Questions
The questions you would actually ask.
No license, no survey, no integrator. That claim invites scrutiny, so here is the scrutiny, answered plainly.
01
Legality and spectrum
- Is this legal to run without a license?
- Yes. Every band ORB uses is either unlicensed or coordinated through a database that grants the channel automatically: TVWS through a PAWS database, CBRS through a SAS, 6 GHz through AFC, and Wi-Fi and HaLow in open spectrum. The unit asks, receives a grant, and only then transmits. You do not file anything.
- Do I need a spectrum engineer or an RF survey?
- No. Channel selection, power limits, and exclusion zones come from the coordination databases and the unit's own scans. That is the work the coordination layer exists to remove.
- What happens if a channel gets taken away mid-shift?
- The grant is time-bound and the unit renews it continuously. If a channel is withdrawn, traffic moves to another radio before the old one stops. Sessions stay up; the safety tier never rides on a channel that can be reclaimed.
- Is there a licensed option if we need a protected floor?
- Yes, as an option only. Band n53 at 2483.5 to 2495 MHz is licensed spectrum held by a single terrestrial counterparty worldwide and supported natively by current phone silicon, so it can carry a 30 to 45 Mbps protected floor and priority phone service where an operation requires one. The platform does not use n53 in its shipped configuration, and conformance never requires licensed spectrum.
02
Environment and durability
- Does it work in rain, snow, and dust?
- The outdoor enclosures are sealed and gasketed for continuous outdoor service. Heavy rain costs you some range on the highest bands; the lower bands are effectively unaffected, which is why the band plan spans 470 MHz to 6 GHz instead of betting on one frequency.
- What about -20 °F, or 120 °F in direct sun?
- Industrial temperature range end to end, with the mast electronics rated for the same envelope as the machines they sit on. Heaters and passive cooling are part of the enclosure, not an accessory.
- It is going on an excavator. Will vibration kill it?
- The machine-mount kit is the vibration answer: isolated mount, captive fasteners, sealed connectors, and cable strain relief that assumes a boom slamming into a trench all day.
03
Fitting your existing world
- Does it work with Procore, Autodesk, and my camera vendor?
- There is nothing to integrate. ORB is a network, not an app: anything that speaks IP over Wi-Fi or Ethernet works unchanged, which includes every construction platform, camera, tablet, and telematics gateway on your site today.
- Can IT put this on our corporate network?
- Yes, and they can also keep it off. Site traffic is segmented by policy, so cameras, machines, and staff devices can be separate networks with separate rules. If IT wants a tunnel back to the corporate WAN, it is a policy change, not a hardware change.
- How does this compare to a Starlink plus a mesh access point?
- That setup gives you internet at one spot. ORB uses satellite as one uplink among several, then covers the whole site down to the trench and the far end of the haul road, coordinates channels so units do not fight each other, and carries a deterministic safety tier that consumer mesh gear cannot offer.
04
Operations and support
- Who supports it at 2 a.m.?
- We do, for the duration of a rental or a support term, with remote diagnostics on the unit and a replacement path that does not wait for a truck roll to diagnose. Pilots include direct access to the engineers who built the unit.
- What actually breaks, and can my crew fix it?
- Field-replaceable parts are the mast, the cabling, and the modules behind the mezzanine boundary. Anything deeper comes back to us. Nothing on the unit requires a technician to configure after a swap: policy lives in the coordination layer, not in the box.
- Who can see our data?
- Traffic is encrypted in transit and we do not inspect payloads. The coordination ledger records network events, which channel was granted, which unit joined, when a link degraded, not the contents of your files or video.
- What if the satellite link drops?
- Local coverage stays up. Machines, cameras, radios, and site devices keep talking to each other because the site network does not depend on the uplink. Anything bound for the internet queues or moves to a secondary WAN.
05
Buying it
- Do I buy it or rent it?
- Either. Site-month rental behaves like the rest of your equipment line, and fleet purchase makes sense once units follow your crews from job to job. Pricing detail and what moves a quote is on the pricing page.
- How long until I have one on site?
- Units are in pilot allocation now, which means a scheduled date rather than a catalog lead time. Tell us the job and we will give you a real date, not a range.
- Can we run a pilot before committing?
- That is the preferred path. Pick a live job, we stage a unit, bring it up in a morning, and you keep the coverage for the pilot. If it does not earn its place, it goes home.
Still unanswered?
Ask it directly. The engineers who wrote the specifications answer the technical ones, and nobody will put you on a nurture track.