You should be worried about two types of monitoring.  UP/Down monitoring and utilization monitoring. Up/Down monitoring does checks to see if the devices are “alive”.  Most of the time this is a simple ping.  The better the package the more intelligent it is about detecting flapping, packet loss, and excessive round trip times.  This is important because there is a fine line between false alerts and not being alerted enough.  You want the monitoring software to be able to detect the difference between a device being down and it simply being slow to get to.  Both of these are important to know.  Two of the most popular packages we work with are Nagio & Whats Up Gold (WUG).There are many tutorials and help topics on the net.  Plus MTIM can install, configure, and maintain an installation for you.

Nagios (http://www.nagios.org/)

WhatsUP Gold (http://www.whatsupgold.com/)

The above packages support such features such as e-mail & text alerting, link flap detection, the ability to support alert groups, escalations, and the ability to tie devices together so you don’t receive 10 alerts because 1 tower went down.  All of these are important features because they allow you to scale, and generally make your life easier.

The other aspect of monitoring is utilization.  Utilization allows you to do trending and see which parts of your infrastructure are reaching capacity.  Commercial programs such was WhatsUP can also do utilization.  An Open source package such as Cacti (http://www.cacti.net) can create graphs of interface utilization.

In addition to standalone tools, some billing programs such as Azotel (http://www.wispsolutions.com/billing-software.html) are able to do monitoring.  This is helpful for CSR’s who are in the billing software on a daily basis.  =

There are many other tools out there, but the above mentioned tools are some of the most popular.  This means you can obtain support from a variety of sources.   In a future series we will discuss some of the best practices when setting up a monitoring solution.

Depending on the tower standoffs can be quite inexpensive.  If you are talking about Rohn25 you can have some pretty basic custom standoffs made by a local welder.

Most WISPs are started out a need.  That reason for many of them is because there are no other high-speed alternatives.  A WISP is able to deploy quicker into a market than the traditional wire based carriers.  In most cases the deployment is less expensive as well.

A downside of the typical WISP setup is the amount of capacity a single AP or cluster of APs can handle.  For data and VOIP most setups can keep up with cable and DSL in terms of speed.  With the introduction of Video things change.  I have seen demonstrations and technical briefs on many types of IP video.  The average HD IP video feed is in the neighborhood of 2 Megs a second per stream.  This means each tv in the house will be pulling 2 megs of data each time it is on.  Even with a Canopy access point that does 14 megs of aggregate throughput you are only able to put on 7 TV streams and you are maxed out.  There are always advances in compression and such going on, but this is where the technology stands today.

Many WISPs compete on service and things the “Big Boys” do not do.  By providing complimentary services such as computer repair, networking support, and personal attention.  Because the WISP started out to fill a need there is normally a personal connection to the area they started in.

Price is something WISPs have a hard time competing on.  With equipment in the $100-200 range the WISP has to re-coup that money before they can begin to be profitable with that customer.  Advances, such as devices from Ubiquity, are lowering this cost but it is still a hurdle.  Unlike telephone companies WISPs are not subsidized by the government.  Add on the fact the typical deployment is an outside deployment.  The equipment is prone to weather, electrical surges, and even squirrels chewing on the line.  This increases the cost of keeping the customer should equipment fail

Is the WISP a long term business model? It can be.  As more and more telephone companies build fiber to the home, extend DSL reach, and look at WIMAX in licensed frequencies the “low hanging fruit” WISPs see will become more and more scarce.  This is where diversity, niche markets, and solid business plans will benefit.  Things such as backup service that compliment existing wire line, bandwidth in bulk, and business grade services are a good thing to have in your arsenal.

Do some research in the area you are deploying into.  Drive around and look at some towers. See what types of equipment others have deployed.

If you have access to a spectrum analyzer spend some time doing scans from towers at various times of the day. There is a little bit of a learning curve using these but you can always hire a consultant to help. This is money well spent.

If you don’t have a spectrum analyzer take some of the equipment on your shortlist.  Pick a location or locations and install this equipment like you would if you were going to deploy it.  Use this as an evaluation over the course of several days to a week.  Keep a record of the noise floor and if the equipment supports it logs of the spectrum analysis.  This will give you real world insights into what the spectrum looks like. An omni is a good way to tell because it picks up 360 degrees of noise.  If the spectrum is fairly clear with an omni then sectors will be that much better. Make sure to change the channels to see how clean the overall spectrum is.

The main frequencies people deal with are the following:

900MHZ
2.4GHZ
3.65GHZ
5.8GHZ

Each one has it’s distinct advantages and disadvantages.  There are also tricks ones can do to mitigate interference. We will talk about those in our next installment.

You have several options for bringing a connection into your area to re-distribute to your customers. I will outline these and then go into further detail

-Leased Lines (Fractional T-1, T3, etc.)
-Fiber Optic
-Wireless backhaul
-Cable
-DSL

Leased Lines are the most easily accessible across the United States.  Most phone companies can provide t1 service to almost anywhere. This is because T1 service uses the existing copper already at 99% of locations. If you have a phone line you can almost always get t1 service.  Once you go beyond T1 things get a little more complicated.  However, T1 has the ability to do bonding if the carrier and telco support it.  You essentially buy multiple T1s and combine them into a single “pipe”.  This requires the provider to support bonding as well as some special configuration on your routers.

Some questions you should ask your provider/telco.

1.Where is my circuit homed out of? This means where does the circuit terminate on the facility end.  You do not want this to be too far. If it is too far your reliability will suffer because you have more distance and equipment to go through.  This raises the likelihood of an equipment failure, backhoe digging something up, & utility poles falling.  The longer the distance also means the “loop charge” will most likely increase.   We will get to that in a moment.

2.There are several types of T1s for our purposes.  Some terms to familiarize yourself with the terms PRI, channelized, transport, and port fee.

3.Ask your provider to spell out what type of t1 this is.  If you are buying the T1 from a backbone provider such as Qwest, Level3, and others they will typically bundle everything into one package. Ask them to break this down if they don’t.  You want to know what the Local loop charge is, what the port fee is, and what the bandwidth costs.  The local loop is typically what the telephone company charges to deliver the circuit from Point A (their equipment) to Point B (you).  If you are going with a 3^rd party, and not the local telephone company, the provider typicall becomes the central point of contact for the entire circuit.  This can add a level of complexity when issues arise.

The port fee is a charge normally passed on for connecting to the provider’s equipment.  Say you have a 48 port switch sitting in a CO-Location facility.   For each Ethernet cable you plug in from the telephone company they charge a fee either one-time and/or monthly.  This is just the way it is typically.  One of those “Because they can”.  The 3^rd charge is the cost of the Internet bandwidth.  A T1 can handle 1.5 Megabits of bandwidth so the cost per meg is not as big of an issue because you are not buying in bulk.

4.Ask to see the Service Level Agreement (SLA). If you are unfamiliar with the terms have a consultant look this over.

5.Know where your DMARC location is. This is the spot where the provider’s responsibility ends and yours begins.

6.Ask if the provider can verify with the telco how long the next circuit would take to install. You don’t want to go to order a second circuit and find out the local telephone equipment does not have enough capacity.  This has happened to our clients on many occasions.  This can be a quick process or the telco can take months and months to get around to installing the needed equipment.

This is a good place to get you started on T1 circuits.  More coming soon on the additional connections.