pro wifi

davidclayton

ok ready?

72 beds
15 rooms
3 floors

wifi!

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what kind of routers should i be looking at?
where sells them?
separate routers per floor,
or one very powerful amplifier?
advice please.
help appreciated.
[802.11g]

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dave

ozt9vdujny3srf

A normal ap/router should do the trick for ya.

davidclayton

i haven't inspected the premises yet,
but i know there is solid brick walls dividing the rooms.

so i think i'll need something a bit more heavy-duty.

???
dave

Superman

yeah, normal good wifi router/modem etc. I swear by my linksys one, but you may be inclined to get one with a modem (broadband or otherwise) and print server built in, it all depends on the kind of usage it gets.

Depending on which one they are all available on line/UK Supliers.

and then nice wifi cards (54g, I think their worth it, better range to say the least).

I run my wifi network from downstairs though a thick outside wall, and about 4 internal ones, to upstair back bedroom, and can manage to get 18mbps.

If the wall's are real thick, I suggest you get a signal booster for the top floor. This way you won't have to worry about the top floor being at the edgo of wifi area (which can drag whole network speed down)

security is the usual problem with home brew wifi but this can be easily managed, just involves a bit of reading.

BTW Sent you a PM

davidclayton

Well I've worked with a Netgear DG834G 54Mbps Wireless ADSL Modem/Router/Switch/Firewall and it was very good for the purpose.
It was only a small office, but we tested the range by walking outside with a laptop, and the range was superb. But there was only one solid wall.

Where can you get WiFi amplifiers/boosters?
What specs/range do they cover?

The recievers are already sorted, we're gonna go with USB2 802.11g jobbies.


dave

Superman

I heard that the Netgear DG834G is good, its an all-in-one which makes it handy, I didn't get an all-in-one cause I wanted to make use of the modem i got with ADSL. You can get varying different antenna/range extender to boost signal , The best being an omni-Directional ("omni" means it boosts signal in all direction, as opposed to just directional) antenna. Obviously at this stage it al depends on usage, if you have to cover a big area get a high power range extender! , and you may need to choose between indoors and outdoors.



this is a pretty high grade one, could be mounted outside:
http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/hg2415u_pro.php

Not as strong/ expensive but good:
http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/hg2412u.php


those too seem to be pretty good and would deliver on coverage if mouted in a good location.

The www.hyperlinktech.com website ha alot of stuff at varying prices and I would trust them because of there sheer range (not a pun) of goods.

That any help?

Rew

If your serious about doing it properly you should use CAT 5/6 to establish a backbone (if you havent done already) and get your access points in to key positions. Watch out for overlapping channels.

Personnaly I dont rate many of the off the shelf AP's too highly and there is a lot of flexibility to be gained form buillding your one AP's (if u have the cash).

If you are getting off the shelf AP's try get ones that will do SNMP stats, v handy for keeping an eye on you WLAN.

davidclayton

what you think?

broadband will be coming in from point to point wireless connection from irishbroadband, and then connected by rj45 to a wifi router.

then 2 more routers are set in bridging mode, which means there will be one on each floor. from what i can gather wifi is great on the horizontal, but not vertical, hence one on each floor.

cabling is not down as the apartments are not yet finished being built.


dave

ozt9vdujny3srf

I live ina 2 story house and the signal i get one floor away from my linksys wrt54g is nearly as good as the signal i get on the same floor.

I think you'd be wasting money buying 3 ap's off the cuff, see how one works out first. I'd say it'd be grand.

Rew

You will have to be more specfic:

How are u connectiong all of your access points?
(Bridgeing mode could mean a few diferant things, im assuming u mean WDS style bridgeing as opposed to ethernet bridgeing. WDS limits network preformance)

You (probably) dont need routers everywhere unless you plan to have multiple subnets, which would mean you cannt transition between AP's without losing your connection

Orientation of the antenna on the access point changes how well it services vertical and horizontal. Whats in the floors can make a big diferance to signal.

You need to site survay the place before specking hardware.

Most AP's are 32mw but some are 100mw which would make a big diferance as well.

