and Booky both will look into getting that done soon. The FTP access to send data to and from the site is very fast. The City site does not have the May and June minutes yet, but our site does. The information now on the City site will be transferred to the PA-COMNET site over the next few weeks, in addition to having the City linked directly to pa-comnet.org.
The Sept. 25 meeting at City Hall was discussed. The topic will be telecommunications for the community and linking the last mile, with 2 or 3 presentations for a lay audience to bring people up to speed on the topic, emphasizing the benefits of interconnections and just noting different ways to accomplish it. Council candidates then will be asked to comment on the issues and approaches. There was discussion on what the emphasis should be - advantages of Internet connections, or methods to get everyone connected. Margaret felt that we should talk about benefits and not get bogged down in technical details or we will lose the audience. The presentation has to be framed so that in addition to the vision of what can be achieved it also has to discuss how will it be accomplished, financed, operated, etc. Speakers should be non-technical and compelling. All announced City Council candidates will be invited to participate. Jay will be the moderator. The audience will be able to fill out questionnaires and query candidates on telecommunications, the last mile, or anything else. Marvin Lee is asking for co-sponsors, but we need to make it clear as to what co-sponsorship means and requires. Jay, Margaret, Paul and Marvin will serve on a subcommittee to line up speakers. Others are welcome to participate also. We need ads, publicity, and coordination to inform people and also to get a large turnout for the discussion. It was agreed that noting benefits is important, but there was disagreement as to the extent to which specific options should be discussed. The program should serve to educate candidates about the last mile. It also should give the public ideas about how informed the candidates about advanced telecommunications, and how they might approach the issue of universal low cost access to the Internet. The staff comments also should be reviewed and used as a starting point for connecting the last mile.
David asked that we also discuss costs of various options so that people can compare costs and performance. Imsong and Bob noted that getting reliable cost estimates will be difficult. A lot of the technical issues will have to be resolved in order to get real cost comparisons. That is beyond what PA-COMNET is able to support.
Jay noted that the core purpose of this organization is to assure connection of the last mile to every home and business in the area. It is vital that we make it known to the future council members that this is important and find out how they react to the issue of Internet connections for all. We need to express a vision of the future, and then say how we get from here to there. It is insufficient to tell everyone how wonderful it will be in the future, and still ignore the means for getting to that future. This is a real opportunity to inform future council members and more importantly, get responses to specific proposals for connecting the last mile. If we fail in this we will not be doing what the group has been working towards for so long.
Bob noted that it is easy for candidates to support abstract concepts and the benefits of being interconnected, but it is vital to get real statements of support and willingness to make commitments. It is easy to get general expressions of support, but far harder to get real money appropriated.
The next meeting will be in the evening in response to those who complained about morning meetings. It will feature a discussion on the Internet Driveway. The date is Wed. Aug. 6, from 5:30PM to 7 PM at the Terman library.
The meeting adjourned at 8:50 AM.
Submitted by Bob Moss