Durban Cost and PMB

[bobs_uncle]

Hi everyone,

I am involved in a new service that is starting up pretty soon, and just wanted to let you all know about this service.

If you are a resident in the Durban Coast area (Balito, Eshowe) and in Pietermaritzburg, then this option is available for you.

The service is a Wireless Internet Service Provider offering affordable and stable internet solutions. They are offering both dedicated direct connections, as well as on-demand connection (via hot-spotting). The service is going to be great value for money (i suppose thats a sales-advertisement, but hey, its my opinion too). It will be offering the following features:


24/7 Internet Access
VoIP Telephony support - dial anyone from your computer in real-time
Gaming network - 24/7 Dedicated gaming servers available to the internet as well
On-demand and Dedicated internet services
Company VPN service - join your branch offices together over 55mb/s
and many more...


Pricing isn't exact yet. Future projects include linking the entire of Durban, the north and south coast all together under one pretty massive WLAN.

If you want to know more, either post here, or PM me :)

Thanks

[caspa]

sounds interesting.......when will this be starting to take place

[lucifir]

please provide more info as this does sound like a very interesting idea.
will it be legal??
what sort of cost we looking at?
is it shaped?
what is the contention ratio??

[bobs_uncle]

The infrastructue is pretty much already in place. We are still adding more access points, but balito is pretty much covered.

It is legal!

Costing will be around R500 a month, but nothing definate yet!

It will be shaped on internet access.

Contention ratio will differ per package sold. Smallest package is a 64kbps connection to the internet. You still get a *55mbps connection to the lan.

*this depends on the range and signal strength!

[Razer0]

I assume it will have wifi pings of course?
Even to the internet?

[bobs_uncle]

I assume it will have wifi pings of course?
Even to the internet?

Unfortunately. During a test we were getting about 30 - 60ms ping avg.... ofcourse add about 100 onto that with internet access....

[skydog]

bobs uncle - do you have a website we can check out?

do you know of the wifi mesh we trying to get going in Durban?

check http://www.dwc.za.net - it's still pretty bare but we building it up slowly

[bobs_uncle]

Hey skydog.

No website yet.

Well this is news to me, I didn't realize there was already a mesh happening in durban. How big is it? What are the specs? Waht do you supply?

Do you guys need help with servers, services, security, hot-spotting and the likes?

Whats the coverage?

[captainwifi]

It is impossible to scale a mesh beyond a certain
point. In the UK/USA all Wisp's use multiple T1 and ADSL lines or satellite uplinks.
Question
1) Where on earth are you getting your bandwidth or sky then if you use satellite.
Which satellite provider? What ever you do just don't use Sentech.
2) Will you use mesh combined with mikrotik or only mikrotik or only mesh. ?
3) If mesh what platform www.cuwireless.net or www.qorvus.com or
www.meshcube.org ?
4) How will you deal with the fact that p2p banning activities by ISP's has forced people to use encryption making packet inspection software redundant. iBurst service
are severly hampered by this.
5) 2.4ghz is polluted and all the mesh software currently use 2.4ghz. How will
you deal with interference ? If you use 5.8ghz the costs will be much higher.

Everybody want's to be wisp and it simply is not working as Iburst , Sentech and
www.wavestream.co.za will explain to you . With wavestream their customers are
sometimes down for three days.
My idea is to link 10 houses via a small network to an international satellite link,
completely bypassing Sentech, Telkom , Mweb etc. etc.
See my other posts for the satellite service providers.

[lucifir]

which other areas in durban do you plan on covering? la lucia? springfield?

[dominic]

It is legal!interested to know what licences it holds - VANS + frequency?

[Setsquare]

Can you explain to us how this is legal ?

[bobs_uncle]

We are in the process of obtaining a VANS license. Will update!

[skydog]

bobs_uncle - Well this is news to me, I didn't realize there was already a mesh happening in durban. How big is it? What are the specs? Waht do you supply?

the mesh is very small at the moment as we have just started there are only a few point to point links. We work on the 2.4Ghz a/b/g range.

We don't supply anything... we are a not for profit group.. the only thing we supply is a group of people and their burning desires to learn and share knowledge. We are trying to be the co-coordinating or central point for all the wifi enthusiasts in Durban to group together to share resources like “local” WANs of friends to game etc…
We are always open to suggestions and “joining up” of other smaller clans in the greater Durban area…. I think most people will agree you can’t have to many people.

