Wireless - Lots of repeaters/AP's

Lumeycom

Lumeycom

Lumeycom

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Joined
31 Jan 2008
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1,327
Location
S Wales
Work related, hope thats ok!

I've got to cover 16 museum galleries with wireless coverage. been out and done a site survey and I think its going to need a few repeaters etc along the way as the walls are thick, there is plenty of Rebar inside the concrete walls and also a lot of old lighting with high discharge that will cause interferance.

Its not possible to get ethernet to most of the wireless points so they are going to have to repeat off each other etc (wiring is impossible due to Grade 1 listing etc)

So, firstly is it possible to have, say, 8 access points to provide coverage? Its possible that I can connect 2 to ethernet but more likely only one.

Also, within reason, what would you suggest is the best (read most reliable) kit that I can do this with? Dont have cisco style budget btw!

Thanks in advance

Lumey
 
Have you thought about using powerline devices? that way you can spread out wireless devices so that they have a wire going into a powerline device, meaning that rather then a signal having to go through multiple wi-fi devices to reach the router to the internet, it will just have to go to the closest AP then through the powerline system to the router, which can potential be faster then wi-fi.
 
To be honest, your gonna need a big budget IMO. In theory you could set up a meshed system of repeaters, but I think it would be a logistical nightmare, how are you going to power them all? Power line might be a good option.
 
What's the need for providing wireless cover?
What sort of traffic is it to carry?
What's the number of clients expected to connect?
What type of encryption and authentication is to be used?

The number and type of access points depends on the coverage results from the site survey and answers to the above questions.
The use of a repeater will extend the signal range but reduce the throughput drastically and again depends on the answers to the above. It's still going to require power and in theory, if you can run a power cable to it then you should be able to run an ethernet cable - or just run an ethernet cable and use PoE.

Even if you don't have a Cisco budget, you still want kit that will perform as expected and be reliable so you need to think beyond the tack on solutions people use for home networks. So, you need to define the specifications and cost the kit and any further installations that will do the job. If it it's within budget then great, otherwise present a case justifying the (within reason) extra cost.
 
Hmm, you can possibly set up a wireless repeater network with dd-wrt (and this is used by people running internet cafes and hotspots) but this can be slightly messy. I have this setup in my house. It does work flawlessly but they recommend 4 or less repeaters (in a daisy chain) or else the bandwidth is split horrendously. It's workable though and would cost the sum of 8 decent routers i.e. ~£400 going for something like the Buffalo WHR-HP-G54S (and you can purchase one with DD-WRT pre-installed (sanctioned by Buffalo).

Still, as the above advice states, you might be better off seeing if you can implement a proper setup using Cisco-esque products and a lot does depend on the questions asked by Tui above.
 
Power is already in place, getting more cables there is for all intents and purposes impossible hence the need for wireless coverage.

The need for wireless is to use a simple web interface for control purposes, the level of data is going to be miniscule really. Max clients is two via PDA, no more. There will be no WAN traffic on this network, purely control. Encryption is TBC, but its in a public place so needs to be of a sufficient level. Its an isolated single purpose network with no interconnections to any other parts or the internet.

Powerline has been ruled out as its a 3PH+N install and powerline doesn't seem to work well between phases. Different parts of the building are also fed from different distribution boards so its not viable, we have already tried it with no usable results.
 
I'd go with a daisy-chained DD-WRT router setup then. Simple and cost effective. You would be able to use WPA2 on this also. It's a little crude but will serve the purpose effectively.
 
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