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Temporary Wireless Service For An Outdoors Event?
SBECK writes "I've been asked to come up with an estimate of how much it would cost to provide wireless internet service for a small convention being held at a campground. That would entail renting or buying enough wireless access points to give coverage to the area and getting temporary satellite Internet service. Unfortunately, I've never done any of this, so I'm floundering. I'd love to get some pointers from anyone who has any experience setting up something like this. What ISP services provide temporary satellite service for something like this?"
The first thing you need to find out is if the campground has power available. If it doesn't, then the cost of this project will go way up.
More info:
- in which country is this event going to be held?
- what infrastructure do you have available?
going to satellite link should only be a last resort.
Yeah, but I think the max speed you can get out of most equipment at those frequencies is something like 28.8kbps, maybe less. Also, I think you might run afoul of the FCC by letting a bunch of non-amateur operators use the frequencies unsupervised.
Also, try to stick with as few different vendors as possible. That way, you won't introduce unnecessary incompatibilities and you won't have to deal with different setups and configurations (that may not be such a big problem as long as you stick to using SoHo equipment, as it's usually fairly standard-compliant and easily configured through a web interface).
If your conference is really out in the middle of nowhere though consider turning to the pros. I have worked with T-Mobile techs on providing Internet access at an outdoor sports event in a fairly secluded area and have nothing but good things to say about them. Since there were no landlines and no WiFi coverage available we basically had to rely on cell transmissions. So we setup a IEEE 802.11 network and they provided the cell-phone backend. We had to put in a few restrictions (bandwidth throttling, etc) to ensure that the network was reasonably secure and to keep costs in check but it did work like a charm. Of course, that might not be an option depending on your choice of locale and your budget.
Something like this would make me cringe with the possibility of running afoul with the FCC for using the wireless connection for commercial purposes... What if someone were to use the wireless connection to order something (food, pizza, amazon)? That's a commercial transaction, and that's verboten in FCC Part 97. Besides, with longwave and shortwave, you're not gonna get any better than 9600bps. Best off looking at bouncing the data off a bird in the sky (satellite).
brian de kf4zwz
As I walk through the valley of death I fear no one, for I am the meanest sonova bitch in the valley!
Not all camp grounds have electricity. Sure, the nice little parks with all the slotted out areas have them. But, there are many camping areas back in the woods that don't have power. And they are areas for camping. I know, I have gone there. I first went with the boy scouts as a kid.
Evolution or ID?
You can even try setting up a SSB Packet Radio station , with the other part in the closest location with broadband Internet access, and you won't have any fixed fee, except for the broadband acces.
Transfer rates have tipically been very low, but might be Ok for email and low-bandwith use.
Not everyone likes to post in HTML.
Silly rabbit
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