Roadstar Internet Hosts Armenian Public Service Regulatory Commission Members

The wireless ISP has been visited by international delegations since being recognized by former FCC Chairman Michael Powell.

by David Hughes and Marty Dougherty [June 6, 2007]

Leesburg, Va.—You've heard the old saying that something was "all Greek to me …," Well, Roadstar Internet CEO Marty Dougherty had a similar situation May 31 when a delegation from the Armenian Public Service Regulatory Commission visited his company for an overview of how the company provides service to more than 2,000 residential customers and businesses in Loudoun County.

No one from the group spoke English and translator Mila Bonnichseni didn't speak Armenian. However, most of the panel understood Russian and they translated between themselves from Armenian to Russian as Dougherty gave an hour-long presentation to the group. "It was kind of like old times for me," he said, "because when I was younger I worked on a project in Israel and I might speak for a few minutes in English and they would then explain what I just said in Hebrew and that would go on for several minutes," he said with a laugh.

PSRC members Gevrorg Gevorgyan, head of the agency's telecommunications department, Samvel Atoyan, the telecommunications department's senior specialist, Artur Safaryan, a senior specialist of tariff methodology and Sevak Babayan with the agency's monitoring department listened to Dougherty as he explained how the company depends on licensed and unlicensed frequencies to deliver wireless broadband to his home and business customers.

The Armenians were in the United States under a program sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development in Washington, D.C. and Harrisburg, Penn. to research possibilities of brining broadband services to their European nation. USEA Senior Program Coordinator Anthony Bitonti helped set up the meeting with Roadstar and accompanied the group.

PSRC members Gevrorg Gevorgyan, head of the agency's telecommunications department, Samvel Atoyan, the telecommunications department's senior specialist, Artur Safaryan, a senior specialist of tariff methodology and Sevak Babayan with the agency's monitoring department listened to Dougherty as he explained how the company depends on licensed and unlicensed frequencies to deliver wireless broadband to his home and business customers. They seemed surprised that radio spectrum was allowed to be used by private companies without a license.

Dougherty said this was a key factor in how many small wireless broadband companies can get started. He said that when Roadstar started in 2003 he exclusively used frequency bands that did not require Federal Communications Commission approval or licenses and he was able to grow as the need progressed. Today, the company uses higher frequencies that require FCC approval to bring "backbone" bandwidth from place-to-place Roadstar still relies on the unlicensed frequencies to distribute the signal into neighborhoods, he said.

The Roadstar CEO also said that a wireless broadband network needs to be developed from the initial stages to make expansion as easy as possible. He explained that as he put in neighborhood repeaters and the number of users per transmitter increased, it was simple to add another repeater point at a relatively less expensive cost to keep up service levels. Dougherty said it was akin to a recipe and if you followed the instructions and used the same materials, the quality is maintained.

The panel interrupted from time to time with questions about equipment size and cost, how many towers are needed, and what frequencies work best. Dougherty said that equipment size and cost keeps coming down and that as Roadstar beings newer technology online, the older equipment that was used for such things as backbone transmission in the past is moved further down the line to increase efficiencies of the entire network. He said that towers are not always needed and pointed to the fact that while Roadstar uses few of them. Many of the company's radios are mounted on high rooftops on an office building and on silos and barns—wherever it is feasible to serve customers.

The Roadstar CEO also explained that different frequencies perform better in different areas. One problem area is forested subdivisions. He also said that if the FCC releases some of the frequencies now utilized by broadcast television when that service goes completely digital in a couple of years, wireless broadband could be distributed more widely and at less cost to consumers.

Dougherty then passed around examples of the equipment in use by Roadstar, including antennas and radios. He emphasized that today's equipment usually has the radio electronics built into the antenna and it's just a matter of attaching category 5 or 6 Ethernet cabling to the antenna and then into a user's computer system.

He also touched on new technologies such as "GigE" which allows wireless broadband to offer speeds rivaling fiber optic cable. He said a new service he is now testing can offer 1,000 megabits of service to businesses if they need it.

Following that meeting the group then traveled to a tower site near Leesburg that was once a major AT&T microwave long distance relay point that formerly held huge horn-shaped antennae to move calls from one part of the nation to another. Dougherty said the towers have since been retasked for other uses and he pointed to the large antenna arrays now in use by cellular companies. He then pointed to very small antennas on the tower that distributed Roadstar's wireless broadband signal.

The Armenian delegation was then given a tour of the large concrete building that once housed the AT&T microwave equipment. Tucked away in small corner was a metal cabinet housing Roadstar's electronics. Dougherty and David Gerwig, the company's director of operations, explained how the radios worked.

The Armenian group also spent time with several telecom groups in Washington and also with the Pennsylvania Public Service Commission. Bitonti said the group learned a lot from their Roadstar stop and appreciated the company's time and effort.

Roadstar has also been visited by delegations from French telecom agencies in 2005, Greek telecom regulators in 2006 and will again play host to an international delegation from Algeria on June 14. The company also made headlines when then Chairman of the FCC, Michael Powell and a group visited the company in 2003. Powell praised Roadstar at that time and said that it could serve as an entrepreneurial blueprint for others who might be considering providing wireless broadband.

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