We just spreading the word and educating people on the benefits of wifi meshes and just plan have fun.

Nuf rambling… think you get the message… if you in Durban contact me or any of the other members and we can chat over a cuppa coffee or beer.

Tempest has revamped our website so go have a look. http://www.dwc.za.net

[skydog]

captainwifi - to answer your questions briefly

1) Where on earth are you getting your bandwidth or sky then if you use satellite.
Which satellite provider? What ever you do just don't use Sentech.

We don't offer internet access.

2) Will you use mesh combined with mikrotik or only mikrotik or only mesh. ?
we will see how it grows and decide

3) If mesh what platform www.cuwireless.net or www.qorvus.com or
www.meshcube.org ?

we not big enough to start thinking about what meshing software we will use but are exploring the linksys WRT54G's abilities to mesh and how they will handle
4) How will you deal with the fact that p2p banning activities by ISP's has forced people to use encryption making packet inspection software redundant. iBurst service
are severly hampered by this.

it's not relivate to us what the ISP's are doing.

5) 2.4ghz is polluted and all the mesh software currently use 2.4ghz. How will
you deal with interference ? If you use 5.8ghz the costs will be much higher.

I agree 2.4 is getting polluted and one of our aims is to educate uses of wifi to only use what they need and not over power...eg using a 15db omni in their small house so the neighbours 10 blocks away can pick up their AP. but us a 4db as it will do
5.8Ghz may be used as backbone links if some users are willing to purchase and put up equipment.
Everybody want's to be wisp and it simply is not working as Iburst , Sentech and
www.wavestream.co.za will explain to you . With wavestream their customers are
sometimes down for three days.

We do not want to be an WISP as we are not for profit and don't want to charge people.
My idea is to link 10 houses via a small network

I like that idea.... that's what we working on. and then joining the small networks together (not to share internet bandwidth but if you come in at a cheaper price then telkom we in) for local gaming... maybe VoIP chatting and so on...
to an international satellite link,
completely bypassing Sentech, Telkom , Mweb etc. etc.

that is not 100% legal but will not get into that as i said bring int. bandwidth and come.... we would be happy with that.
See my other posts for the satellite service providers.

I have

[bobs_uncle]

1) Where on earth are you getting your bandwidth or sky then if you use satellite.Which satellite provider? What ever you do just don't use Sentech.
We are fortunate to have access to a 5mb link and will be looking at making use of ADSL links for local bandwidth and using satelite links terminating in the UK (we understand that this part may have sever latency).

We haven't decided on the porviders yet. The diginet link is via SAIX, and the ADSL links are provided by telkom and dialed-up with IS.



2) Will you use mesh combined with mikrotik or only mikrotik or only mesh. ?
Mikrotik at the moment. Depending on how things go.



3) If mesh what platform www.cuwireless.net or www.qorvus.com or
www.meshcube.org ?
No plans to properly mesh yet, but we'll be looking at meshcube if we do get that big.



4) How will you deal with the fact that p2p banning activities by ISP's has forced people to use encryption making packet inspection software redundant. iBurst service are severly hampered by this.
You may use p2p software, however, we can not guarantee that the service will be available.



5) 2.4ghz is polluted and all the mesh software currently use 2.4ghz. How will
you deal with interference ? If you use 5.8ghz the costs will be much higher.
We have a resident radio expert that may be looking at changing the crystals to run on a different band altogether. No big break-throughs yet. Otherwise, we'll be looking at running a 5.8GHz backbone linked to a 2.4GHz client station.

Hope this helps!

[Tempest]

bobs_uncle : check your private messages ;D

[bobs_uncle]

does it take some time to get a PM? Cause I ain't got one yet. I thought a PM is jsut a message stored in the DB for that particular user... hmmm

[Tempest]

hmm, it is. shouldve been instant. oh well, i'll just mail you... :)

[bobs_uncle]

log-out and log back in.. still nothing... lol... theres a conspiracy I tell you!

[Tempest]

hehe, true that.

mail sent...

[bboy]

So what kind of hardware are we looking at here, if i want to connect to you, what hardware must i buy, and whats the distance from me to your "node"