[kictanet] Wireless, a high or low density solution

[robert yawe]

Hi,

I am sure some of you read my posting on my waiting to receive reliable Internet 
when at home and more recently my issues with safaricom on installation of a 
Wimax connection.  In the same breath I have been questioning the rational of 
using wireless solutions in Nairobi where we have such a density of consumers 
which could explain the issues being raised by ISPs about lowering Internet 
charges due to unfactored costs in landing the fibre optic cable.

I grew up in buru buru estate and now that I think about it there where very few 
overhead power lines and the ones that where there feed directly to the 
substations and transformer rooms.  Where I currently live today in South C the 
situation is the same.

But when you visit estates like Umoja innercore, Runda, Karen there is a lot of 
overhead power lines in the case of Umoja it is because of bad planning while in 
the other 2 it due to the sparseness of the units.  Therefore as an analogy the 
over head lines is wireless connectivity and the underground cabling your fibre 
& copper solutions.

When CCK raise issues about BTS sharing and NEMA keep screaming about radiation 
the ISPs continue to increase the amount of radio traffic in our airwaves one 
antennae at a time.  As I write this I am seated in the office at Phoenix house 
and can see 5 wireless devices, across at Standard House there are over 13 of 
them three quarters of which are facing the same direction indicating that are 
connecting to the same base station. 

I do not envy the person responsible for customer service of that network and 
also the upgrades that will soon be required as one sector gets congested yet 
another is underutilised.  

Even as I wait for the finally commissioning of my Wimax installation by 
Safaricom at home I wonder would it not have been more cost effective to deliver 
a fibre optic cable to the estate (which for you information is fully ducted for 
low voltage services from the cab into each house) and provide all the 150 
houses with a wired solution.

If we think through some of the solutions we implement we can do more with what 
we have, the hire customer density on a fibre node will reduce per unit cost and 
increase profitability for the provider thus allowing him to offer wireless 
solutions for the more spreadout locations with lower densities.  

Our fear of Telkom's history where a land line would be out of service for 
months on end with excuses such cable has been cut or we have no drop wire. 
 Today even Telkom is offering those with landlines an automatic wireless line 
fail-over in the event of the cable getting cut.  Using Wimax to cover less than 
4 kilometre distances is like killing a fly with a sledge hammer.

Regards
 Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
Kenya


Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696



      
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