Building a Wireless Network for an Apartment Complex?

itwerx asks: "I've been asked to design a wireless infrastructure for an apartment complex. Tenants will pay an 'access deposit' and a monthly surcharge to get a PCMCIA/PCI/USB network card along with free installation and, of course, wireless Internet access. The buildings are arranged such that 2 WAP's per building should cover all the tenants (one WAP per side, far enough away to get line-of-sight through the windows). I do have a few concerns, however. All help is appreciated and when we're done we'll put up a HOWTO!"

"My concerns are the following:

• Interference between WAP's (there's several buildings) - there are enough channels if we go 802.11a but cost is a concern.
• Management of 'hitchhikers' - we're planning on manual assignment via DHCP/MAC address for tenants with others having all their HTTP requests get directed to an info page. Anybody done something different?
• Interference from WAP's and other devices that may be owned by tenants! Should we just avoid the default channel and hope for the best?!?

What other things might I need to worry about?"

Comments

interference..

[molo]

Interference between the two WAPs is not really what you have to worry about. Put them on different channels on opposite ends of the chunk of 802.11b spectrum and its done.

The real issue is interference from other devices. I hope no one has a 2.4GHz phone.. or a microwave.. or X11.. or one of the other dozens of devices on the (unregulated) 2.4GHz band. It can knock your 11Mbit down to 1.