[cisco-voip] OT -- Wireless to remote sites?

[David Sullivan]

cisco-voip-bounces at puck.nether.net wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 12:33 -0700, Scott Voll wrote:
>> is anyone using some kind of Wireless solution to a remote IP
>> Telephony site? 
>> 
>> I have a site that will be $1 million to build fiber to so I'm
>> looking for options.  I'm thinking something with a licensed band or
>> microwave.  anyone have experience with something like this?  if so,
>> what are you using?  uptime? fog or rain issues? latency? packet
>> loss? 
> 
We used to use a telco-grade licensed microwave system from Ceragon
providing a 100M connection over 3 1/2 miles before that site was
closed. It was expensive at the time but was a saving over our 2M
connection from the incumbent telco after 3 years (in addition to being
a lot faster). It was pretty much bombproof and only had one (hardware)
failure over the 5 years we used it through rain and shine.

Unlicensed 802.11b/g radios will be a lot cheaper and are an option
depending on the distance, we've used this for temporary installs over
short distances and they excel at this (ETSI EIRP power limits mean for
longer links you're generally pushing your luck in the UK), local
interference may or may not be an issue. Another good choice may be the
5GHz line of sight systems but I can't say I've used any of these.

We also used/use infra-red, these systems are unlicensed but free from
interference issues but can have issues with the weather, we tried them
over a long link (3 miles) but that was a complete waste of time but we
have a system that links a building 150m away across a road and car park
and it's completely solid and we've never had any problems over that
distance.

Your best option is to speak to a company who installs different types
of systems or several companies who each supply different systems and
ask them what they would recommend for your situation, a lot of these
systems depend on your local regulatory/licensing regime, weather,
hardware support of the system, how reliable do you want it to be, how
much are you willing to spend etc ...

David Sullivan
IT Services Systems Team
Barnet College
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