regulations on wifi hotspot

arfur · 20 Oct 2012 at 14:40

I'm in the process of doing a project which will involve erecting a wifi antenna that is about a 9-12db gain ( approx 9 mile range in open air but less than 1 meter long) for consumers to use. As this is an off the shelf product do I need to inform anyone or any regulations that need to be followed that you know of?

thanks

dfarrall · 20 Oct 2012 at 14:47

Im about 95% sure that will surpass regulations in the UK (presumably?)
What wattage are you outputting?

bitslice · 20 Oct 2012 at 14:53

The receive antenna can be any size (some AP's separate the two)

The Transmitter is limited to 10mW [FONT=Arial, Helvetica](20dBm)[/FONT]
The output overall is limited to 20dBm, so you have to work out the cable losses and gain of the antenna.

In practice I've not heard of anyone complaining if you use a suitably directional antenna and don't pee into anyone else's puddle.

arfur · 20 Oct 2012 at 14:56

the idea is allow consumers wifi access in a certain area of the town, so it will be broadcasting on max, but the antenna is a 12db max - loss of the cable so should be well within guide lines

godinman · 20 Oct 2012 at 17:15

The difficulty will be in the signal strength from the consumer devices to the AP, what sized area are you trying to cover?

muon · 20 Oct 2012 at 17:22

Mobile phone masts are massive with lower frequencies and don't have a decent range. How will this be any good?

arfur · 20 Oct 2012 at 17:32

1/2 mile max really

godinman · 20 Oct 2012 at 17:36

1/2 mile radius from the central point, or 1/2 side to side?

We do a bit of caravan park wifi work, your best bet is to use a few AP's and connect them back to base with some 5ghz ptp links. You need to do a proper survey really too...

arfur · 20 Oct 2012 at 17:40

1/2 mile radius, cant put any other AP's anywhere else, it will only be in 1 location. Its only a work in progress thing so I might just set up the AP and then test it to see how good it is.

godinman · 20 Oct 2012 at 17:41

Give it a go, you'll find it better using a higher gain antenna rather than more TX power as it will also receive signals better.

bitslice · 20 Oct 2012 at 17:43

muon said:
Mobile phone masts are massive with lower frequencies and don't have a decent range. How will this be any good?

The antenna on many mobiles is a copper sqiggle on a PCB, a design which has almost no gain, that's why cell phone coverage is poor.

muon · 22 Oct 2012 at 19:53

bitslice said:
The antenna on many mobiles is a copper sqiggle on a PCB, a design which has almost no gain, that's why cell phone coverage is poor.

Won't that also be the case for other consumer devices?

dfarrall · 22 Oct 2012 at 20:01

muon said:
Won't that also be the case for other consumer devices?

Yup

anything I don't mind · 22 Oct 2012 at 21:55

I watched this security conference lecture on wifi regulations in different regions but i can not find it.

But i found one on tv uhf, but ill continue looking for it. Was very interesting.

I am not sure on the regulations but i doubt broadcasting to paying customers would be unregulated. But you might be able to find the limit in size and go just below or something like that.