March Marlon K. Schafer, CTO KMS Wireless (509) Selling Wireless Solutins Marlon K. Schafer CTO KMS Wireless Global Solutions (509) (509) cell

March Marlon K. Schafer, CTO KMS Wireless (509) What’s it all mean??? First we need to cover some terminology.  Wireless: Ground based data communications. NOT satellite or cell phone based.  NLOS: Marketing hyperbole. In layman’s terms SOME environments (mainly downtown metro corridors) have RF properties that will allow us to use reflected signals.  SLA: Service Level Agreement. We don’t do those when using unlicensed gear. It means we promise to give you X, Y and Z. If a customer needs an SLA, sell them a T-1. 1

March Marlon K. Schafer, CTO KMS Wireless (509) What’s it all mean??? continued First we need to cover some terminology.  CPE: Customer Premises Equipment. It’s what you sell/rent to the customer.  AP or Base Station: The radio gear at the ISP side of things.  PTP: Point to Point link. That’s what gets the data from your office to the broadcast site or from Point A to Point B for the customer.  FHSS/DSSS/OFDM: Technogeek talk. If you get those questions play it smart and put the customer on the phone with the technicians. 1

March Marlon K. Schafer, CTO KMS Wireless (509) What’s it all mean??? continued First we need to cover some terminology.  WEP: Wired Equivalent Privacy, or Wireless Encryption Protocol might be an easier way to think of it.  TDD: Time Division Duplex, it means that the radio transmits on the same frequency as it receives on. It does two way communication by using frequency more efficiently.  FDD: Frequency Division Duplex, it means that the radios transmit on one frequency and receive on another at the same time. Allows full duplex operation at the expense of colocatability. 1

March Marlon K. Schafer, CTO KMS Wireless (509) What’s it all mean??? continued First we need to cover some terminology.  ESSID: Extended Service Set Identification. Think of this like Network Name in Windows networking. It is NOT a password.  Bandwidth: The size of the data pipe. IE. How fast Ebay will come up on the screen.  CIR: Committed Information Rate. Means that the customer will NEVER see less bandwidth than they signed up for.  MIR: Maximum Information Rate. Means that the customer will never get more than you tell them they’ll get. It’s sometimes used with CIR to create burstable capabilities. 1

March Marlon K. Schafer, CTO KMS Wireless (509) What’s it all mean??? continued First we need to cover some terminology.  MIR: Maximum Information Rate. Means that the customer will never get more than you tell them they’ll get. It’s sometimes used with CIR to create burstable capabilities.  Burstable: Means that the customer will never get less than X but can go as high as Y. (I have a Frame Relay t-1 that has a cir of 768k but will burst to 1544k.)  LOS: Line Of Site. This means that each antenna can see each other AND has a clear fresnel zone. (Let the technogeeks worry about fresnel zone, you just make sure that your antenna can be seen from the customer’s roof.

Marlon K. Schafer, CTO KMS Wireless (509) What the heck are we selling? Wireless Internet Access OR Telco by-pass circuits as well as Telco backup circuits. We move the customer’s information from point A to point B via some form of wireless (or dare I say it, wired) means. We may only be able to sell the customer 1.5 Mb/s of internet access but we can still sell him up to 430 Mb/s of inter-building capabilities. At lower speeds we can link offices together at distances of 20 miles and greater. We are not often selling (although we can with the right equipment) mission critical access. Do not use unlicensed gear where people’s lives are at stake. Certainly not as the only means of communication if there are alternatives use them also in such cases.

Marlon K. Schafer, CTO KMS Wireless (509) How Do I Sell It? We are ISP’s. Our main goal is to sell internet access. To do that we need services that are in line with what people in our areas buy. I don’t try to sell 45 Mb/s service out here, no one will buy it. I also don’t sell 128 Kb/s service for the same reason. Find out what your customer has now and see if you can offer them more for the same money. Or see if you can sell them the same thing for less money. Or see if they really even need what they are buying. Most businesses with t-1 service don’t really need a t-1 with it’s Mb/s CIR. What they need is wireless service with it’s Mb/s MIR and much lower cost. Stay tuned in to what people are telling you. If the customer tells you that they can’t afford your service but would sure like to have better access than dial up is providing, try to come up with a program for them.

Marlon K. Schafer, CTO KMS Wireless (509) What Are They Likely To Have Now???  Your customers are likely to fall into different levels. u Those that have dedicated Telco circuits. u Those that have DSL/Cable service. u Those that have dial-in acces. u Those with no service. You’ll sell differently do each group and every town will be different on top of that. Again, the best thing you can do is listen to your customer and try to provide answers for the questions that they ask and sometimes for the one’s that they didn’t even know they needed to ask.

Marlon K. Schafer, CTO KMS Wireless (509) Common Questions/Objections I mostly get two main questions:  Is it reliable? (Customer: “When it rains hard or snows my Satellite TV goes on the fritz.”)  Is it secure? (They all know WEP has been compromised.) Both of those are really customer education issues. Wireless is NOT satellite service. It’s also not cell phone technology (although it can be mobile). Our systems operate at lower frequencies and they are less affected by weather than sat. signals. Our paths are also much shorter so we are not going through nearly as much atmosphere. And, there is NO security on the public network. If they have data that needs to be secured that MUST be done at the PC or at least at the edge of the local LAN.