Cheaper AP's with less user capacity

We operate in a rural setting, we will never approach the number of users that an AP can handle. How about a cheaper AP with less capacity, maybe an AP that would handle 50 users and cost $500. We would be able to deploy more AP’a and then sell more SM’s. We service some small communites who have no option for broadband, but it is hard to justiy spending the money to outfit a tower when you are going to max out at 40 - 50 users.

dhd76 wrote:
We operate in a rural setting, we will never approach the number of users that an AP can handle. How about a cheaper AP with less capacity, maybe an AP that would handle 50 users and cost $500. We would be able to deploy more AP'a and then sell more SM's. We service some small communites who have no option for broadband, but it is hard to justiy spending the money to outfit a tower when you are going to max out at 40 - 50 users.


A lot of us are in the same situation, I'm afraid.

i’d have a lot more base stations if that were the case. especially with advantage aps, those are crazy expensive.

i agree i just dont understand the high prices i mean we all know most of the money is to help pay back engineering but i also know the parts in side the equipment are not that expensive especially if they lowered the price they would sell more thus getting better deals on large quanity orders for there parts. i mean like the ap,s basically the same thing as the sm’s with a little firmware modification why not make all the units perform like an ap so we can switch it between ap mode and sm mode that wouldn’t cost them that much to do that. and then we could all deploy our dream network.

kenny meadows
Info-Ed Inc.

dhd76 wrote:
We operate in a rural setting, we will never approach the number of users that an AP can handle. How about a cheaper AP with less capacity, maybe an AP that would handle 50 users and cost $500. We would be able to deploy more AP'a and then sell more SM's. We service some small communites who have no option for broadband, but it is hard to justiy spending the money to outfit a tower when you are going to max out at 40 - 50 users.



There are some good points in this thread. Moto has not thought thru the "rural low density" problem. Especially in areas where it is rural low density with heavy vegetation. This is a situation which is very much worth Moto's attention; however, because one can pull a lot of subscribers when there are no other broadband options in the area.

A micropop architecture works well in such situations. It is unfortunate that nobody at Motorola has given this architecture thought. It is obvious from installing the hardware that such an architecture has never even passed thru the minds of the engineers at Moto. Never the less, it should.

Before you jump on me about that paragraph, if anyone had given any thought to that problem they would have figured out that a connectorized 900 MHz AP has no place to carry the sync cable thru the cast to the outside world. We have to drill the bottom of the case to get the damn sync cable into the AP.

If anyone at Moto had given any thought at all to the rural low density with heavy vegetation problem, they would have realized that there will be times when you want to hang two AP's off or a single SM. One to act as a local pop (900 MHz) and the other to act as a repeater... That means that you need a special cable to do that job or a means (other than a glorified $800.00 clock) to provide said sync...

The included photo is an example of a rural low density with heavy vegetation 900 MHz micro-pop built entirely on Canopy hardware. The SM (dish) is a 5.8 GHz SM that backhauls to a Cyclone on our main tower. The Cyclone will eventually service five similar micro-pops distribuited at ranges to about 11 miles from the main tower. Each of these micro-pops will service it's local community of three to five dozen homes and a few small businesses. We might put fifty subs on each pop if we are lucky. We refuse to deliver service at 2.4 or 5.8 as we are using those band s to distribute bandwidth and they perform very poorly in vegetation anyway.

Clearly there is no place in our system design for a cluster that costs $15K to deploy and no need for a backhaul that can move 20 M/bits.

Moto, start thinking about rural low density please.
dhd76 wrote:
We operate in a rural setting, we will never approach the number of users that an AP can handle. How about a cheaper AP with less capacity, maybe an AP that would handle 50 users and cost $500. We would be able to deploy more AP'a and then sell more SM's. We service some small communites who have no option for broadband, but it is hard to justiy spending the money to outfit a tower when you are going to max out at 40 - 50 users.


And then there are those of us using Canopy in a NON-wisp environment.

We use Canopy in a copper mine to access remote PLCs in real time to
monitor and control process water. I've got one system with no more than
10 SMs on 3 APs.

I think a less-expensive AP with reduced user capacity is a GREAT IDEA!

I could care less about the cost of the APs. It’s the SMs that MUST come down in price.

The most crowded ap we have has 10 SMs on it. and on average its probaly about 4. In a rural setting it would be nice to see cheaper AP’s

I agree, we just deployed an AP and 2 SM’s for remote monitoring. I get asked a lot that if we can lower the price they would buy. Well… I tell the that 1 ap and 1 SM is $2k. If MOTO could lower it to 1K we would be able to sell more.

Tracy

Canopy AP uses 25 mhz to 20 Mhz spectrum & delivers a certain agreegrate bandwidth, Depending on whether the platform is Advantage or Classic.

I feel that current AP angle with a coverage of 30 degree instead of 60 degree & Half the Agregrate Bandwidth with latency of Advantage Platform can also be a good combination.This will give some relief from interference related issue.

Same Can be applied for BackHauls.

This Half Speed Products than can be made More affordable