You are invited to an open forum with Washtenaw County and 20/20 Communications representatives at the Manchester High School Auditorium on Monday, March 26th at 7:00 PM.

The forum is open to all Washtenaw County residents and guests. It is the first of several scheduled county-wide during 2007.

Today's update is a continuation of last week's concerning Pre-Deployment.

Pre-deployment is split into three sub-phases (We've added one since last week): Engineering, Asset Acquisition and Billing. It is a combination of these three sub-phases that will determine the much anticipated roll-out schedule.

Last week I covered Asset Acquisition. This week I'll cover Engineering.

Engineering

During the pre-deployment phase, 20/20 and Siemens engineers will:

• Design the Mesh Network
• Design the Backhaul
• Conduct a Radio Frequency Survey (RF Survey)
• Complete the full build of the Wireless Integrated Platform (WIP)

Mesh Network Design

Over 2000 BelAir Radios or Access Points (AP) will be placed throughout the county. These APs transmit and receive the Wireless Washtenaw signal to and from CPE's on residents' homes, businesses and wireless enabled devices. These APs will be interconnected, or meshed, supplying signal to and from each other as well. That way if one goes out (power failure or force majeure) the APs in the mesh will continue to provide signal to a majority of customers in the mesh. Wireless Washtenaw will have a series of mesh networks throughout the county.

During this phase, engineers will determine the size of each mesh group for an area based on landscape and population.

For a detailed description of mesh networks, check out the BelAir White Paper on Mesh Network Capacity at belairnetworks.com.

Backhaul Design

Backhaul (BH) is the term used for passing data from the mesh networks directly back to Wireless Integrated Platform (WIP). As stated in last week's update, the full build requires mounting APs on existing or new structures.

In order to progress with the full build, AP installation will begin in locations providing fastest access to mounting assets. This will result in a patchwork network design until 20/20 can pass the more restrictive municipal ordinances.

During the beginning of the full build, a combination of Radios, DSL, T1 and DS3 services will be used for backhaul.

Radio Frequency Survey

During this phase, engineers will conduct an Radio Frequency Survey (RF Survey). The RF Survey will help determine the best location, frequency and channel for an AP or BH. By identifying restrictions caused by landscape or interference from other companies, 20/20 will be able to provide a cleaner, less interrupted service.

Wireless Integrated Platform

The Backhaul passes data to and from the Wireless Integrated Platform (WIP). Among its many tasks, the WIP authenticates the customer username and then sends/receives data to/from the internet. The Wireless Washtenaw WIP is located in 20/20's Network Operations Center (NOC) in Downtown Ann Arbor.

During the pilot, the WIP was scaled to provide service for up to 500 Pilot Participants. During pre-deployment, engineers will scale the WIP to handle what we hope will be the tens of thousands paying and free Wireless Washtenaw customers.

Sooo... CPE, AP, BH, RF, WIP and NOC, I think that's enough abbreviations and acronyms for one update.

Next Week

Billing.
Yep, its time. We're ready to test our billing system. There will be many changes including login pages, usernames and passwords. 20/20 representatives will contact pilot participants by phone and email to apprise them of changes and, if necessary, walk them through the new login process.

Details in next week's update.

20/20 Communications was selected by Washtenaw County to provide county wide Wireless Internet access.

There are four (4) phases to Wireless Washtenaw:

• Pilot
• Pre-deployment
• Deployment
• Customer acquisition and retention.
  

The phases will begin to overlap as portions of them are completed throughout the county.

If you have questions or would like to register for the service when it's in your area, visit our Wireless Washtenaw website.