I am currently a second year law student working on an article addressing the possibility of a national wireless internet system in the US. I stumbled across the Canopy system while researching the wireless network in place in the Kingdom of Tonga. I am in not trained in networking but I do understand the technology to some extent.
I am seeking some input or comments on the possible use of the Canopy technology for a large WiFi system, spanning the entirety of cities or even the US in whole.
Also, I have looked on the website but can’t seem to find what frequency the Canopy system runs on. The basis for my paper is focused on FCC Spectrum regulation. I was wondering if a system such as the Canopy system could be run on any frequency, if given permission by the FCC.
Thanks in advance for any and all help you can give me.
Anthony Sciarra
Albany Law Journal of Science and Technology
asciarra@mail.als.edu
The main frequency bands the Canopy system operates on are: 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz, 5.2 GHz, 5.7 GHz.
Canopy is not a Wi-Fi system, it uses its own data transmission protocol.
You may read faq or some technical documentation here - http://canopywireless.com/support/library/
Yes, you can’t use Canopy for laptops. You can’t sit in a park and be on a Canopy network. Now, that isn’t to say you can’t run a city wide network. It would simply mean that there would be many tower sites with Canopy access points, and each park, or hotel, etc could have a Canopy SM. You could then plug in Wi-Fi routers into the Canopy SM to offer Wi-Fi locally - this would then get backhauled over to your Canopy core. The APs would then be plugged into fibre, or some sort of fast backbone to be shipped off to the internet. The SMs could be 5.7’s, or alternative to cut down on the use of the 2.4 spectrum everywhere. I imagine when WiMax starts rolling, it will be the predominant technology for city-wide Wi-Fi networks.
So lets see if I understand this right.
In layman’s terms - the Canopy system could deliver the signal to WiFi routers which would then transmit the signal needed to connect to the network by PC’s.
I hope I’m not wasting your time and I appreciate any and all help.
Thanks again.
"In layman’s terms - the Canopy system could deliver the signal to WiFi routers which would then transmit the signal needed to connect to the network by PC’s."
AP to SM- plug’d into a wireless router with external antennas?
The Internet feed would connect to Canopy Access Points either directly via Ethernet or Fiber, or through Canopy Backhaul units.
The Canopy Access Points would then feed Canopy Subscriber Modules.
The Canopy Subscriber Modules would then be connected to local WiFi Access Points.
You would need a method of managing users. Typically this is some type of Subscriber Gateway that sits at the edge of the network that captures the MAC address, assigns an IP, and redirects the user to a signup page where some type of ID can be entered such as a Credit Card that may or may not be billed depending on the type of service you are supplying (you need to know who is using the network regardless if there is a fee or not. This is to allow tracking of unauthorized content and/or distribution).
Once the user has created the account, they can then log on and gain access to the Internet or be redirected to a portal where advertizing and/or community pages can be created.
Hope this helps.