on NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER pm gary lawrence murphy garym canada com wrote j james rogers jamesr URL writes j an example being able to model rf propagation in three j dimensions for a metro area when deploying wireless networks j by having every single tree and building detail and similar j you can see even tiny dead spots due to physical blockage and j signal attenuation hmmm just as i thought in other words it has no practical uses whatsoever do the biz guys in your office really think wisps are really going to shell out their money to find a house or two they can t reach experience suggests a they won t care and b they will even sign up that errant house and then give them a run around blaming the dead spot on unsupported vendor equipment errrr the biz guys in my office don t care what the wisps want to do with their little wifi networks and the bandwidth shadows in most cities are surprisingly large and common they aren t selling the software which is pretty pricy as it happens they are using it to optimize next generation wireless canopies over metro areas and fiber networks on a large scale there are an essentially infinite number of metro wireless configurations some of which generate far more dead or marginal spots and others which are very expensive to operate due to backhaul transit considerations or both this software can be used as a tool to optimize the canopy coverage and minimize the actual transit costs since the wireless is tied into fiber at multiple points the canopies we are talking about aren t short range wifi technologies but a mixture of long range high performance wireless networking with bandwidth measured in tens to hundreds of mbits and ranges measured in miles up to well over a hundred miles on the extreme end at those ranges and bandwidth levels the cost of providing the network can easily vary by an order of magnitude or more depending on how you manage rf shadows and proximity to fiber access points the idea ultimately is to optimize the cost and performance such that no existing network infrastructure providers can remotely compete and maintain profitability this is a surprisingly low bar and it is about time networks were designed with this level of large scale optimization cost per mbit maximizing coverage and effective bandwidth available per unit area in any case and for this company s long term plans this type of capability will be absolutely necessary to keep things sane or at least investors find this capability very sexy and compelling especially since we have this lovely visualization engine tied into the system cli batches never have the same effect even if it is more efficient james rogers jamesr URL 