Fixed Wireless Equipment

With AirEqualizer, NetEqualizer Returns to its WISP Roots

This AP will solve a common problem in a novel way.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [July 23, 2007]

Lafayette, Colo.-based NetEqualizer has a product that hasn't even been released yet, but CEO and co-founder Art Reisman says WISPs are calling him and want to buy it.

The AirEqualizer solves contention issues in a novel way. Just like the company's NetEqualizer, the AirEqualizer manages each stream, and so it can throttle a user's abusive and hogging behavior while still allowing that user to do lower bandwidth tasks such as e-mail and IM.

"I think it will raise eyebrows," Reisman says. It handles a common problem in a new way. "We're not managing the RF. We're doing it further upstream. If a loud talker is downloading a file, we'll slow the download and the talker will back off when we throttle them, releasing airtime cycles."

"We're solving the hidden node problem. In a commercial AP, if 20 people are trying to talk to the same AP, the laptops will all hear each other. But WISPs have directional antennas and they don't hear each other, so the person with the strongest signal crowds everyone else out."

(Of course, smart antennas can solve this problem too.)

Solutions exist, he admits, but those from Motorola or Karlnet are proprietary. AirEqualizer works with anyone's Wi-Fi equipment (which is possible because it doesn't try to manipulate the RF itself).

Nevertheless, it's not simple.

Deploying the AirEqualizer, Reisman says, requires training. He's not interested in selling this one unit at a time. "We're not selling it yet. We need a distribution partner and a training program. The onesie twosie customers don't understand what we're doing."

We tried to do you what you do
Reisman says he has a great deal of respect for WISPs—he and his colleagues tried to build one and then left the business.

In a wealthy, tech savvy suburb of Boulder, they thought they had the ideal market. He thinks it's tougher to be a WISP than it is to do what he's doing now. "It took us two years to get NetEqualizer to [profitability]," he says. "We don't sell through channels. It's all organic growth. We didn't need a huge amount of money fast."

In contrast, an ISP needs to keep growing. "We pulled in a T-1 and ran an AP on the roof. Then DSL came along and killed our WISP. We talk to five or six WISPs every day, of all sizes, from 20 customers to 10,000. ISPs can put out flyers and get to 100 customers, but it's very tough to go from there. We noticed that our talents were engineering, not RF."

Pricing and availability
The AirEqualizer is not yet available.

—End