Best way to network a large space with THICK walls!

Mint_Sauce

Mint_Sauce

Mint_Sauce

Soldato
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I'm about to set up a network in a largish area (similar in size to an average PC World I guess). Initially I was going to be using just wireless but due to the fact the area is split in to rooms with really thick old stone walls I don't think wireless will stand a chance. I'm thinking CAT 6 cabling back to a switch/modem and then a wireless router in each room for internet access?
 
CAT6 is probably a bit of an overkill as CAT5e will do Gigabit fine for most people.
If it's not much more than CAT5e, do it.

Powerlines may work, but depending on how many hosts you have and the arrangement, this could end up very expensive.
 
I doubt you'll need a WAP in every room, you won't know until you try.

Cat5e to a patch cabinet/room, WAP as and where needed.
 
Brilliant, thanks both. I'm now thinking a star topology CAT5e straight back to a switch connected to an ADSL/Cable modem. At the other end of each cable put a WAP.

One thing I thought of was that if people are walking around on their phones and need constant wireless access would they have to join each WAP separately or is there a way of authenticating once with one WAP then allowing seamless transfer to another WAP?
 
True seamless transfer between WAPs isn't possible with a traditional wireless AP - you need to use a system called wireless meshing however it is expensive.

If nearly-seamless is ok, you can put all of the WAPs on the same SSID and encryption key and the mobile device should automatically reconnect to a stronger signal once the old signal becomes unreachable.
 
ci_newman said:
True seamless transfer between WAPs isn't possible with a traditional wireless AP - you need to use a system called wireless meshing however it is expensive.

If nearly-seamless is ok, you can put all of the WAPs on the same SSID and encryption key and the mobile device should automatically reconnect to a stronger signal once the old signal becomes unreachable.
Click to expand...

In theory, but in practice this doesn't work well at all :(
 
PiKe said:
In theory, but in practice this doesn't work well at all :(
Click to expand...

The only problems I've had with it in the past are when users are right on the edge of 2 WAP broadcast areas and it attempts to switch between the 2, otherwise I've never had an issue.
 
I've found that connecting to the strongest doesn't seem to work, when I had it set up, if would often roam between 2 APs even though one of them was in the same room.
 
PiKe said:
I've found that connecting to the strongest doesn't seem to work, when I had it set up, if would often roam between 2 APs even though one of them was in the same room.
Click to expand...

Then your channel mappings were wrong :) If the APs are on the same frequency you will see this behaviour, it should be far better if you use channels that don't overlay each other, e.g. 1, 6 & 11.
 
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