Now that BIFS (or Bift) has made it's grand rollout
Lets review some to the Major Red Flags that I see here.
First, let me start by saying that it is difficult at times to determine the difference what BIFS actually has said what SWOMI and what is posted by the longs on the RB board.
Red Flag 1
Most people with any knowledge of RF and data transmission find it very hard to believe that SWOMI has a range of two miles. This is simply not believable. Power requirements at the base station and problems that arise due to Line Of Sight (LOS) restrictions make this ability highly unlikely.
Red Flag 2
The amount of nodes claimed by some (I have heard numbers from 200 to 1000) are simply not going to happen. I don't care what kind of technology they claim to have, no CSMA/CD system can handle that many nodes.
BIFS has claimed that SWOMI is 'Ethernet' based system. (Personally I think it is simply 802.311b wireless Ethernet - more on this later). CSMA/CD stands for Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection. In the simplest of terms this means that each node listens to the network. If the network is clear the node assumes that it can send data. If two nodes send at the same time a collision occurs. When this happens, both nodes wait a random amount of time, and then retransmit.
The problem with this technology is that as the number of nodes increase (hence the network traffic) collisions increase geometrically. As collisions increase, so does response time. At 2Mb per second, you are going to get about 50 users. ( I apologize for not having the formulas for this, but can't seem to dig up the book where it is. I do have one reference manual that shows this in very nice graph, but unfortunately my systems doesn't cut and paste from paper to my laptop). This is why we developed bridges and routers. These devices "break up, or subdivide a network into manageable segments. (keep this thought for later).
Red Flag 3.
BIFS has changed their tune a little bit. Now they say (and I am paraphrasing) "SWOMI gives users access with speeds UP TO T1. Well, of coarse it can (if you are the only one on the network). OK think about this 1 user get 1.5 Mbps 2 user get .75 Mbps. And so on. If you do the math down to 15 users you get 0.0000457763671875 Mbps. (This is not what happens in the real world unless everyone is transmitting streaming data all at once, but you can see what I mean)
This backing off of the original claim of "a T1 in every pot" shows that some of BIFS claims have been grossly exaggerated.
Red Flag 4.
They apparently have a cell at each hotel that they have installed SWOMI in. This means that they are going to have to have some way of getting the data from the hotel to a data center. If they want to run at T1 speeds, they have to have a leased T1 from the hotel to the data center. This is an expensive thing to do. Not only are you going to have to pay for a T1 (I'm not sure how much this is, private leased lines are priced based on mileage and capacity and some other factors, but figure at least 500 to 1000 a month). They are going to need a router and a mux at both the hotel and the data center. You have to rent a lot of those S shaped antennas to make a profit. Remember the capacity problem mentioned in Red Flag 2, they are going to need multiple base stations and multiple routers if they hope to do this at any volume.
Red Flag 5
How does BIFS plan to maintain all this stuff. I mean, they are going to pass out all these S shaped boxes. These things are going to get broken, and lost. Plus, how are they going to load the SWOMI software on peoples PC's. What is going to happen when the install goes very wrong (and you just know it will) and they screw up some ones machine. How are they going to support different machines and drivers for Win 95, 98, NT and 2000. The way they are doing this sounds like a logistical nightmare.
Red Flag 6
If BIFS has this wonderful technology known as SWOMI, why are they trying to deploy it? This is a fundamentally bad business model. If you really have some new and improved fantastic piece of hardware, you don't try to install it yourself, you try to sell it to the world. I.e. if you build a better mousetrap, you don't try to go out and catch all the mice in the world, you sell the thing to people who want to catch mice.
Red Flag 7
Making a profit as an ISP is very difficult and requires enormous amounts of money. PSInet has spent huge amounts of money on infrastructure and still is bleeding money like a stuck pig. How does BIFS plan to survive and grow without money.
Red Flag 8
If they have such fantastic technology, where is the VC money. Where is the support from the big players?
Unlike what the BIFF long want to believe, companies like Lucent, Northern Telecom and Cisco love to find stuff like this. They have a history of giving tons of money to companies that show promise.
This is just a start, I can think of many more, and will post them later.
Any comments? |
