[LINK] Ubiquiti´s totally disruptive 24Ghz unlicensed "AirFiber" looks awesome

[Fernando Cassia]

On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 2:05 AM, Scott Howard <scott at doc.net.au> wrote:

> They'll probably work great on the 20 days each month than Buenos Aires has
> fine weather.  On the 10 days/month that it rains, the water will probably
> eat enough of the signal to make them no use beyond at most a few miles.
>
>   Scott

The problem in this city is not the last few kilometers, it´s usually
the last few blocks.

I´ve been quoted 7000 USD to lay fibre over 200 meters (two blocks) to
reach my building, by one of such newcomer ISPs with great
prices/bandwidth ratio, that like all new entrants, does not have
access to the incumbents´ ducts (so far used only for copper/ADSL,
although that will change soon as incumbents start deploying FTTP for
its commercial customers).

So new ISPs that want to dig trenches on sidewalks and lay down their
own fibre have incredible expenses as well, and their network
expansion progresses at a snail pace, as they have to extend their
network "block to block", and often they can´t afford to:

1. Go wireless to reach another profitable neighbourhood, if they
wanted to "pass over" some non-profitable spot. Because
a. Licensed spectrum is costly, as well as equipment for such. +
bureaucratic dance with regulators
b. Unlicensed spectrum (2.4-5) is too polluted, 900 Mhz offers too
little bandwidth.

2. Per city regs they can´t use aerial cabling -only analog CATV
players are allowed to use posts/masts-m must do all their network
underground.

Case in point, this agressive ISP that sadly only cover 1/10th of the city area.

http://www.phonevision.com.ar/cobertura/cobertura.html

So with equipment like AirFiber, any small ISP can -provided they get
access to a high rooftop- cross over 10-20 blocks (1-2 km) to reach a
new area of interest and continue their wired network from there...

Believe me, this equipment will sell like hotcakes... or vegemite, if
you prefer. ;)
And if in a year down the line they manage to shrink it and lower the
cost to $999 or less, even more so...

FC