Irish Times balls or ENN balls?

dahamsta

http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9370397.html

The Irish Times also reports that Ireland is the first state in Europe to introduce a wireless high-speed Internet access technology that could bring low-cost broadband access to rural and urban areas left out of the DSL loop. Called Canopy, the technology is being offered only to Cork city residents through access company Amocom, where it is competitive in cost with DSL.

First state in Europe? Competitive with DSL? Hello? Did anyone actually see this piece in the IT?

adam

tomk

What they should have said was "a particular wireless high-speed Internet access technology", to be precise, something called Canopy from Motorola. This operates unlicensed at 5.7Ghz, according to the article, and can do 10Mb duplex. I'm looking at the article now, which is about a third of the Technology page in the Business section.

tomk

Ok, I've read it now - here are the main points:

Uses unlicensed spectrum - 5.7 GHz at the moment, moving into other bands as they become available.
Up to 10Mb downlaod and upload.
Included in Govt-funded wireless trials.
Central base station with backhaul, repeaters with LOS to central. Range of each unit about 4 miles.
Developed from proprietary Motorola technology i.e. not based on any existing stadards like 802.11 etc.
Interference minimised by "adding plenty of padding around the connection channel....insulating the connection..." (?)
Optimised for high-speed web browsing.
Amocom reckon the market is SME/SOHO - "anyone with an ISDN bill of over €100 a month".
Current Amocom install/service fees quoted i.e. €265 install, €60/month.
Received grant from Dept of Communicatiosn for one year trial. Increased initial two base stations to three based on demand.

Note - all above is taken from the article, which is written by Karlin Lillington.

dahamsta

The ENN piece would appear to be grossly oversimplifying the IT piece anyway.

I brought this to John O'Hare's attention, who says: "In order to get the background to this synopsis, one would need to read the IT article. In the IT article it leads in by saying that Ireland was the first country in the EU to open up the 5.7GHz band. Amocom has the first commercial deployment of Canopy in Ireland (and by default the EU)."

On the "competitive" matter, John mentions value, QoS, feedback, etc, all of which are valid attributes, however the ENN synopsis quite distinctly says "competitive in cost with DSL", which it most certainly is not. That being said, I have the service and I'm quite happy with it apart from a weather issues caused by trees in my line of sight, which isn't John's fault. If it wasn't for this, it's quite possible I'd keep it even if my exchange was upgraded.

I'm hopping out to buy the IT, I hate this kind of cheap and nasty journalism.

adam

spongebob

The IT and ENN have simply done a puff piece for Motorola. The Canopy kit is shockingly expensive (per subscriber) and will only ever see limited deloyment in Ireland.

Motorola still employs at least 20 people in Cork ....last I heard.

5.7Ghz in NOT licenced for Broadband. the equipment is a danger to Air to Ground radars and should be shut down immediately if deployed. If it were a teenager with a radio station in Dublin it woulda been shut down immediately.

NOT licenced is different to UN licenced.

dahamsta

The IT and ENN have simply done a puff piece for Motorola.

Looks like it alright. ENN is hardly surprising, but I think I might drop Karlin a line about this. I forgot to buy the IT btw, anyone wanna post the whole article?

The Canopy kit is shockingly expensive (per subscriber) and will only ever see limited deloyment in Ireland.

Tell me about it. CorkWAN spotted John sticking a 2.4GHz network up a month or so ago though, so perhaps he's seen the light.

Motorola still employs at least 20 people in Cork ....last I heard.

More I think. Just down the road from me Muck.

5.7Ghz in NOT licenced for Broadband. the equipment is a danger to Air to Ground radars and should be shut down immediately if deployed. If it were a teenager with a radio station in Dublin it woulda been shut down immediately.

Interesting. I pointed John to this thread earlier and I'm sure he's monitoring it so I'll leave it in his hands.

adam

Capt'n Midnight

ISM (5725 – 5875 MHz)

Channel 149 5.745Ghz
Channel 153 5.765Ghz
Channel 157 5.785Ghz
Channel 161 5.805Ghz
Channel 165 5.825Ghz

But you MUST register the base station with ComReg and you can ONLY use directional antennas.

ie. 5.7/5.8GHz is not a free all like 2.4GHz is

NB: There isnt a perfect overlap between the U-NII band and the 5.8Ghz licenced by Comreg so you would have to be careful to disable some channels in case you caused interference. !!

More info and further links on
http://www.irishwan.org/board/showthread.php?p=6023#post6023