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06/30/2004: "Spokane gets shafted (redux)"

Steve Stroh has made comments on the previous post.

Comments and corrections follow:

First, Mr. Stroh doesn't get my title right. While I wore many hats at Vivato, including the "Director of Product Development" one, I was also at various points VP of Software and Systems, and Chief Architect, the last was, admitedly, while I was on my way out the door, and Don was doing his best to strip me of any power. Not that I cared, since I knew that in his able hands, Vivato was doomed.

Next, Mr. Stroh quotes a message he received last April (not from me!) which apparently says, in part:

[Vivato employees] have been warned to keep their resumes tuned up because
the company is not sure its going to be around much longer. They are
selling their units at a loss, even at the bizarrely high price they go
for. The cost to build each of the units meets or exceeds the sale price,
which is definitely a harbinger of death for any company. There is no
real secret that the company is money starved, having quickly burned
through the $64 mil they got last year in 2nd round funding.

First, I doubt that any such warning came from management.
Second, the big funding was the third round, not the second.

Vivato is building a lesser model of the one approved by the FCC. Now
boasting only 20 radio/antenna pairs, it isn't the device that it was
cracked up to be. Where the prototypes played pretty nicely with other
users of the frequency, these fellas are simply high powered foghorns
--and the same exact job they do could be done with much less expensive
equipment without losing a bit of utility. That assumes that other
equipment would be permitted to blast out a 52dB signal as the Vivatos
are waivered to do.

The information here is flawed.

1) There never was a Vivato product that contained 20 radios. The first "beamforming" product contains 14 radios and 16 antenna elements. (This fact is easily discovered by looking inside a Vivato VP1200, or even by looking at the FCC website.) The second "beamforming" product (VP2200) contains 6 radios and 8 antenna elements. (Again, those who wish to confirm can either open a unit (once they start shipping) or simply peek at the FCC OET web pages.)

2) Both devices are FCC certified, not wavered.

3) Neither device puts out "52dB". Those interested can check FCC OET website.

Steve's anonymous source continues:

[There is serious convern about] the close relationship between Vivato
and the City of Spokane. The city is investing fairly heavily in
Vivato equipment as part of the WiFi-everywhere that Spokane wants to
build. There are two reasons for this concern. The first and foremost
is that they don't want [the City of Spokane] investing in a company
that isn't going to be around to support their product. Second, they're
perplexed as to why this project was developed without a single offer
to any existing companies that already have a sufficient infrastructure
to bid on it.

Bob Conley is a founder, and well-connected in the city. His family owns the White Elephant, and Bob always seemed to have a cousin in-town anywhere he went. Its likely that he knows people down at City Hall. I find it entirely possible that Bob promulgated exactly what he wanted, rather than what was needed, or even wanted or required. I don't know. Thats opinion.

I do know that Bob was in-charge of the downtown project, and I've heard reports that none of the configuration information for the units is written down anywhere. No network diagrams exist, etc. Again, thats rumor, but I tend to trust the source(s).

Steve's continues:

While I felt that Vivato had considerable potential... that's
now almost spent, apparently, the larger principle at work is the
incredible innovation at work in the Broadband Wireless Internet Access
industry. Vivato's passing will leave a void for only a short time.


The potential for WiFi (and WiMax, btw) is for situations where the interference can be controlled, either via deploying in licensed spectrum (and there are people who want to run WiFi as a service in 2.5GHz, btw) or by controling the deployment(s) such that interference is minimized. Note that this doesn't (and never will) include attempting to provide a service in large metro-area deployments using unlicensed spectrum. Never.

But the wet-dream of wireless broadband continues to exist. Many people and companies will burn-up attempting to solve the problems. Anyone who sits back and attempts to understand the physics will quickly "cotton-on" (as we said in Texas) to the truth. At one point (prior to Don showing up on the scene), we had the salesforce trained to politely say "No" if a customer identified themselves as a WISP. I assume that this decision has been reversed.

But Vivato isn't doomed, its just that the focus is still (aparently) in the wrong place, and the cash continues to run out.

Really bad things will happen as more and more corporations attempt to deploy 802.11g in the enterprise. 802.11g isn't simply faster 802.11b, the deployment characteristics are very different. In specific, the difference between the CCA boundry and the top modulation rate coverage area is HUGE. Another problem is that the adjacent channel rejection performance of 802.11g is terrible compared to most 802.11b (only) devices. Massive interference will be the result i most deployments. Sivash Alamouti (Vivato's new CTO) understands these issues well. If the company will listen to him, they have a chance.

Vivato has a product (the new '11g' switch) that can overcome these problems, if those in-charge at Vivato have the balls to price it agressively. I should openly admit here that this product (the 11g switch) is (or was) my "baby". I had to fight inside Vivato in order to make it happen.

Bob Conley was one of those that attempted (time and time again) to put an axe in it.

The simple fact is that if Vivato can manage to re-break its salesforce from looking for the easy kill (metro wifi deployments), and instead look for situations that are a good fit for Vivato's products (these are mostly indoor, though there are some outdoor deployments that make sense), then Vivato has a chance, because the products they build can solve real-world problems that are difficult to solve with ordinary access points.

I'll also mention here that I was also in-charge of Vivato's "Bridge/Router", which I am told has sold out of its first production run. (More are on the way.) Vivato actually makes money on this product. Fun fact, back when I joined Vivato, I bet Ken Biba (then the CEO, now departed) that the Bridge/Router product would have more contribution margin than the (1st generation) switch.

That was true the moment the first bridge/router sold. Heh.

The screed continues...