AirFiber Question

[Doom5003]

So im currently on 10mb ADSL with a ping of about 40ms (speedtest)
I might have the opportunity to get 50mb (1:1) fiber via AirFiber, but here's my questions.

1. Will I see any significant ping reduction?
I believe the company said something about 10-12 ping, cant remember.

2. Will my ping be effected in any significant way if my wife streams Netflix 1080p while im gaming?
Cause with the current setup, when ever she streams my ping becomes higher and erratic, jumping/spiking.

3. How stable is the connection?
I use to have 3G and then LTE (for a few weeks) and while the speed was fine, the ping would jump around a lot, no matter the weather/wind etc.

The only or biggest reason I would consider this is for the lower and more stable ping during online gaming. And then secondly for the increase in overhead for when my wife streams while I play.
I know I can limit the Netflix to 720p and for the living room that would be fine but the bedroom, that would be a no go sinc ethe TV is rather close to the bed and would be able to see the difference in quality (tested).

 

[Johnatan56]

I suggest you rather invest in a router with a proper QoS/bandwidth management.

I might have the opportunity to get 50mb (1:1) fiber via AirFiber, but here's my questions.

The above is wrong, you're not getting fiber, you're getting a wireless link. The latency here might fluctuate and due to the nature of wireless (also take into account it's on an unlicensed band and you will have interference) you will experience the occasional packet loss which can noticeably degrade your gaming experience.

To where is that 40ms ping? The server 100km away? That's fine for latency.

 

[PBCool]

AirFiber? Are they referring to the Ubiquiti product?

It may have a lower ping but you may also find it being more inconsistent depending on the topology of the network you are linking to, best bet is to give it a try and see from there. But I imagine it would be contract based or would attract a relatively high installation fee?

 

[Doom5003]

To where is that 40ms ping? The server 100km away? That's fine for latency.

Not sure, "best" server auto select. Think somewhere in JHB.

But I imagine it would be contract based or would attract a relatively high installation fee?

That is the reason why im looking for some info before I have to take the 1 year contract.

They contacted me with regards to possibly use my house for a station or something like that, no idea what that means.

 

[paul5186]

A few questions you should ask the ISP:
1) distance to the highsite
2) highsite backhaul, is it via fibre, 5.8Ghz, 17ghz or licensed backhaul
3) do they manage their own internet and peering or are they just resellers (no point in having a great last mile but the internet sucks)

Then lastly there will either be a large install fee (+- R20k) or a monthly fee of at least 4k if they were to truly install a dedicated airfibre P2P link for you.

 

[Johnatan56]

A few questions you should ask the ISP:
1) distance to the highsite
2) highsite backhaul, is it via fibre, 5.8Ghz, 17ghz or licensed backhaul
3) do they manage their own internet and peering or are they just resellers (no point in having a great last mile but the internet sucks)

Then lastly there will either be a large install fee (+- R20k) or a monthly fee of at least 4k if they were to truly install a dedicated airfibre P2P link for you.

Seems they want to use his house as a base station?
Ask how much space they are going to use, site access rights, etc.
The fiber will probably be way better than your adsl.

 

[Doom5003]

A few questions you should ask the ISP:
1) distance to the highsite
2) highsite backhaul, is it via fibre, 5.8Ghz, 17ghz or licensed backhaul
3) do they manage their own internet and peering or are they just resellers (no point in having a great last mile but the internet sucks)

Then lastly there will either be a large install fee (+- R20k) or a monthly fee of at least 4k if they were to truly install a dedicated airfibre P2P link for you.

1. Note sure, will have to ask them (if they don't use my house)
2. They said fiber backhaul
3. Note sure, will have to ask them

The install fee is R2950 once-off and then 50mb/s R1389 per month for 12 month contract.

 

[Doom5003]

Seems they want to use his house as a base station?
Ask how much space they are going to use, site access rights, etc.
The fiber will probably be way better than your adsl.

Considering that my exchange was recently upgrade to VDSL but unfortunately im on the edge of 10mb and as such that is my limit.
And because of that my distance from the exchange also effects my ping.

