US Wireless ? ?
From:
Dave Garland
Date:
May 09 04:28 UTC
Short link
On Thu, 8 May 2008 22:30:33 -0500, John Ferman wrote:
>I have been testing various antenna locations and
>have found a wide variability. Roughly, 2/3 of antennas indicate a
>signal strength of 80 - 100 percent. About 1/2 of the remaining 1/3
>show strengths of 10 - 30 percent. These with the sniffer usually
>kitty korner from the antenna. In my block there is an antenna that
>generally shows 80% strength and 200 feet along the block the strength
>falls to 20%. My sniffer does not indicate signal strength in watts
>units but shows bars, hence the % references. I do not think people
>are getting very much for their money.
Well, those people who have good reception are getting a lot for their
money. They know who they are. (Between Qwest and Visi.com I pay
$50/month for 1.5Mb/s down, 1.0Mb/s up, quite a bit more for my DSL than
the USI customers pay.)
Those people who don't have good reception are mostly cancelling their
service. So they've got a loss for a month or two, but nothing major.
People who live in the middle of the block, or on the wrong side of
high-rises, mostly. Not good, but not the end of the world.
Could it be better? Sure. I'm looking forward to it being better, and
being able to buy roaming coverage for my existing service (if you run
servers, wifi can't totally replace wired).
>I hesitate to think of some of
>the consequences of City public safety actions the rely on USI
>Wireless service.
Sure. But they're not going to rely on it (at least the part of it that
you and I can access). The City got a sweetheart deal on their regular
(wired) connectivity as part of the deal. The wireless stuff (and
especially the wireless stuff for people like you and me) was just an
add-on selling point.
.