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WLAN setup with repeaters

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  • 01-02-2011 11:30am
    #1
    BuzzFish
    Registered Users Posts: 736 ✭✭✭


    Hi folks,

    Just looking for a bit of guidance if you can help.

    I'm doing some work for a charity (not a huge amount of cash) who provide accommodation for patients visiting a nearby hospital in Dublin. The building is quite big with approx 14 rooms over 3 stories.

    I'm looking to put in a WiFi solution to provide coverage to the whole place using an adsl modem/ap and some repeaters. As I'm only on site once a week I need the AP's to be solid enough that we don't have to be resetting them all the time. Other functionality that would help is to be able to block file sharing and inappropriate adult content (as much as possible without a full blown monitoring service).

    I have a tp-link router flashed with dd-wrt at the minute and that seems to provide good functionality and some decent blocking abilities.

    Any tips on make's models or set up techniques. To you think using dd-wrt on all routers would be a good idea?

    oh, and it's not possible to cable the ap's together, it'll all have to all be over the air.

    Thanks in advance.


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    #2
    BuzzFish
    Registered Users Posts: 736 ✭✭✭BuzzFish


    Bump!

    Also to add to the above and to clarify, I'm looking for an ADSL Wireless Access Point and an AP that will be used as a repeater.

    Anyone?


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    #3
    RogueFaye
    Registered Users Posts: 29 ✭RogueFaye


    well u might want to check my replies here just for reference.
    With regard to resetting them all the time, if you have DD-WRT, you can do a daily reset at midnight etc and it would be hassle free.
    should u load DD-WRT or not, will depends on your circumstance, You see while DD-wrt might be feature rich and fast, it does limit your max connection to 4096, (go to admin tab>management>max port) , is this enough? Hmm...depends, for a regular home user YES, for someone on Heavy P2P, probably Not. for a hospital??? Who knows how many users and what they'll use. Setting this to the Max 4096 is not recommend for all router, simply because if your router has got to the stage when it goes to that figure and the router itself does not have enough RAM to support this, it will lock up.
    while on some powerful router such as Asus RT-N16, 4096 is simply not enough as it is design to handle something like 300,000 connections, so it would be a bottleneck. So you make the choice, stability or bottleneck, finding the right number would takes some time and work. just read your CPU/RAM load against your Active session to see if you've set too high or bottlenecked/.
    which hospital may I ask? if i could be of some help....


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    #4
    BuzzFish
    Registered Users Posts: 736 ✭✭✭BuzzFish


    Thanks for your reply,

    Turns out the requirement just got more interesting. They have 2 houses. Firstly the main building is the big one with 3 floors / 14 rooms and then directly in the line of sight they have a second house 80meters (265 yards) away. Currently there are separate internet connections being used in both properties.

    As there is CCTV systems set up in both locations I want to bridge the networks, and do away with the second internet connection. This will allow the CCTV to be joined and controlled centrally

    So I'm thinking....
    Main Building
    New Modem / AP at dsl point in main building.
    Repeater located elsewhere to provide full wireless coverage to that building.
    AP with directional antenna pointing at house to provide the bridge

    Second House
    AP with directional antenna to provide a bridge
    Second AP to provide local wireless signal for the house.

    I know I need to research a little more but am I on the right track? Any suggestions as to the right hardware for the job?


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    #5
    stephenlane80
    Registered Users Posts: 163 ✭✭stephenlane80


    Well, 80 metres is a good distance to bridge with cheap routers, a couple of these might be overkill but they would provide a solid connection between the two buildings, Espicially if you are streaming video (CCT) over them:
    https://wirelessconnect.eu/product/ubiquiti-nanostation2


    You could use wrt54g routers or something similar setup in repeating bridge mode to provide coverage for the buildings, with another one acting as the primary gateway to which all of the other repeating routers are bridged,

    If there is a lot of traffic concider a more powerful router for use as a gateway, and also bear in mind that there may be some bottlenecks when you daisy chain routers in repeating mode,

    If you want to use wrt54g with its default firmware you could use its built in WDS functionality for wireless repeating


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