SkyPilot Blog » Products http://www.skypilot.com/blog This blog focuses on broadband wireless principally centered around a technical perspective from SkyPilot's engineering team. Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:26:38 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 The SkyConnector Pro http://www.skypilot.com/blog/products/the-skyconnector-pro/ http://www.skypilot.com/blog/products/the-skyconnector-pro/#comments Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:30:31 +0000 Brian Jenkins http://www.skypilot.com/blog/?p=12 Photo of SkyConnector ProIn a previous blog post, I mentioned the relationship between low cost, long range, and high capacity. As always, it costs extra to get extended coverage and better capacity since higher-gain antennas and higher-power radios cost more.

With the SkyConnector Mini, we’ve been able to essentially replicate the SkyConnector Classic but at a lower cost. Today, SkyPilot is also announcing the SkyConnector Pro, which has the same the same price as the SkyConnector Classic but with substantially better wireless performance.

The Mini and Pro are designed to be complements. The Mini is focused principally on price-sensitive residential subscribers and the Pro is focused on the service-focused business subscribers. The Pro has a high-gain antenna (22 dBi) and a high-power radio (26 dBm) to provide the link budget required to ensure wireless connectivity and resiliency even in demanding conditions.

Both the Mini and Pro work with all other SkyPilot equipment, so there is no hardware changes required to current deployments.

]]> http://www.skypilot.com/blog/products/the-skyconnector-pro/feed/ 0 The SkyConnector Mini http://www.skypilot.com/blog/products/the-skyconnector-mini/ http://www.skypilot.com/blog/products/the-skyconnector-mini/#comments Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:20:52 +0000 Brian Jenkins http://www.skypilot.com/blog/?p=7 Photo of SkyConnector MiniWith our announcement today of the SkyConnector Mini, SkyPilot solves one of the biggest concerns for any wireless ISP – per-subscriber cost.

The most consistent feedback we get from our WISP customers relates to the cost of customer premise equipment (CPE). This is not too surprising, since every ISP – from DSL to cable to wireless – needs to keep per-subscriber costs low in order for their business model to work. Some simple math shows that decreasing per-subscriber costs reduces the time to profitability, which substantially improves the overall financial model.

Over the past few years, we’ve engineered the SkyConnector – our broadband wireless CPE – to keep costs down while still maintaining a focus on providing broadband speeds even over long-range wireless links. Today, we announced the SkyConnector Mini to substantially lower per-subscriber costs while still maintaining the commitment to long-range and high-capacity wireless.

The SkyConnector Mini essentially cuts the cost of our “classic” SkyConnector by 50%; however, it still provides the same fundamental features and capabilities. It has a 14 dBi antenna and still provide high-power transmissions at 24 dBm. We’ve provided a side-by-side comparison of the SkyConnector Mini with the SkyConnector Classic to show how similar the two products from a feature perspective, but the Mini will be able to get under US$200 in our volume packs. To our current WISP customers – and hopefully to a bunch of WISP who are not yet customers – this price point represents a milestone.

There is a lot of information relating to the Mini on our website. Please browse through this information and let us know if there is any additional information you’d like.

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