If they allow antennas on the roof, we can service them 
Your house, on the other hand, we already lucked out on that one!
-Mike Lyon
Ridge Wireless
Out of pure curiosity, let’s assume they COULD put an antenna on the roof…
What is the service? Bandwidth, latency expectation, cost?
Note that in almost every condominium or apartment complex I have heard of, they do NOT allow roof builds. This is why satellite TV in those areas require people to put an antenna on their patio, even if it’s half-blocked.
Depends on many factors…
If the whole HOA wanted service, then a licensed link could possibly be put in delivering a high capacity circuit delivering about 100 Mbps to the subscriber. Price to the customer would vary depending on how the deal is structured with the HOA/property management company.
Could also look into getting some fiber delivered and feed it from that.
-Mike
See this is my point. People always dismiss these issues and say they could easily get service. Then, when someone comes in with an actual request for said service, the answer we get is about structured deals with HOA/property management. What about for a single customer? A single customer who has no sway over an entire HOA, a single customer who is told to go “pound sand” by the property manager.
If you can’t give a single figure or even rough numbers for a single customer, I’d say avoid dismissing the problem. If you can provide that now, I’d be very curious to still see them.
Well, if the HOA allowed us to install an antenna for the single customer, then our standard rates would apply (google Ridge Wireless, if you want to see pricing, i don’t want my NANOG messages to seem spammy).
Another problem with condos that were built before the 2000’s is inside wiring. Likely going to be wired with something like Cat3 and old RG59 coax.
I’m not saying i don’t agree with the sentiment of this thread. Silicon Valley does have many under-served areas that ATT and Comcast haven’t, or won’t, build-out decent service.
-Mike
The future belongs to wireless. Hopefully not 5g to any huge extent.
If it helps any, wiline in the bay area has been delivering fixed
wireless services for many, many years, 'round here. There's another
technology - free space optics - that can get stuff across the street.
I played around a lot with early versions of this:
Then I assume spacex will also market their 10-20Gbit laser links on
earth at some point. In atmosphere, I cannot hazard a guess, but more
than 1km seems feasible, even in fog.
There is a ton of good wireless gear out, or coming out, if you can
find someone to point it at. The ubiquiti 60ghz AP's base latency is
0.7ms from AP to customer. Ideal max range is about 1.5km to account
for rain fade. Bandwidth is 1Gbps per AP, so 300-500Mbps symmetrical
plans are possible depending on the oversubscription ratio and how
many subs per AP.
60GHz PtMP can do 950/950Mbps on the first bandwidth test, with <1ms
(idle, have not tested for bufferbloat, too scared to) latency.
There's up to 15 subscribers per AP. The APs have 30 degree beamwidth,
so up to 180 subs per tower site would be possible. The main catch is
cost and range. $400 per customer radio (3X cost of most CPEs).
802.11AX 5GHz PtMP products from Mimosa and Cambium will be
interesting competing products at 1/2 that cost per CPE. Seeing
870Mbps and 4ms latency at 9km with AX gear. I worry a lot more about
bufferbloat on AX than I do on the above product, but have tested none
of it.
Mimosa's APs are due out soon. Cambium's AX products will be split
between 5GHz and 6GHz versions, and expected Q4 this year.
Last, though I've not played with 'em yet... I'm told tarana is
delivering some crazy performance, definately the best I've ever heard
of.
Price is 13,000 per AP, $600 per CPE, and a few dollars per month per
CPE, which is why many are waiting for AX.
The future belongs to wireless.
I have to give a shout out here for Mike’s organization (Ridge Wireless).
They do provide excellent customer service and decent speeds, though they are sub-fiber and at somewhat of a premium/Mbps vs. terrestrial fiber solutions.
I’m currently using Ridge as my primary connectivity with Comcast as a backup. They have consistently over-delivered vs. promised data rates and have always answered any issues I bring up promptly and with great skill and knowledge.
They are a total contract from the large utility players and I cannot recommend them highly enough.
Owen
California in particular also has more stringent rules for commercial buildings with seismic requirements. While a nonpen mount is great, you still have to get the service into the building somehow.
Back in 2005 when I moved to this area, I worked directly across the street from what is now the stadium - at that time it was Great America’s parkling lot. The area still shows dead on the CA broadband map, but all we could get was AT&T DSL or your typical telco circuits. This is despite being in a very urban area in the heart of Silicon Valley, JUST up the road from the datacenter we used at the time (Globix). We ended up having to do a wireless P2P to the McAfee building up the road, and getting the cable from the roof in I’m pretty sure required the contractor to x-ray the roof after they were done which I believe was pre-stressed concrete panels.
To this day, many of those dead zones still exist. I’ve been to many RURAL areas with far more consistent Internet access than Silicon Valley, and it certainly does seem odd.
-Patrick
“A single customer who has no sway over an entire HOA”
If you can’t sway the whole HOA, then the problem must not be that bad.
Sounds like you’ve never lived in an HOA.
nods I agree.
Usually, it’s too many spineless people that won’t stand up to someone that couldn’t make friends in high school.
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Go Mike!
Seriously, Like Owen, I’m in Evergreen and until recently, my home had very poor speeds, but at least something. Today, I have no option other than Comcast which has jumped to mediocre, and AT&T’s DSL. Seriously. I also get better service in the Sierra’s, but alas, still only one choice.