WISP’ing in McCall Jim Pace, owner Strategic Information Services LLC

Where? McCall, Idaho – a resort and government town 100 miles or so north of Boise The traditional summer and winter resort for Idahoans – the movie stars go to Sun Valley Economy formerly diversified, but now dependant on 2 nd home owners. The mill closed down. The tracks are gone. Same old story Many high tech refugees An incredibly beautiful place to live

Yea, I live here

Yea, I live here continued Stuff we do

Where, did you say? Next to the largest chunk of roadless country in the lower 48 County population density is around 3 per square mile.

What we’ve built A wireless point to multi-point network using products from Redline, Motorola (Canopy), and Wi-Lan. We’re branching into Wi-FI hot spots using Motorola Canopy customer premises radios to link out to the ‘net. How are you doing that? We’re reaching an existing customer base, that of my JV partner, CTC Telecom. I didn’t have to start an ISP from scratch.

The map The NOC is in the valley to the West. The customers are in the valley to the East where the lakes are.

Does it work? Yes. Bottom line is around 2Mb throughput to each customer. Fiber DS3 backhaul at the NOC 36Mbs Redline AN-50 hops of 30 miles each. 20 and 10Mbs Moto Canopy Backhauls to Moto and Cascade Networks Canopy Access points. Range limited by transmit power to 15 miles from AP to subscribers. No problem (so far) with weather.

Customers? Potential is around 3000 – half that without trees in the way Boise is a very high-tech town…Micron, HP, lots of others. They all have a place (or want to) in Long Valley. Every day we can keep them up in our mountains is a day they spend money, pay taxes, support our schools…. We have more than our share of creative people, finding great ways to make a living using the web. Both commercial and residential users

Shots from the field June 17 on Brundage mountain

Snowbank Mountain May 18

Same day on the drive there. I hope stuff doesn’t break in January!

Typical install. Notice the sloppy work by satellite TV guys below our Canopy antenna! All our installs require a reflector.

The view from that same dish. The AP for this site is on top of Brundage mountain ski area, in the distance.

Redline backhauls (the little square dishes) on Snowbank Mountain. These work great! We get some freznel zone interference from those big dishes though.

Another typical install. Notice the mountain top AP location in the far distance, about 12 miles. A shot through the trees like this works rather well.

That same location (my house) before Christmas. We have some weather issues…

What have we learned? Don’t start from scratch. Partner up with an existing ISP. Expect to spend twice as much as your most pessimistic estimate. Unlicensed frequency allocations do drive innovation and quick adoption of new technologies. But I sure want my sheriff's radios to be on a licensed freq.

What’s the next big thing? Roaming protocols that would make surfing with your laptop as easy as using my cell phone in DC. Just a little more power (like the 5.7Ghz allocation) in a freq range that busts through trees would be great.

Money? I used my own, but saved by doing a lot of work myself. I saved even more by using the talents of good licensed radio engineers up front in designing the system. Do your research first. Get on some lists and find out what works. No fancy trucks.

Hiring and management guidelines Find high school and college computer geeks with a liking for climbing towers. Pay better than everybody else in town. People show up for work! Part time subcontracting is the way to go for installs in rural areas. A good liability policy helps you sleep at night.

Finally, low life kayak scum make the best installers. They want to get the job done to get back on the river ASAP!