Customer Premises Architecture

Customer Equipment

For customers who do not choose to host relays their setup is fairly straightforward. They require two basic pieces of equipment:

1. Outdoor radio (CPE) - a (most commonly ubiquiti) fixed wireless radio best suited to connect to the nearest relay. There are several choices for customers based upon connection speed expectations and geographic distance from the nearest relay. The best suited hardware for customers is outlined in this article.
2. Customer router - an althea compatible router, with the most recent Althea firmware flashed on to it. A list of compatible routers can be found on the following Althea git repository.

Customer Network Topology

The customer network topology is, again, pretty simple. This diagram shows a visual representation of what a customer’s location would look like:

Described in detail the topology is:

• Althea CPE: this connects the customer to the Althea network from the nearest relay.
• Althea Router: connected to the Althea CPE, this router holds the customers wallet which they load funds on to pay for their bandwidth usage and support fee.
• Customer Devices: customers connect their personal equipment (desktops, laptops, smartphones, smartTV’s, gaming consoles, etc.) either via wired Ethernet connection or wireless directly to their Althea router.

It should be noted that in certain cases the customer may choose to run their own separate non-althea router, which would be installed between the Althea router and their personal devices. At the time of installation it will be our field technicians responsibility to setup the customers LAN as they desire, up to and including:

• installing the outdoor radio
• aligning it to connect to the nearest relay
• provisioning the Althea router itself to connect to the greater Althea network
• walking the customer through loading funds on the router
• connecting their personal devices either directly to their Althea router