Wireless Broadband

While IEEE 802.16 provides a working standard used by virtually everyone in this area, advocating the use of <...broadband on unlicence frequency...>, thereby risking prosecution under various jurisdictions' radio spectrum licensing arrangements, does seem somewhat abstruse.

For reasons too numeruos to mention, this is not a good idea.

I doubt that you are in the USA, but since you provide no useful information, my advice is to find a business you know somethng about.

Actually it's being done across rural America where the population density is too low to justify the expense of stringing broadband cable or even high-speed DSL. It usually involves access to a suitable high speed, high capacity connection, RF equipment and an omnidirectional antenna nearby. Usually line of sight only, homeowners erect an antenna aimed at the main antenna and utilize a special RF package that attaches to a standard wireless router for serving the home. Here's an example of what it takes:

http://www.otpba.vi.virginia.gov/broadband_toolkit.shtml

There's others on Google under Citizen's Broadband or last-mile broadband. 1 Gb/s is a bit optimistic though.

Well there are plenty of unlicenced bands that could be used for this purpose but there are many serious problems that make it very difficult to get a commercially viable reliable, interference-free high speed connection over a great distance for what you are proposing.

As someone who has actually worked with military spread spectrum radios in the 925-928MHz free band, it may be possible but you would still need to get the equipment designed and certified to work in the free band (GHz range I am assuming), and even then the data rates are not going to be anywhere NEAR 1gb/minute (16.7Mb/second).

Additionally, because you would be working in the free band, a spread spectrum radio approach is highly advisable as it allows the radio to switch between portions of the band to combat interference (remember, the free band is not a clean well regulated band and any interference at the frequency you are transmiting in will very likely corrupt your transmission and prebvent it from getting through).

For example, realistic radio data rates in the 902-928MHz US free band are in the order of 650kB/second with a range (without radio repeaters) of up to 10km (line of site only). Additionally this 650kB/second is spread across ALL users, so if you had 7 customers in a row each sharing the bandwidth they would get less than 100kB/second!

Bandwidth can be increased to increase data rates BUT as the bandwidth increases the chances of interference preventing the radio from working at all increase too.

This all needs to be taken into account during the cost analysis stage of the project to ensure that a profit is even possible in the end. Given the application I don't see how this could be done AND make a profit!

Remember you are competing against existing wired and wireless internet suppliers and they are just plain better and cheaper than what you are proposing (when taking into account real-world development costs and operational problems that I am aware of through personal experience in the wireless industry).

Sorry.

_{Jack - Your daly dose of free consultancy advice.}

thnks.

You want to set up your own boutique ISP it seems.

Where are you and how are folk getting their internet now?

USD80/mth is not a third world price.

The technical side is easy it's the legal aspect that will burn you. 15km footprint is not tiny, you will be noticed.

Well, apart from all the previously stated technical issues, even assuming you could get it to work, & that you could use a radio freq without fear of prosecution, there is still another hurdle...

As also said previously, we do not know where you are located.

But in Australia, at least, (and i suspect many other countries), if you were sell access to "customers" to access wireless broadband, you would need a "Telecommunications Carrier's Licence". These don't come cheap, nor are they easily obtained. (think Telstra, Optus, Deutsch Telekom, Orange, Bell South etc etc).

And the penalties for breaching a carrier licence (or not having one) are severe.

Been there, done that. Principle, easy. Practice, not.

Caveat - my experience is in the UK. The laws of your country may differ, the laws of Physics won't.

OK, first issue - unlicensed spectrum. Unlicensed is free to use for any application so your signal is competing with everyone else using that band. Everything from home wireless networks through garage door openers and the odd local point to point across someone's work yard. They may interfere with you, which is annoying. You may interfere with them, which they may resent. Proper carriers use licensed spectrum so they can control it.

Legal - in the UK, and in most countries I know, actually selling a service requires that you adhere to certain standards. You should find out what they are before men in suits come to tell you.

Commercial - the biggie. There are many places that do this sort of thing to get broadband into areas that are unserved by the big suppliers. Usually as a community project although occasionally as a lifestyle business. The areas are unserved because the big suppliers can't make a profit on supplying them. The communities who self-provision don't usually make a profit either. Firstly, there's your cost of capital. You have to pay back the cost of the central installation, not cheap. You have to factor in the cost of setting up a receiving station for the customer. Kit usually relatively cheap but you have to install it and that eats into the cost. Finally there's the broadband supply for your backhaul. You want a Gig. Fair play, ambitious, you'll pay a lot for a clean (uncontended, no-one else on the line) Gig backhaul. Not sure what you mean by "per minute" though, that's an unusual metric. If he means 16Mb that's still a lot of money at uncontended commercial backhaul rates. Residential broadband is much cheaper but you can't re-sell it. Contended backhaul is cheaper, depending on the contention ration (number of subscribers sharing the line) but will get very slow at peak times and if you've been promising a Gig your customers will get a little ratty with you. Talking of ratty customers the thing that usually sinks these propositions most is Technical Support. Who answers the phone at 4am when your punter's internet has stopped working? Community broadband projects tolerate the answer "no-one". Commercial customers don't. On commercial I could also mention market ratio, in a city draw a 5km circle (yes, I know you said 15km but you may want to test that first, and test it in different seasons as different seasons have different signal attenuation factors such as bloody deciduous bloody trees shedding their bloody leaves and interfering with your test results, not that I'm scarred by that experience or anything) and within that 5km circle you have a lot of potential customers. You can often find friendly landlords who will repeat your signal through your building for a cut of the gross. In more rural areas your potential customer base is much lower and the cost of capital per potential customer much higher. On the plus side the country has far fewer people doing strange things with their own unlicensed radio and interfering with yours.

Seriously, you need to treat this as any other business. Sit down and write out a cashflow over three years. How much will all this cost you, how much you'll get back. Test market it in a small area. Do your sums and then get the most cynical bastard mate you can find to take them apart. Then decide if it's a good idea.

Weirdly, I have a mate who runs just such a system. A spin-off from the one I started some years ago and later closed as decent broadband speeds became available at low cost. His operates in a niche sector though, media businesses. So it can be done. It just isn't done successfully very often.

Best of luck though!

Evan

This is not practical because the unlicensed band has power restrictions which make long range links virtually impossible and if you could even cover that distance you wouldn't be able to do it to multiple targets, not reliably at least.

Also saturating the unlicensed band with your service would likely constitute interference again making it illegal.