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A Wireless Network for a 4-Story Apt. Building?
zzzreyes asks: "I live in a 4 storey building, and pretty much everyone in this building is into gaming and computers. I have just received, through the death of a great aunt, about $7,000. I want to know how and what I should buy, to provide wireless access through out the whole building, so we can all share one connection. There are 6 double-room apartments on each side, and we only have four floors. I'll hopefully have access to the elevator shaft, in case I need it. Will $7,000 be enough?" How cheaply could you do something like this, assuming you had access to much of the building? What would be the best way to set up the access points to guarantee the best coverage for the whole building?
You will need access hardware from/for your ISP (e.g. cable modem, DSL modem, etc. Usually Most likely you will need at least one wireless AP for each floor. Depending on the thickness of walls and size of the building, multiple APs might be necessary. Budget around $100 (rough number) per AP for consumer grade equipment, which is all you probably need. Don't forget to put each AP on a different wireless channel - and stagger the channels to minimize frequency overlap (e.g. Floor 1: Channel 1, Floor 2: Channel 9, Floor 3: Channel 4, Floor 4: Channel 11).
You probably need a NAT since you will have many people needing IP addresses, unless you want to get a subnet prefix from your ISP (at $7k that isn't likely). So at least one NAT box is needed.
If you are comfortable with Linux networking, take a look at a Linksys WR54G as described here - one of these on each floor would allow you to have a cheap AP + detailed control of banwidth (i.e. make sure that no one guy hogs all your Internet connection).
At the access point you will need to put that NAT mentioned above, plus a switch for between floors. The Linksys could act as both and is a cheap solution. If Linux isn't your bag, then a decent low end (SOHO router) such as a D-Link DFL-300 would be a good thing (with built-in firewall to boot, which would help).
In terms of wiring, get at least CAT 5 cable run ("CAT 6" is even better) to every floor. A separate wire to every floor, all culminating in the basement (or wherever your Internet access is) gives a measure of reliability in case of a wire fault or router fault on one floor. A patch panel at the termination point of all the wires is a good idea.
Expect to spend a large amount of the money on the labor for getting the wiring done. Professional cable pullers can charge high 2 digits to 3 digits/hour. If you hire a professional company to do the whole thing including picking equipment, setting it up, etc., then $7k isn't near enough.
Simple suggestions..
1 - take a laptop around and see how signal strength is..
2 - block all outside access via mac address restrictions and encryption.
3 - expect some boob to start dling kiddy porn and get you in trouble with your isp and have your connection cut off... ( remember most AUP's prohibit this with out a business account )
4 - good luck not getting sued.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I just checked out the product for a magazine review I'm writing (checked out means I talked to the marketing reps). They have a cool distributed solution where you deploy $300 thin access points that do 802.11b/g all over the place (like one in every apartment, and run normal Cat5 wire back to a central switch that automatically configures the APs for best channel coverage/etc. Single point of configuration, saturation coverage, and they said a small installation could be done for $5,000. You can even put in the building plans into their software and it tells you where to put the APs.
With WDS you could implement a wireless "backbone" with 4+ access points, one (or more) per floor. Then one access point would connect to a router box which would in turn be connected to your broadband link.
I'd run the cable to a central switch and have an access point on each floor. This setup will work well for lan games, but if you're all trying to do online gaming, you better have a decent connection.
I know this part doesn't answer your question, but I'd agree with others. Invest the money, buy a house, pay off debt or do something you wouldn't otherwise get a chance to do.
I have no
It shouldn't cost anyplace nearly that much money. For that much, you could probably get the whole place wired. Gaming isn't going to be a good thing for wireless, anyhow. But if you insist on doing something wireless, what I'd suggest would be to look for some powerful 802.11g gear (Just top-of-the-line consumer stuff, nothing pro level) and just put one unit on each floor in as central a location as you can manage. It'll be hard to work out the specifics, but I can't imagine it taking more than one unit per floor unless the rooms with computers are long distances from eachother.
Now what I'd really suggest would be to have it wired. This may be something to discuss with the landlord and it wouldn't even be that tough to do, in some cases. You could possibly even run wired connections through the same lines the cable goes.
But if wireless is truly the only option you want, and you can get access to the elevator shaft my suggestion would be to run a 100Mbit line into the shaft to a switch, then drop a potent WAP at each floor level on seperate channels and names, that way you're not sharing all the bandwidth for all the floors. Linksys WAP11's would be good for this as you can hack them to get a little more power.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
> What kind of donut should I buy tomorrow?
I'd recommend a cruller.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Speakeasy.net
They let you share bandwidth. You sign yourself as accountable so you might want to create a legal entity to hide behind (corporation or nonprofit).
They'll even take care of the "billing" for you. You could charge everyone actual-cost, with a higher bill for the guy who consistently "forgets" to turn off P2P filesharing to/from the outside..
Geez, I just hope we're not too late -- questions like this tend to get answered by shysters with "well, that's cutting it close, but I'll see what we can do."
I have an 802.11g (Apple Airport Extreme if anyone cares) access point in my basement, in an electrical closet. I'm up on the second floor, on the other side of the house, and get excellent signal strength.
Now, that's only three floors, and my house isn't huge. If your four-story building is large, you should still be fine dropping a single access point in the middle of the second or third floor, assuming you have a cable drop at that location.
Worst case, you need two access points, and with the Airport, they can daisy chain one to the other -- one access point can use another access point for...access. I don't know about other brands.
