Wireless kit

[Hecate]

We are wanting to develop wireless links on part of our site but playing around with basic WAPs has made us realise we need beefier kit. The troube is none of us has much experience of wireless and we're not sure where to go for help. Any advice welcome.

[steve]

Are you trying to link segments of your network together or provide wireless network access in buildings?

[Dos_Box]

Hi, and welcome. Most manufacturers offer a range of point to point ariels which provide an excellent method of getting signals across gaps, and as has been pointed out you can use the 'repeater' facility some base stations have.

 

http://www.dlink.co.uk/archivos/1858-399-fichero/wireless_q1_2005.pdf

http://www.buffalo-technology.com/products/category-detail.php?categoryid=9

http://www.netgear.co.uk/office_wireless_antenna.php

 

Any decent networking company should be able to set you up in half a day.

[E1uSiV3]

Hey Dos_Box, "ariel" is spelt "aerial" lol, sorry its been bugging me so i had to tell you

[webman]

I prefer 'antenna'

[ChrisH]

Hey Dos_Box, "ariel" is spelt "aerial" lol, sorry its been bugging me so i had to tell you

 

he's been watching the Little Mermaid too much me thinks .

[Dos_Box]

Thats what having little children does for you. My wife commented to one of her work collegues the other day who is expecting her first child and was quietly singing the Oasis track 'Whats the story, morning glory' that give it 9 months and it will become 'Whats the story in Ballamory', without you notiving it ever happened.

[alan-d]

I was wondering what washing powder had to do with wireless technology :oops:

[john]

Or a typface

[Hecate]

Are you trying to link segments of your network together or provide wireless network access in buildings?

 

Both. We want set up a link to the sports hall across the road and allow us to use mobile laptops within school

[tarquel]

thought I'd revive this quickly...

 

We've [i've] mentioned it before i think, but is there any recommendations on the Wireless Access Point that can "daisychain" with other wireless access points to form a sort of wifi mesh that will enable me to use laptops wirelessly here?

 

I'm afraid of getting the wrong gear, and this would be a cheap operation so I wouldnt be able to add a new server for this- its just a wifi point or two to start with - then add more as time goes on.

 

Any thoughts to it?

 

EDIT: hecate lol thats similar to what we might want to do in the future lol registration in the sports hall / leisure centre.

 

Nath.

[beeswax]

Hecate, I've just stumbled across this post. have you relly got 3 heads?

beeswax

[beeswax]

but more seriously..I was discussing this with our senior IT Techie this afternoon just before the bromcom rep came in. he said the old bromcom system used to daisychain its wireless access points around schools, and if one failed, they all failed.

I once had some small dealings with a company called flexsys who were hoping to do this on a sometimes grand scale, town centres for example, though they certainly did hotels etc. you might get some ideas by visiting the link.

beeswax

[webman]

Get some cheap Buffalo APs and have a look at Sputnik for management.

[Ric_]

The D-Link APs do 'wireless repeating' which would help you do this but they can be a little flakey (and if one goes all the repeaters dangling off it do too!).

 

Of course, I would recommend buying decent APs and wiring them in but my head was generous enough to give me a shed load of cash to buy bluesocket gear

[free4440273]

i use mimo linksys access points - reliable, sturdy, very fast throughput, easy configuration, elegant management web-based console...i tried belkin at one of my previous schools: they certainly do work 'straight out of the box', but at least three (3) of the access points 'died' within a couple of months, so i question their longevity. having said that, belkin offer lifetime warranty and shipped me out three new no quibbles, and i do know of schools who have absolutely no probs with them at all...but overall i still prefer the linksys...

[sahmeepee]

Of course, I would recommend buying decent APs and wiring them in but my head was generous enough to give me a shed load of cash to buy bluesocket gear

 

How have you gone about this? Are you using PEAP with Microsoft IAS for example? Are you running Windows/Linux/Netware/somethingelse at the server end? I'm interested in doing whole-site wireless at some point (and the pressure from staff will undoubtedly build over time), but I'm not willing to do it with weak (read: WEP) or no :!: security as I know a lot of schools have.

 

The current wireless gear we use (only 2 consumer-level APs) is set to use WPA-PSK, but it took quite a while to iron out the wrinkles and it doesn't scale up very well because of the manual entry of passphrases.

[W32Jbot]

Whatever you do dont buy Cheap AP's. Could you be a little more specific on what you wish to achieve?

[eean]

The current wireless gear we use (only 2 consumer-level APs) is set to use WPA-PSK, but it took quite a while to iron out the wrinkles and it doesn't scale up very well because of the manual entry of passphrases.

 

Windows XP has quite a nice utility (in Control Pannel) that copies a program onto a memory stick/disk and it will automatically setup the WPA-PSK pass phrase on the computer. I have hacked this to make it completely automatic (let me know if you want it/to know how) and included it on our automatic build CD. Or you could put it on the network so it is installed first by plugging in (although you may want to keep control over it so you can varify users have virus scan and auto updates).

Because it 100% automated I can have a random 64 character pass phrase, which minimises risk of brute-force/dictionary attacks.

 

We've [i've] mentioned it before i think, but is there any recommendations on the Wireless Access Point that can "daisychain" with other wireless access points to form a sort of wifi mesh that will enable me to use laptops wirelessly here? [/Quote]

 

Although I've never done this, I've heard it can be bad news. Assuming the APs don't crash, every time you daisy chain you are halving your bandwidth. You may get away with it for web access but I'd forget it for ANYthing else.

By the time you have paid an electrician to put sockets in high locations, you've probably covered the cost of a Cat-5 cable and power-over-ethernet - far neater.

 

Oh, and avoid D-Link.

[Ric_]

@sahmeepee: The best way IMHO is to use a solution with an 'access controller' which automagically configures your APs and handles the authentication by talking to AD using LDAP.

 

Several options are available - Cisco, 3COM (uses Ariba technology IIRC), Ariba, Bluesocket (which I went for), HP (which is a little limited and the APs aren't much cop)...

[webman]

If you want better range/coverage you should look into the 802.11a (5.8GHz) access points. I believe Solwise sell them, but they are expensive.

[kingswood]

I've been looking at Cisco gear- and especially the Aironet stuff. Seems most have an outdoor range of 600-700m. That's good enough for my PE people who want to use PDA lesson monitor registration. Anyone have an idea how good they are at this kind of range? Other than that we have three new (el cheepo) D-Link APs coming in to replace ailing older D-Link APs. I don't like D-Link. They turn me off my breakfast....

[Ric_]

My Bluesocket APs are dual channel (A/B/G) so that should be good for a few years

[eean]

If you want better range/coverage you should look into the 802.11a (5.8GHz) access points.

 

The higher frequency means 802.11a signals have more difficulty penetrating walls and other obstructions so the range is less. There is potentially less interference. Because the frequency is different you can have a and g APs together and they wont interfere.

 

The top end APs may load balance users between the two frequencies, allowing faster simultanious connections - I don't know.

[webman]

Radio waves travel in straight lines and at 2.4GHz do not penetrate obstacles very well. Some surfaces reflect the signals quite well whilst others tend to absorb them ... 5GHz wireless suffers from similar problems BUT, with better penetration and scatter, it offers considerably improved non-line-of-site (NLOS) capabilities over 2.4GHz devices.

 

802.11a/5GHz radio, although costing a little more than 2.4GHz products, has much better penetration and scatter making it considerably better for indoors operation where it needs to reach remote rooms. In our opinion, 5Ghz is the future for wireless networking in buildings.

 

http://solwise.co.uk/networkingwireless.htm

 

5GHz In The UK [PDF]