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Vivato's Vivacious Waves

Most new technologies make at least some waves. According to some observers, the recently announced "Wi-Fi Switch" from Vivato, Inc., may well cause a tsunami in the WISP community.

[February 18, 2003]

In a burst of passion, DF placed the following post on the ISP Wireless list in January:

"Call me fickle or call me inquisitive or call me stupid!

This morning I sent out an e-mail that we were looking at using the Motorola Canopy equipment in our next phased rollout. However, this afternoon I spent several hours with our new regional Vivato sales rep and I am d*mn impressed!

I can't say much due to an NDA agreement I had to sign, but let me tell you, this product is going to blow the doors off of the WISP industry as we know it! I am placing an advanced order for their product even though it won't ship for a few more weeks.

If you haven't heard about it, I'd recommend that you call your local rep and set up a meeting with them. Their solution eliminates truck rolls, and eliminates the CPE which is now relegated to just a $50 [802.11b] wireless card!"

RS was not impressed:

"Yeah I talked to a Vivato guy. Spending almost $75,000 per 180 degrees [angle of coverage] in a WiPOP doesn't seem economical to me.

Plus the arrays [phased-array antennas] are enormous, aren't they? I can't imagine hanging 6 sq. ft. antenna on an American Tower site. And if you think they'll let more than one company hang them, you'll be second in line to the Verizons and Sprints of the world.

I think you're stupid for buying early. (Hey, you said I could call you that :-) "

MS expressed a practical note of caution:

"I'm generally not a fan of using new gear for a new deployment. I hope you are already a WISP, as all gear has problems when it first hits the streets. I don't care how much they say they've tested it.

The military has used phased-array antennas for a long time; they work. But, this is still an 802.11 product, and 802.11 is still the worst protocol in use today for WISPs.

Call me a cynic, but I'll believe it's that good when I see it work with my own eyes—in a place that I pick out. "

JT raised another concern:

"I think an even bigger question (than does it work or not), is the price of the AP per expected customer. An average number of clients connected to an AP is 30.

So, even if you expect to get three time this with a new super-duper system, how much is that per expected client? More than $1,000 (according to the previous post about prices) just for the AP [antenna] portion of the install. The good news is, it is usually cheap to make antennas in volume, so if their stuff works, the price can come down."

AM broke down the numbers a bit:

"Don't look at it as $75,000. Look at it as $3,500 per month for 24 months. Then relate the monthly cost of $3,500 to the revenue stream. If the POP brings in $20,000 or $30,000 per month after 12 months (mid-point) then it may very well be worth it, if the users otherwise remained unreachable or unsellable.This is what we pioneers do (speculate)."

JB weighed in firmly on both sides of the debate:

"I personally, think Vivato has some very slick and interesting technology. However, I agree that treading with caution is wiser than just jumping in head first without proper testing.

None of us really know how Vivato works—on the level of seeing it deployed—because it's not on the market yet.

Don't get me wrong; I am highly enthusiastic that the product. If it works close to what they are saying it does, it will be quite an opportunity for the wireless operator."

DF jumped back into the thread:

"$75,000? R, you may want to go back to your Vivato guy and tell him you want the latest pricing sheet."

"M, I did have the opportunity to see and use this gear in action. I can still say I am d*mn impressed with what it can do. It may not be the perfect solution, but it will certainly eliminate a lot of the headaches I have dealt with in the past!"

GV returned focus to what was not new about the product:

"Ah, Vivato! Nice antenna technology; nice way of getting around the 36 db point-to-multipoint (PTMP) limit. But then again, nothing new to combat the 802.11b plagues of problems like multipath, hidden node, limited channels, other providers on the band, etc. I saw nothing new to handle those problems."

—End