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Wireless Network Solutions for a Metropolitan Area?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the things-of-a-non-802.11-variety dept.

An anonymous reader asks: "I work for a company that is expanding into multiple buildings within the same office park. We have line-of-sight between the buildings and are looking into wireless alternatives. Does anyone have experience with products such as Proxim's Tsunami or Bridgewave's GE60 Gigabit wireless link? The point-to-point links will need to support the usual LAN traffic (SMB, HTTP, SMTP, etc.) as well as VOIP. The buildings are not large--up to 140 users, whose main network use would be e-mail, printing, and saving Excel documents to file servers, as well as the aforementioned VOIP). Are these connections any more secure and reliable than using something in the 802.11 family of protocols?"

4 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Don't rely on inherent "security" by TCM · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would always run a VPN on top of anything wireless, especially when carrying sensitive information for a company. If you are unsure about the security of a solution, run security that you are sure of on top.

    --
    Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
  2. Re:Laser Link by aderusha · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The technology you are talking about is called free-space optical and is fairly mature. For the distances you are shooting, you should be able to run gigabit reliably. They are relatively secure, but you'd still want to run some sort of VPN over the link (at gigabit speeds this may be difficult). For shorter distances (such as those listed), you will find they are plenty reliable and can handle even heavy rain if installed correctly.

  3. Addition - locate as much as close to the user by ejoe_mac · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Also, do what you can to cut back on cross building traffic. Make sure each building has a local print server, and locate user files closest to the users that will access them. Sending a 100mb print job to the copier around the corner shouldn't involve data leaving the building.

  4. Re:Considered fiber? by mjpaci · · Score: 3, Insightful

    fiber++

    Doing it yourself--

    There are a whole lot of liability issues that you don't want to take on by running your e-bay fiber yourself or boring your own holes in the landlord's property. Hire the proper entity to do this (after getting the landlord's permission) and make sure they carry enough (or what is required by the property owner) liability insurance.

    He's not running fiber to the cabana next to his pool at home -- let the professionals take care of it.

    --Mike