 

[Johnatan56]

1. Note sure, will have to ask them (if they don't use my house)
2. They said fiber backhaul
3. Note sure, will have to ask them

The install fee is R2950 once-off and then 50mb/s R1389 per month for 12 month contract.

Considering that my exchange was recently upgrade to VDSL but unfortunately im on the edge of 10mb and as such that is my limit.
And because of that my distance from the exchange also effects my ping.

They want to set up equipment at your premises but you still have to pay an install fee? Ask them to remove that cost and that the 50Mbps line covers the rental of the space for the base station. See how well you can negotiate.

 

[paul5186]

Yup, so it sounds like you would just piggy back on the airfibre which would be the backhaul for the highsite they want to install at your house. You should at least get a totally free connection if they are wanting to install a few sectors. Normal highsite rental is +-R1000-R1500 per antenna per month.

 

[Nuke]

At that price point it will be a highly contended service. The Airfiber can deliver high quality bandwidth itself, but for R1389 per month the back end will be heavily over subscribed.

To throw you a bone here, cost of the AF5X link is about R16k-R25k depending on the dish size. 50mbps of 1:1 bandwidth is around R30k per month (L2 fiber to Teraco + international bandwidth there).

You can do the math on what the contention has to be to make it feasible. Obviously 100mbps is not quite 2x the price of 50mbps.... but you get the idea.

 

[Doom5003]

Mmmm a lot of questions that ill have to ask them. Thanks for the info guys.
For the time being nothing is finalised as they have to get 20 signatures before they start with the installations etc.
So there's still a chance that this might never happen.

But in the event that everything works out, could I expect a better/lower ping than what im getting now?
I forgot to mention that it will be uncapped, not sure about their fair usage policy.

 

[Johnatan56]

Mmmm a lot of questions that ill have to ask them. Thanks for the info guys.
For the time being nothing is finalised as they have to get 20 signatures before they start with the installations etc.
So there's still a chance that this might never happen.

But in the event that everything works out, could I expect a better/lower ping than what im getting now?
I forgot to mention that it will be uncapped, not sure about their fair usage policy.

I would say yes, maybe 10ms. Not really of consequence. The biggest advantage will be the increased upload so you'll have less issues with someone else's (your wife's) streaming impacting you. The latency should also be a lot more stable.

 

[portcullis]

There's a new thing doing the rounds with many of the WISPs that don't have fibre strategy:

AirFibre, fibre2air, wifibre, etc... Basically anything to mess with clients' heads and make the clients think they are getting fibre through the sky.

Smoke and mirrors. It hurts me to see unsuspecting people step into this trap on a daily basis.

We've been in this industry for a very long time. We've used the expensive AirFibres, the cheap Airfibres, Mimosa 5GHz, LigoWave 5GHz, Various 17GHz, Dragonwave 28GHz, NSN 11GHz and MetroLinq (we were beta testers) 60GHz kit.

There is no such thing as fibre through the sky. It's a myth.

The only thing that comes close to fibre through the sky is the 60GHz kit - as long as it doesn't rain. And if the link is over a couple of hundred meters, and if the radios are on very sturdy poles, and if the radios are aligned properly.

8GHz is very good, tightly controlled and very expensive. However, it does work better than most of the rest. Obtaining a license in this band is not easy, though.

28GHz fades in rain. Enough said.

11GHz is supposed to be licensed, but people are buying kit overseas, shipping it in and rapidly turning that band into a mess. Add to that there are at least two companies with nationwide licenses in that band. The license you are issued today may work for a week, but when the nationwide licensee decides to install a link, he receives priority. Sorry for you.

17GHz works in areas where there's little to no interference. We see these links fall over on a regular basis. There are various manufacturers providing equipment in this band. Most of the radios auto regulate power output. Some don't. You may have a very nice link auto tuning itself and pumping 300Mb of data day in and day out. Along comes someone with one of the blasters using the entire band, or half the band (it's a narrow frequency band) and there goes your beautiful link.