I really didnt want to talk abuout this since some cryingpants above made a big deal out of it. She was worth close to 35Million. I got that money because I attended the funeral, everyone that attended got at least 7g. She is the one that bought me my first computer and I know she would love it if spent it in technology and everyone can enjoy something that she has left behind as part of her legacy. Anyhow, I know that I dont have to use the whole 7G but if I can buy everything top of the line and make sure it is as zero fault tolerance as it can be, I will be happy. If this offends you, sure, cry, but dont post. I don't need to use to pay bills or buy a house, thanks for the idea, I want to build something in memory of her and more importantly in memory of what I will remember her for. She introduced me to technology!
I laughed out loud when this guy asked if $7000 was enough to network a three story building. I helped build a wired network in a similar building, and we didn't even spend $200 -- which included an expensive crimping tool that's nice to have anyway. Of course it would have added about $500 to do it wireless (assuming you need three WEPs) and maybe another $1,000 if we'd had to buy wireless NICs for everybody (all of the comptuers in the building, most of which were Macs, already had wired NICs) but that's still a long way from $7000.
But a system, any system, needs to be maintained! I got involved in this project because a non-techie friend asked me to help out. My first advice to him was not to try to sign up everybody in the building right off the bat. Instead, they should start with the two households minimum (my friend didn't live in the same apartment as the DSL connection) and then expand it slowly. In the event, I think he decided that it wasn't worth the hastle to have that many more people involved.
Okay, I will assume you truely want a wireless network despite the good advice voiced by others.
Since you failed to include any information like apartment building footage, a map/blueprint with your location marked, etc., this will be a general approach that assumes you don't want to leave anything behind when you move out eventually.
1) Buy a WiFi card and an access point (AP) from your favorite company, but make sure it is at least 802.11g (D-Link comes to mind, since they claim near "wirespeed" encryption.
2) Setup your AP (with WEP, largest key available!) in your room (which hopefully is near the middle of the building), and then walk around and see what your signal looks like. Make a rough map of signal strength and note any shadows. While you are at it, you might see if anyone else has their own WiFi already. (You might be able to enlist them in your endeavor!)
3) Decide if you think you need to upgrade the AP's antenna to a larger "omnidirectional" antenna (6db or so. Anything larger than about 8db probably is a directional antenna) so you can reach the furthest recesses of the building.
4) Build a Linix box that firewalls your ISP line, any wire-based Lan you might have, and the wireless AP! You need to protect yourself, or one of you new "friends" will hack you.
4b) (optional) Setup an open source RADIUS server on the box and point the AP to it for authentication that is harder to break than MAC filtering + WEP.
5) Decide which services you will let go through the wireless. Traffic shape (QOS) anything that might get abused but you still want to let through anyway. Make sure to include any game ports you plan to use.
6) Decide how much of your ISP bandwith you want to let the wireless people have, and traffic-shape the interface card.
7) invite a select few of your neighbors to try out the system (give them the shared WEP key or a Radius login)
8) After you get their feedback and see how your network handles the load, decide if you still want to go through with telling everybody.
Costs:
~$300 AP + couple of nicks from D-Link
~$100 New antenna for AP to boost range
~$400 linux box + 3 NICs
$??? Your labor cost to set this all up
If you find that the above single AP setup is not sufficient, I respectfully suggest you give up as a more complex setup is beyond a simple slashdot post. Hire a professional.
- D
The expensive part is going to be getting the building on the internet. You're going to need something like a 1.5Mbit business SDSL or T-1 with 64 or so IPs and a SLA. This is probably going to wind up being around $600-$800/mo depending on your provider.
If you really want to honor her memory, why not donate the money to a school (college or private HS). Then you can have a nice plaque with her name on it put up in the computer lab. That's a lot better way to honor someone's memory than throwing a year-long LAN party for your neighbors. Networking your building, while a fun geek project, probably isn't the best way to honor her memory. If you want to do that, get your neighbors to pitch in (labor, $, or equipment) and make it a community project.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Much of the time, your rent will be cheaper than what you pay on a mortgage . . .
That's not exactly true. A mortgage just covers the cost of the property. You rent a property that someone else owns outright (not likely if it's an apartment), or they are paying a mortgage. So your rent is covering their mortgage + building insurance (and flood insurance near the coast) + property taxes + landscaping (frequently).
So for a given piece of property, it's a pretty safe assumption that strictly speaking, the mortgage would cost less. But then you've got multiple other bills on top of the mortgage to foot now.
A lot of people talk about rent as if it is "wasted money." That's not at all true, most of the time.
I would agree with your statement if the "most of the time" were changed to every now and then, or "rarely"
I bought a condo a couple years ago. with a 15 year mortgage, and throwing some extra principle in the payment, I'm starting off with a 50/50 split between interest and principle. So i've socked away a little cash in equity. Now during this same period of time, the appraised value of my condo has come close to doubling, which blew my mind when I found that out. I've "made" a lot more money through appreciation than I have actually paying down my loan.
Now doubling in price in just a couple years (almost 3) is pretty incredible, and has a lot to do with the fact that interest rates are so low. So when things finally settle down, and the fed finally starts fearing inflation... interest rates will climb back up, savings accounts will have meaning again, and the value of my condo will probably drop in appraised value, but even if things got really bad, and it dropped all the way back down to the price I bought it for, I still have the principle that I've paid off.
Buying a house is not a guaranteed win... if somebody were to buy my condo at it's current value, and the fed raised interest rates the week after, they'd probably be stuck with the place for a few years.
But it's pretty easy to get recent sales information for properties in a given neighborhood. And it's not too difficult to look at a neighborhood and imagine whether or not it could turn into a crack warehouse in a few years.
And house values make a whole lot more sense in terms of rationality than the stock market does. Right now I think my condo is over valued, but definitely worth more now than when I bought it.