Meshed wi-fi?

[theeldergeek]

We are being asked to survey our site for wi-fi (we have limited wi-fi at present as the school is served very well via cable).

 

One phrase that is being bantered about is "meshed wi-fi", and whilst I've looked up the terminology on Wiki, I'm not sure I fully undertsand the principle.

 

Off the back of that, can anyone suggest what sort of hardware would form such a network? Are we talking basic access points, or more sophisticated hardware?

 

Thanks.

[localzuk]

See the attached diagram. Meshing is where not all the access points are wired to the network, and instead connect to each other, to form a 'mesh' of devices providing coverage.

 

We have a few meshed APs here at the moment, for various reasons.

 

One thing to bear in mind is that the more hops you add from a wired device to the client, the lower the bandwidth available there will be.

 

[dwhyte85]

Beat me to it, what he said ^

 

Meshing can be used where no network connectivity is available.

 

You'd mesh an access point with connectivity with one that doesn't to provide connectivity on the point with no network access.

[featured_spectre]

Ruckus does this automatically and it works flawlessly we have seen.

[edutech4schools]

If your school has lots of network points then mesh is not needed.

 

Lots of hardware choices but I like the Netgear WAG302v2 uk. large range, support up to 250 devices although only tried 50 and not to expensive at £150. I have 3 covering a school with 450 pupils.

[BatchFile]

Ruckus does this automatically and it works flawlessly we have seen.

 

Yup, +1 for Ruckus, got ours from CpLtd on here and it's seamless

 

If your school has lots of network points then mesh is not needed.

Needed, no, but it does give you an emergency backup route if anything happens to the fibre between cabinets:rolleyes:

 

The mesh works at 5GHz so doesn't interfere with the normal 2.6GHz traffic

[theeldergeek]

Thanks all.