We are seeing more and more 30cm 17GHz dishes being replaced with 60cm. 60cm being replaced with 90cm. It's an arms race. And an expensive one to boot.

Ubiquiti Airfibres need to be gippo'd into other country codes to get them to pump data. When you do that, sorry for anyone else in the vicinity. We've had FTTH clients 802.11AC radios go dead because there's a WISP AirFibre backhaul blasting at 49dBm running over their homes.

The next thing you need to look at, is where does your service provider purchase his connectivity?

Is it a proper ISP with an ASN, peering arrangements and redundant bandwidth? Or is it a business purchasing a Neotel, Lightspeed or Vox SME product that they are not allowed to aggregate on?

Is the service provider licensed?

If you were to send me a PM, I can check for licenses, AFRINIC membership, ASN, peering arrangements, etc.

Again, tread very lightly when people start talking about fibre through the air.

Even our high end products don't mention that.
http://www.cape-connect.com/hybrid.html

Bottom line, if there isn't an active electronics termination box or a PON ONT in your home, it's not fibre.

And no, some guy buying an Openserve, Frogfoot, Cape Connect (we've caught two on own fibre network this year so far), SADV, TTConnect, Metrofibre etc FTTH connection and placing an antenna on his roof is not an ISP.

 

[Geoff.D]

Excellent advice posted by Portcullis.

The chaos reigning in some of the licensed and unlicensed bands is out of control. You may get away with some these systems for a short while in Upington, but sooner or later you will find yourself not being able to use the links provided.

To re-iterate what was posted by Portcullis. There is no such thing as fibre through the air. The closest to fibre that is available is Free Space Optic systems making use of the Infrared band. Strictly short haul systems but can be deployed fairly easily with capacities from 100 Mbps up to 10 Gbps over a few km (from a few meters to a maximum of about 4-6km depending on the bandwidth provided).

All the solutions on offer are standard full duplex systems on the "last hop" to your premises. But what happens after that? What sort of backhaul do they have in place? Then you need to check that they are operating within the regulations as well and not simply aggregating many clients on to a backhaul connection illegally. Try and see past the latency claims and the 1:1 contention on the last hop and get them to provide you with a more complete picture of how you will be connected to the Internet as already mentioned.

 

[portcullis]

The closest to fibre that is available is Free Space Optic systems making use of the Infrared band.

I completely forgot about that technology.

Commercial versions are very expensive. The last one we requested a quote on was over R100K to go a couple of hundred meters down the road.

However, they are "set and forget". Once aligned, they will go for years.

 

[Geoff.D]

I completely forgot about that technology.

Commercial versions are very expensive. The last one we requested a quote on was over R100K to go a couple of hundred meters down the road.

However, they are "set and forget". Once aligned, they will go for years.

Yup expensive R 100 000 upwards. The locally developed Redline product is the one I am very familiar with. The international products we used on a trial basis were even more expensive and did not come close to the locally developed units. Have used all their products from the original 100 Mbps version right through to their 10 Gbps unit as a "quick fix" while there was a wayleave issue on a short piece of fibre along a road (about 3 km) Worked fine for 3 years. Very useful on large campuses where LOS is guaranteed. If properly aligned and protected against lightning and power surges, they are almost maintenance free. And no interference! Except IF you are not careful about how you install them on a East-West and vice versa direction! Then twice a year, you will have a "Sun induced fade", twice a day, once at sunrise and again at sunset.

Update: Strictly for short-haul applications especially the 10 Gbps units.

 

[PBCool]

Yeah also range aint great with the laser based stuff, 60Ghz and 80Ghz kit works pretty well as an alternative, there are very cost effective options on 60Ghz these days.

 

[portcullis]

The locally developed Redline product is the one I am very familiar with.

That's it!

Expensive, but you get what you pay for.

 

[eddief1]

While I do agree with everything said here...in a good RF environment a 100Mbps connection via fibre or a 100mbps via carrier-class microwave would be pretty much equivalent with all else being equal.

Its always a compromise, microwave can suffer from interference, fibre can suffer from a spade & pick...fibre is preferred but it's simply not an option in some scenarios.