ISP Consulting

Funknetz is characterized by a number of realised projects as ideal partner for the conception, setup and consulting of Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP). Funknetz looks back proudly of the year 2007 when they set up a complete WISP in Kosovo: Evaluation of the desired coverage, transmitter stations and backbones; rough and structual planing, installation, consulting during profitability calculations and purchasing, assembly, putting into operations, trainngs and hand-over to the local ISP.

The last project, where Funknetz shines through their competent ISP consulting, is also international and took place in the largest city of Africa: Lagos in Nigeria. Read more about it in the following case-study:

Wi-fi access network in Lagos, Nigeria

At the end of the year 2010 the company www.funknetz.at GmbH started to negotiate with a local Internet service provider which wanted to start up a wi-fi access network in the largest city of Africa: Lagos in Nigeria.

Requirements

In a first consulting trip to Lagos, Funknetz conceived the wireless network in a commercial area in Lagos with an area of approx. 1 km² and a movement of 200,000 potential users on an 8-hour-day. The area is the trade centre of computer equipment like monitors, smartphones, notebooks, etc. The high customer frequency makes it an interesting place for an added-value wi-fi concept.

On average, every Nigerian has got at least one smartphone. But users are often hindered in their desire to communicate due to poorly developed and unreliable fixed-line infrastructure and mobile networks. The keyword is capacity.

Funknetz created a project plan and took over the realisation of the high capacity network including the following tasks:

• Planning of the wi-fi coverage at the expert’s survey
• Support for the decision of hardware (wi-fi access points, licensed and unlicensed radio-links, server hardware, etc.)
• Calculation of the capacity of the network in a multi-stage project
• Distribution of the required hardware including the handling with all international trade issues
• Installation, setup and configuration of the national backbones, the data centre in Lagos, as well as the backhaul and wireless access networks
• Direction of the assembly and mantling as well as on-the-job trainings with the local employees
• Project support, remote and in Lagos
• Installation and configuration of the centralised Loop21 hotspot system for the user administration (accounting & billing) including the wi-fi localisation and location-based services
• Network operations and monitoring (centralised in Vienna, Austria)
• Third level support for operation

By this one-stop solution, a fully-fledged Internet service provider was born. Funknetz built up the data centre at the Headquarters of the local provider. The network was designed in a star-shaped arrangement. The main radio towers and the data centre are connected through licensed and unlicensed directional radio links which are the Internet uplink of the wi-fi access network. Those single radio stations are situated strategically in the area and supply the people with high quality Internet access via wi-fi. Thanks to the Loop21 hotspot software license the wi-fi network provides more than Internet access. There is Loop21 WLAN Entertainment® by location-based services available.
After final testing and fine adjustments, Funknetz put all systems into operations and handed over the wi-fi network to the local operating team for the kick-off.

• Backbone via international carriers & Backhaul solutions
• Server hardware and VMware in data centre
• Unlicensed and licensed directional radio links
• Wireless hardware (Controller and access points)
• Loop21 hotspot software
• Complete project services from the first evaluation until the handover of the operating system
• 3rd level support