Re: [rtd info] formal bid Page 1 of 2 Re: [rtd info] formal bid Nathanial Byrnes [nate@rooftopdata.com] Sent: Monday, February 11, 2019 1:15 PM To: Palamara, John; Yeates, Michaei Cc: sales@rooftopdata.com Attachments: (113 KB) Hi John, Michael, Please ?nd attached our no-bid response to the Wireless Connected Communities RF P. I feel compelled to urge the avoidance of the technical implementation this RFP is requesting. The overall initiative is a great idea, and to be applauded, but the technical solution you have requested 'to deliver service inside the home, will not work well enough to be usable. We have been deploying wireless networking technology and providing intemet service over said technology since 2011. We primarily service business customers. Upon receipt of this RFP our initial take was that we didn't think that this approach would work, but, maybe we were missing something. So, we contacted our wireless technology distributors and manufacturers, to see if they have seen solutions like this successfully deployed. Of the four parties we discussed this with, every one of them had experience with projects like this, and everyone of them strongly advised not to proceed in this direction. Two manufacturers, whose portfolios include equipment which would be needed to satisfy this RFP, said they would not even participate in drafting a technical solution for this project. They speci?cally mentioned Bangor, ME, and Philadelphia, PA as cities that had started out down this road, and ended up re-designing much of their deployment. Our own experience tells us that the problem with this approach is not the infrastructure side as much as it is the consumer side as the reason this will not work. The problem is, while the access points have the antennas and transmit power needed to push the signal to the end user' device, it is the end user' 3 device which lack sufficient transmit power and high enough gain antenna' 5 to effectively transmit back to their associated access points. This results 111 extremely laggy, if it is even working at all, internet browsing experiences as all sites will need the end user device to send requests for all content, and the requests they are sending will be extremely delayed, if they can be sent at all. And all this will be a mystery to the user, as their device will report to the user that the signal strength is strong, but it is the access point that their device is talking to will have a very different view of the situation and will struggle to make sense of the signal coming ?'om the user' 3 device. Also, we have found that wireless mesh networks do not scale particularly well, and, reading between the lines, it seemed sort of assumed that this technology was anticipated. Thank you very much for sharing this RFP with us. We would be happy to answer any additional questions you may have, Best Regards, Nate Nathaniel A. Byrnes CTO/Co?Founder Rooftop Data c: 71 6-949-765 6 On Thu, Jan 17, 2019 at 2:46 PM Palamara, John wrote: Re: [m1 info] formal bid Page 2 of2 To all potential bidders; The Buffalo Public School District (BPS) is seeking proposals for BID Connected Communities. Details are spelled out in the bid document posted on the District's website linked as follows; Please reply to this email to acknowledge receipt, irrespective of intent to bid. Failure to do so shall result in removal from the District's active bidder list. If this email has been misdirected, please return with message or re-direct to the appropriate individual(s). Please check above linked site prior .to submitting your bid, and in the subsequent days leading up to the bid opening in the event that addenda information is posted. Thank you John Palamara, Buyer Buffalo Public Schools 65 Niagara Sq. Rm 816 City Hall 716-816-4677 Fax-716-851-3605 It takes less time to do things right than to explain why you did it wrong. Henry Wadsworth Longfe/Iow are Forget previous vote 2/11/2019