A Tenured Expert

If you're thinking about adding fixed wireless access as part of your ISPs offerings—get ready to roll up your sleeves, dirty your hands, and most of all—learn from your mistakes.

by Gerry Blackwell [February 23, 2001]

Most ISPs currently offering wireless access services using unlicensed radio spectrum had to figure out how to do it on their own. They researched it. They got their hands dirty up to the elbows. They made mistakes and learned from them.

We're not going to tell you there's an easier way—because there isn't one. But we'd like to introduce someone who might be able to make the path a little easier if you're just setting out to become a wireless ISP.

Knows jack about Wi-Fi
Jack Unger is president of Santa Cruz CA-based Wireless InfoNet Inc. He's that rare thing on the unlicensed wireless frontier—a seasoned pro, a certified expert.

His company, launched in 1993, specialized until recently in delivering turnkey access networks. Unger has built more than 200 networks using unlicensed spectrum—both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint—for companies, school districts, municipalities and service providers.

Now he's shifting his focus to consulting and education. "We decided," Unger says, "to take what we'd learned in all the installations we did, and use it to help other companies."

That might sound false coming from someone else's mouth, but you get the impression that Unger really means it. He's a helpful kind of guy, and a born teacher. Not that he isn't intent on building his own business, of course.

At the recent Broadband Wireless World Forum 2001 in San Francisco, Unger led a full-day tutorial on Deploying License-Free Wireless IP in the Real World. It's a seminar he hopes to deliver in other venues in the future.

We caught up with him on the eve of that conference and asked him to share some of the experience he's gained in working with radio technology for more than 40 years as an amateur and a professional.

In the first of this two-part interview, Unger talks about the initial thought process behind starting a fixed wireless Internet service.

First floor
To start, we asked about the perennial build-or-buy dilemma. Is it better to buy bandwidth from an existing wireless carrier or build your own network? Conventional wisdom says this ought to be the first question you ask.

The trouble is, Unger says, most ISPs don't really have an option. There just aren't wholesalers out there with excess wireless bandwidth to sell.

That may change, he adds. A few carriers say they are pursuing a wholesale business model and hope to target ISPs. But few have built out their networks to the extent that they provide a viable alternative to ISPs building their own.

"If we do see companies emerging to offer wireless bandwidth for resale," Unger says, "then most of the time it will be more efficient for an ISP to buy from them."

In the meantime, you're on your own. If you decide to go ahead, the first step—and probably the second and third too—is to learn everything you can about fixed wireless systems. It's something Unger stresses over and over.

"This is not plug-and-play technology," he warns. "It's going to take a real effort to become educated and then to start testing the technology and eventually build a reliable network."

And help is hard to find. Unger knows of no other companies offering turnkey wireless networks. Vendors will provide some consulting help, but can't do everything. Other ISPs typically want to hold what they've learned close to the vest for competitive reasons.

"In general," Unger says, "it's very difficult for a smaller ISP to find the level of support he's going to need. A company starting out really has to take the responsibility to educate itself, to learn from every source they can discover."

That would include seminars and conferences like his at the Broadband Wireless World forum. Unger's Web site also offers lots of information of use to beginners. And he recommends the ISP Planet Fixed Wireless Forum.

Plus, many vendors publish white papers and customer success stories at their sites. Examples include Wi-LAN, BreezeCOM, Lucent, and Waverider.

As for hiring the expertise you need, there may be "a handful" of people out there with exactly the right kind of experience, Unger says. They're very rare and for that reason expensive.

On the other hand, any kind of wireless experience can be useful. People familiar with building cellular or point-to-point microwave networks can bring invaluable expertise. Even finding local amateur radio hobbyists can give you a head start.

"Finding the perfect employee to head up your wireless department is going to be an incredibly difficult task," Unger says. "But finding several people, each of whom has had some hands-on experience, can help a great deal."

Floor exercise
One of the first decisions ISPs will have to make after educating themselves about the technology and developing a preliminary business plan is which spectrum to use. There are three unlicensed options: 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz.

Most ISPs end up at 2.4 GHz and most of Unger's experience is in that band as well. Finding equipment that works in 900 MHz unlicensed spectrum is so difficult it makes this band impractical. There is also a relative dearth of equipment available for the 5.8 GHz band, Unger says, although that is changing now.

One reason for considering 5.8 is overcrowding in 2.4. The 2.4 GHz band is also used for wireless LANs, cordless residential phones and even baby monitors, as well as for wide area access networks. But this is an advantage 5.8 (UNII) won't hold for long, Unger predicts.

"2.4 is far more crowded now and will remain so for the next few years until UNII gets crowded—which I believe it will," he says. "The problem is, there is tremendous demand for unlicensed spectrum, but very little available."

And that situation likely won't ease anytime soon, Unger says. Eventually the airwaves at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz will be saturated and nobody else will be able build networks without impacting those already up and running.

For that reason if no other, Unger says, it makes sense for ISPs to jump into the unlicensed wireless race sooner rather than later. If you leave it too late, the spectrum could be taken, the opportunity lost.

Next month we look at getting off the ground floor—buying test equipment and getting your hands dirty with wireless—and beyond.

—End