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Fixed Wireless Equipment

WISPs Request AP Management

When things go wrong, it would be nice to have an ultra-cheap box that could help the network operator figure out what happened and reboot the AP.

[June 7, 2007]

On the ISP-Wireless list in May, Kevin Sullivan (KS) of Alyrica asked:

List,

We've a couple dozen of the newer Tranzeo AP's, and we have found that we have to go out there and do a hard reset on each one every couple of months. Since a remote monitoring board seemed like a good thing to have for the tower sites, we put a team together to develop a remote monitoring and reset board. It's pretty much operational now, and after seeing a thread a week or two ago on the list, we thought it'd be interesting to see if there was a market for them. The current board has six analog inputs, five digital inputs, four relay-driven outputs, a self-voltage meter, a temperature sensor, a photo sensor and a microphone. The photo sensor is for use with solar arrays.

Anyway, we are trying to figure out what we should put together to present as a finished product. A remote reset device? What kinds of inputs and outputs are people using? How about a solar monitoring product? Something that monitors remote voltages? Starts a generator? It looks like the price would be around $150/ea, depending on what frills we add. Thoughts and input would be greatly appreciated!

DH had ten suggestions:

1. Network Accessible Web Interface.

2. Manageable by SNMP control centers.

3. Build the Electrical devices to utilize liberators to eliminate transformer crowding.

4. Build in a SMART PING that would recycle a device if:

a. Ping return packets exceed a settable time out period.

b. The Smart Ping should be able be configured to try a number of time before determining a device is really down.

c. The cycle time for a device should be configurable for 1 second to 2 hours to allow for cool offs.

d. The Smart Ping capability can be configured to send email to an preconfigured email sever (SMTP) for event alerts as well as have the ability to send out SNMP Events.

e. Built in internal logging capability to allow automation capability to be able to download and grab logs showing event history of devices.

5. The network port should be sensitive to various NIC speeds so that it doesn't interfere with the ping time response.

6. Build the device to start out with 4 port/devices that would include a Lego(tm) style modular expansion. Devise the dimension so when a complete array of these devices can be put together that would be rack mountable and stackable. The snap together feature should include a back end electrical bus to allow even distribution of power across all the devices.

7. Allow ability to put Thermister sensors on the transformer of the devices that it monitors, to allow for emergency down in the event of a failure. This would prevent our investments from being blown away.

8. If you build the device, take advantage of the IEEE 802.3af standard Power Over Ethernet (POE). This of course should be a settable configuration.

9. In the event that the Remote Back Haul Link Fails, we should have the ability to dial out via a telephone line or use a standby uplink to switch over in the event of the failed Back Haul and notify field techs to start out to reset the whole kit and caboodle.

10. The temperature sensor would also dictate whether to turn on an internal heater for extreme temperature readings.

[TB disagreed] "I'm looking for something less fancy. Customer is using cable modems for internet and has remote monitoring of cameras behind cable modem. Right now, a truck roll is required to reboot modems and it's getting worse in the Texas heat."

[RA asked] "Is it IP managed?"

[KS replied] "Yep, it's IP managed. What kinds of things would you be using it for?"

[RA said] "Very simply, remote monitoring of solar power/voltage-consumption. Possibly for remote power switching/reboots. Simple is good for us. We like to use components that take care of a logical block instead of many small individual pieces or one mega module. Power consumption of the device is very important."

[KS asked] "Excellent! Thanks for the reply. How many monitoring/reset ports would you see yourself actually using on one device?"

[RA said] "Probably no more than three switchable power controls and two monitoring points. Monitor voltage before/after battery array and switch three 9-24V devices. I would rather keep the cost down than cover all possibilities as some other solutions do."

[KS concluded] "Thanks for all the responses, including the private ones! I think we've pretty much ironed out what we're going to present for the first model. It'll have two on/off ports for device reset/fan control, a light meter for either intrusion detection or solar analysis, a current temp read-out, and a current voltage read-out. The two on/off relays will be able to be switched either by hitting a button in the web interface, or through a predefined, fairly simplistic instruction set. (If the temp goes above 23C, turn on relay 2: If device 10.0.0.1 is unpingable for two minutes, cycle relay 1). Once we have some tested, I'm planning on purchasing a list advertisment to let everyone know the price point and purchasing options."

Update:
The Alyrica Net Hatchet is available for $150.

—End