Capt'n Midnight

re 100mW - red herring ignore - you can't legally use it with an antenna in the EU (unless you have a lot of cable) High power extenders / boosters just make noise - cheaper to buy more ap's too - and it gives you redundancy - you could setup the same ssid on them all - using different or same channels is a different kettle of horses pyjamas

Also max of 30 clients per AP..

since you are going to need a few AP's - get one plug it in and then use a notebook or PDA running netstumbler to see where you can pick up the signal, and where you can't - then you will know eg: if partition walls allow RF signals though and have an AP in the coridor. Wireless when there are obstructions is a real "suck it and see" science - predictions will help - but you MUST do a site survey with real rf too.
The floors may also be concrete so can't go through them.
Perhaps if they all have large windows to put the Ap on a pole outside.

also decide do you want 100% coverage or fewest AP's

All AP's would be on the same switch and THEN a DSL router would connect to the internet

Rew

Legal or not you can buy them and they do give better distance...

davidclayton

ok i'll be honest here,
i amn't very well up on the technical details of wireless networking.
i'm not sure what WDS means.
so if you'd be patient, i'd appreciate if you briefly explained these terms as you use them.

30 clients max?
on the netgear site it says that the 834G can take up to 234 users simultaneously.
???

the wifi network is only to connect all the pcs to the broadband connection,
not to communicate with each other.



dave

zenith

Look at the featureset on something like:

http://www.viatornetworks.com/

and you'll know what you'll have to be aiming for.

EsatBT would lurve to get you involved with their solution-inna-box too.

Superman

yeah, WDS is dutch to me!

yes it can be limited 30. and just giving web access is easy to do.
At the end of the day all the parts are on the shelf and you can just pick and choose.
All i can sugest is get a good router, Good aerial and follow set up instructions, then
tweak the network for security and settings.


Look on amazon.com for good recent books on wifi set-up. it's a relatively new and simple procedure so there is alot of info on it.

iano

WDS stands for Wireless Distribution System.

It enables you to wirelessly connect Access Points, and in doing so extend a wired infrastructure to locations where cabling is not possible or inefficient to implement. (i.e your Access Points are linked via a wireless "backbone" instead of each being connected to ethernet)

The downside of using WDS is that there is an impact on performance.

Details and a review of performance impact in different scenarios is available from this Proxim technical bulletin.

davidclayton

Is another term for WDS a wifi repeater?
or is that something else?

dave

Rew

There are loads of marketing terms for WDS like repearter mode and bridge mode. WDS generally only works with same brand (and in some cases same model) access points so expanding the network can become an issue.

With WDS the same radio that the client is talking to has to pass the data on to the next AP (via WDS) and recive the response then pass that back to the client. Because its radio only one device can be talking on the channel at any moment, as you can see WDS starts to add huge overhead to the network. Add multiple devices connectd by WDS and things start to get a bit hairy

Generally its not a problem untill things get busy. Its a better idea to lay cable to connect all you AP's to a switch.

Generally AP's are bridge type (ethernet bridges as opposed to WDS bridges) so they just join the wired and wirelles network in a transparent way (so no device can tell if another is wired or wireless)

Routers connect seperate networks (ie networks with diferant IP address ranges).

You should get the site survay done ASAP. Find out if laying wires is going to be possible. Most router AP's can be used as the stadard bridge type but routers are more expensive uasally so you can save your self a few quid.

You need 1 router connected to the internet connection. What ever Irishbroadband provide may already be a router. A switch with enough ports to plug everything together and obviously enough AP's to cover the area you want.

There are generally 11 channels (13 if you get proper European gear). The channels arn't actually serperate as you would expect so you have to space out the AP's on the channels to maxamixze preformance, 1,6 and 11 are generally whats used (dont ask me what the seperation is on 13 channels 1,6,10,13??). Generally you will overlap the coverge of the access points to give seemless access so any AP's in range of each other should be spaced out on the channels as described.

If you could describe the setup and what the intended use of the network is a bit more it would help.

davidclayton

let me know if i'm on the right track...

irish broadband [+modem] ---->
netgear wifi router/switch/firewall ----> [top floor]
http://www.netgear.com/products/prod_details.php?prodID=223&view=
netgear AP x 2 ----> [1st & 2nd floor]
http://www.netgear.com/products/prod_details.php?prodID=170&view=

the 2 AP are RJ45'ed to the top switch/router to create a hard wire backbone.



???
dave
:dunno:

Rew

Yeah sounds grand, do a site survay to be sure that that will give coverage.

Im assuming form your other posts that the building is still being built?

If so run more network cable (CAT 5/CAT 6) then you need and run it to a few key points. This could be VERY VERY handy in the future. If the network gets busy (not just net traffic) you will need more AP's.

All the cable shuld be run to a central point.

Doing a site survay is the most important thing at the moment.