1. Odessa Office Wireless DSL system
Marlon K. Schafer
Owner
Odessa Office Equipment
Box 489
Odessa Wa
11/29/2018

2. Bio, Marlon K. Schafer
Born and raised in the farming community of Odessa, WA.  After high school he entered the United States Air Force and became a Linesman. During his stint in the Air Force Marlon worked on overhead and under ground high voltage electrical distribution systems, security lighting, and runway lighting. Upon his Honorable Discharge in 1988 he returned to Odessa to help with the family specialty foods business.  In 1989 he and his wife moved to Spokane where Carr Sales, an electrical supply store, hired him.  Marlon went from delivery driver to rec. clerk to warehouse manager over the next couple of years, while also taking electronics classes. In 1991 he went to work for a copier repair company where he serviced copiers, printers, faxes etc. until In 1995 he and his family moved back to Odessa and launched Odessa Office Equipment. In 1998 he bought his second largest local copier competitor. In 1997 Odessa Office Equipment formed an Internet division offering local dialup services.  As a pioneer in the High-Speed Fixed Wireless Industry, Marlon designed and installed one of the first High-Speed Wireless DSL systems in the country and authored the Homebrew DSL page Since that time in early 2000 he's built 7 broadcast sites in 4 markets.  As CTO and part owner of KMS Wireless, Marlon has helped hundreds of other Internet Providers break into the WDSL game.  Marlon markets a wide range of wireless equipment and also provides design, installation, and troubleshooting services for most types of wireless systems.
11/29/2018

3. Background Continued
We now service approximately 2100 square miles of previously un-served or under-served rural populous.
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4. My system covers 4 towns
Odessa has 3 wpops (wireless point of presence).
Wilbur has 2 wpops.
Creston has 1 wpop.
Ephrata has 1 wpop.
Total coverage is about 2100 square miles.
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5. My system covers 4 towns continued
As you can see, we are soooo rural that the maps don’t even put the towns and most of the roads till you zoom way in!
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6. My system covers 4 towns continued
Within our coverage areas we’ve done such a good job that the Sheriff has been able to put broadband right into some of the cars!
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7. My system covers 4 towns Continued
Then I showed the cops Napster. Big mistake!!!!
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8. Demographics Odessa: Wilbur: Creston: Ephrata:
1000 people, mostly agricultural based.
Wilbur:
About 900, mostly agricultural, some timber.
Creston:
About 250, mostly agricultural, some timber.
Ephrata:
About 10,000, mostly agricultural.
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9. Competitive Analysis
The only competition in Creston, Odessa, and Wilbur is the telco ADSL, which is 2x the price and ½ the speed. Installation is cheaper though.
In Ephrata we compete against FTTH (fiber to the home). It’s cheaper and just as fast. Installation is free. I cover areas that the fiber won’t be at for at least 4 years though. And I’m doing it for less than 1/4th the cost per customer.
Out of all of the areas I cover only Ephrata has any national providers of any kind (AOL).
Most dial-up customers have to cross line duplicating systems (ie: slick 96) and this prevents any type of digital connection, most dial-up is lucky to run at speeds greater than 26.4kbps.
Many of my customers are permanently out of range of DSL.
There are no cable internet systems in the area at all.
11/29/2018

10. Customer Base Local residences Small Office/Home Office
Local small businesses
Local hospital
Town of Odessa, including the entire City and public Library facilities (all donated)
Some Sheriff's cars (also donated)
One church (donated)
People outside the range of ADSL
11/29/2018

11. Technology We are using unlicensed 802.11 radio gear.
We purchase a T-1 from the telco and distribute that data to the previously un-served people of this market (I started wireless almost 2 ½ years ago).
We use T-1, Homebrew SDSL, and wireless technologies to get the data to our WPOPs.
We charge only $35 per month for a 1000kbps average connection to the internet.
We’ll likely move into the 5 GHz gear as soon as it becomes financially viable for my customer base.
11/29/2018

12. WPOP Costs A typical rural wpop will cost from $5,000 to $10,000.
It will deliver speeds of up to 5 MB/sec to as many as 300 users per transmission site.
To date I’ve invested about $40,000 of my own money.
None of that is government money. I’ve gotten no subsidies.
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13. Typical Systems Wireless point of presence
We use standard off the shelf WLAN (wireless Local Area Network) components.
This is a typical hub site (what the customers connect to).
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14. Customer costs
A typical home based customer install costs me about $300.
I charge the user $250.
Business customers are billed at cost (usually about $600 to $1000).
We require all customers to run anti-virus and personal firewall programs.
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15. Typical Systems
We use standard off the shelf WLAN (wireless Local Area Network) components.
This is a typical customer installation.
While most of my customers are at ranges of less than 5 miles it’s not unusual for me to have customers in the 10 to 15 mile range.
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16. Why do it?
The opportunities for economic/social growth in rural areas is tremendous.
Real time communications is a key to this though.
Now, thanks to Odessa Office several local towns have affordable broadband internet access. Better than many urban areas even.
Hopefully this will help attract people to these depressed agricultural markets.
We (the Wireless Internet Service Provider (wisp)) are the only affordable, reliable and financially stable broadband provider in a position to service the average consumer for the foreseeable future!
11/29/2018

17. What helps, what doesn’t
Using un-licensed frequencies keeps our costs down.
Interference has been a bit of an issue though. A surprising number of license holders also use unlicensed gear and they have much more robust radios than I can afford to run. I’ve been knocked off line more than once by systems over 20 miles away.
The rules as they exist work fairly well for us.
It would be nice if rural areas (due to the distances we need to cover) could use a bit more power.
Dropping the certified systems requirement and moving to a certified component/EIRP model would allow much more innovation within this fledgling industry.
11/29/2018

18. Thanks Thanks to all who have joined us today.
As a member of the WCA/LEA I look forward to working with several of you in the future as we work to make this market segment even stronger for the little guy.
11/29/2018

19. Odessa Office Equipment Box 489 Odessa Wa. 99159 (509) 982-2181
Marlon K. Schafer
Owner
Odessa Office Equipment
Box 489
Odessa Wa
(509)
11/29/2018