Shared WiFi?

[stockhausen]

Imagine a location out in the country with multiple accommodation units . . . OK, a holiday caravan site then.

On this site there is a permanent central administration building and shop with a resident family.
This building has a hardwired telephone connection and a router for Internet access.
People own caravans that are rented out weekly to holidaymakers.
Is there any mechanism to supply WiFi to the caravans?
High speed is not really an issue, people are not expected to "stream" films, just to be able to access email, news, etc. . . .

Incidentally, before you comment, this is NOT a "Traveller's" site, it is a permanent, well established holiday site kn Devon - without WiFi

 

[alexakasloth]

External access point for the caravans to connect to? And if that needs to be located at a distance from the admin building a point to point antenna to transmit the signal to it if it can't be via ethernet. That seemed to be the set up at a place we stayed in Balloch.

 

[stockhausen]

I am not convinced that an external access point would work, assuming you mean RJ45 connections?
The caravans are actually static and on paved hard-standings with power and water connections.
Something like point-to-point antenna(s) with routers in the caravans seems to be the only viable options.
As it happens, connection to the Internet would have to be at the discretion of the caravan owners, I'm not sure that everyone would want to take it up - in which case I would not want people to "hack into the link" without paying their share for the service.

 

[Caged]

If you give people Wi-Fi they are going to want to watch Netflix on it. If Netflix doesn't work they are going to complain that the Wi-Fi is broken.

You should aim to do this properly, or you shouldn't try, imo. I'd say aiming to deliver 20Mbps to each unit is the goal you should set for this. Sharing a broadband connection probably isn't going to cut it.

 

[Juicy Jama]

I am not convinced that an external access point would work, assuming you mean RJ45 connections?
The caravans are actually static and on paved hard-standings with power and water connections.
Something like point-to-point antenna(s) with routers in the caravans seems to be the only viable options.
As it happens, connection to the Internet would have to be at the discretion of the caravan owners, I'm not sure that everyone would want to take it up - in which case I would not want people to "hack into the link" without paying their share for the service.

Depends on what kind of distances you are talking about. An external AP would definitely work if the distance wasn't too much and the AP was powerful enough. RJ45 connections doesnt really make sense as they are just the connectors on either end of the cable connecting the AP to the router

Also even though you mentioned speed isn't a concern I would almost guarantee many people sharing an adsl or what ever method is being used wont satisfy multiple caravans

 

[Avalon]

The issue you have is the fresnel zone is likely to be horrible, the signal bouncing off vans will cause issues. Depending on the size of the site you may end up having to use P2P links to masts and rebroadcast, each van with an external omni such as the Ubiquiti Bullet or a directional nano station etc. You probably want them on an extension pole at each unit to give as clean a fresnel zone as possible, but without an idea of scale and some actual surveying, it’s all speculation.

 

[stockhausen]

If you give people Wi-Fi they are going to want to watch Netflix on it. . . .

I'm sure you are right, they will not be able to do so.

. . . If Netflix doesn't work they are going to complain that the Wi-Fi is broken. . . .

Tough, they should read the notice

. . . I'd say aiming to deliver 20Mbps to each unit is the goal you should set for this. . .

Sadly, not possible

. . . Sharing a broadband connection probably isn't going to cut it.

So, unlikely to be possible then?

 

[Caged]

I think you just need to weigh up the cost/hassle of doing it vs. the benefits once you're done. How are customers going to react to being told in advance there's no Wi-Fi vs. being told there is Wi-Fi but it not performing well? To cover a site like this you're going to need to locate access points out amongst the caravans, these will need power and installation, and then you have the cost of the access points as well. The budget would easily be in the thousands rather than the hundreds. If that all sounds acceptable then I think the best place to take the question would be the Ubiquiti forums.