NLOS 900Mhz vs 802.16x

Hello,
I live in the lovely area of Oregon with tons of trees. Great for
shade, great for looks, not so great for outdoor wireless (ISP).
802.11(a)(b)(g) are out of the picture due to their wavelength, so that
leaves 900Mhz which is really expensive compared to 2.4/5.8Ghz (I
seriously wonder why?).
I've read that 802.16 is supposed to bring wireless to areas that have
trees for a decent price, however, the products page under
http://www.80216news.com does not list any prices, etc on 802.16 gear.

Should I wait a little longer to see what the future holds with 802.16
or should I invest in 900Mhz?

--Scott

On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 16:17:32 -0700, /dev/scott0
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I live in the lovely area of Oregon with tons of trees. Great for
>shade, great for looks, not so great for outdoor wireless (ISP).
>802.11(a)(b)(g) are out of the picture due to their wavelength, so that
>leaves 900Mhz which is really expensive compared to 2.4/5.8Ghz (I
>seriously wonder why?).

Lots of reasons. First, speed. The 900MHz band is only 13Mhz wide,
while 2.4Ghz is 83.5Mhz wide. 900MHz is limited to about 1.5Mbits/sec
thruput. Some 2.4Ghz vendors are claiming 108Mbits/sec. However,
20Mbits/sec is easily achievable.

At the time, everyone was afraid that all the 900MHz goodies and
gadgets would pollute the 900MHz band into uselessness. So, they
opted to design for the relatively "clean" 2.4GHz band. Meanwhile,
all the cheap chips made it easy for the goodies and gadget
manufacturers to move their junk to 2.4GHz. 900MHz is now relatively
empty.

I've had quite a bit of experience with Metricom radios going through
the local redwood, fir, and pine trees. 900MHz goes right though.
2.4Ghz is stopped like a brick wall. 5.6GHz will squeeze through the
gaps and holes, but will result in the multipath signal from hell.

> I've read that 802.16 is supposed to bring wireless to areas that have
>trees for a decent price, however, the products page under
>http://www.80216news.com does not list any prices, etc on 802.16 gear.

The grand conspiracy is for 802.16 to replace 802.11b/g equipment.
That makes sense because 802.16 is not particularly 802.11 friendly
and will seriously interfere with 802.11. However, there are no
products that you can currently purchase that are 802.16 approved, so
you may have to wait and find out. One thing for sure, new technology
is never cheap on initial product rollout.

> Should I wait a little longer to see what the future holds with 802.16
>or should I invest in 900Mhz?

Anything you buy will be obsolete in a few years, so I wouldn't
consider any of this stuff an investment. However, a clue might be
that Motorola just released a 3.3Mbit/sec 900MHz version of their
Canopy system. No clue if they're shipping yet.

You might wanna pickup a pair of old (non-USB) Metricom/Ricochet modem
on eBay. Typical price is $20.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=3492084912
Make an antenna adapter:
http://www.LearnByDestroying.com/pic...com/index.html
Try it through your forest. You'll only get 30kbits/sec from modem to
modem, but it should be a good test for propogation.


--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558