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Ask Slashdot: Best Wi-Fi Solution For a Hotel?
dynamo52 writes "I have been tasked with replacing a managed Wi-Fi system for a mid-sized hotel. They have already selected Comcast to provide a 100mbps connection, which unfortunately must come in at one corner of the ~5-acre property. The hotel plans to provide this service for free, so there is no need for any type of billing management system, though it should be secured enough that the parking lot does not become a free Wi-Fi hotspot. Additionally, there is no ethernet infrastructure in place. The existing APs (hidden away in proprietary encasements) seem to be connected via telephone lines and the owners have strongly indicated they would prefer that no new wiring be installed. Have any Slashdotters implemented similar systems? Specifically, what hardware did you use and what special considerations should I take in designing this system?"
Well if they getting comcast tv as well then they may need to rewire the cable system as well any ways. Any way more info on how they AP are setup and linked will help.
And to cut down on free wifi use you can set a password that you just give out to hotel guests.
Juniper's recent purchase of Trapeze gives them a pretty powerful line of wireless hardware with software to support it. One cool feature is the ability to literally draw lines based on floorplan as to where a given AP will allow a client to connect.
Then there's Aruba. They have some really great management and security features. Browse both vendor's sites and take a look at their literature. I've seen both implemented to good effect in your type of scenario.
Aside from a chain lf wireless repeaters, looks like you really need some cable. Tell the owners that its just one of those technical neccesities.
No offense... but judging by your wording, the hotel should really hire a professional. Mark my words: this will turn well for neither you nor the hotel.
Just make sure that every client will have to run an install script that sets up the passwords and as as a bonus installs a bitcoin miner.
You'll be rich before you know it!
Check these out as well - they have a lot of the same features that Aruba has, and also some fantastic control software that comes with it. We use it to coordinate three APs in our office and it works great... it's a solution out-of-the-box that'll suit your needs.
http://www.ubnt.com/unifi
check mesh based networks
Look at Ubiquiti's stuff. It's consumer level priced, but they have some great management software.
Have you looked at Arubanetworks?
No this is not a plug, but more of an honest suggestion. There are others, but based on research out there, It seems they have a pretty strong offering in that area.
Imho
100 Mbit Ethernet really requires only two twisted pairs so you might just get away with replacing the connectors on the end of the existing cable which has exactly that number of pairs! The old cable is probably not shielded at all so before jumping on this try it out with a few interconnected hotspots and load the system as best you can.
The best hotel wifi experiences have been when I was given the SSID and (simple) password at check-in and, most importantly, the signal reached my room. There's nothing worse than having to go down the hall every time you want a signal, and many people will have smartphones so don't make the password 20 digits.
Does it need to be an open Wifi or can you set up Bridges?
Look for a cheap and reliable wireless mesh networks. Forget cisco and the other big names. Companies like meraki and aerohive will sell you the hardware as well as the management service (for a monthly fee). As an alternative you could look for somebody to deploy custom openwrt based access point with a routing daemon, e.g.: olsr, batman, wing, and many other alternatives.
For a mid sized hotel you should be able to mount N class repeaters on each floor. If course that will depend on how big the floors are so you may need more than one. Ideally you would need to place the unit in the middle of the floor for maximum coverage. The network should be secured and the password should be changed regularly. This will keep the wardrivers out of your parking lot and it shouldn't be too dificult for the average end user with a laptop to find the ssid and enter the pin. You probably don't want to get some off the shelf equipment from Best Buy as you will need more power than those units are designed for. I imagine someone here could recomend a brand that would work.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
This is pretty much what Meraki was designed to do.
time Warner cable has in room modems / AP system for hotels that is tied to the hotel cable system. Now I don't know if comcast has them or not but if they do then all you have to do is run a cable off of the tv system to the AP spots. But that may need to have cable boxes in each room and limits on how much analog tv you can have on the system.
just set a coffee can around the antenna and choose which 4 rooms is going to have acceptable wifi, or sprinkle the place in apple airports
or you could just do it right the first time and be done with it
Setup your own DSL network using existing RJ11/Phone cabling.
You will place dsl modems in each area you want access points.
You can even have all rooms or some premium rooms with hidden away dsl modems and a network cable coming out.
You just need to setup a dslam after the modem and configure routing.
You would want a login interface so users have to accept terms and conditions.
Using the dsl method, you can setup access points at whatever strength seems secure enough wherever there is a phone connection or wiring, and you can splice the wiring if necessary. You will need to place cheap filters on every normal phone connection, but that is a minimal cost.
You can also look at ethernet over power line, but there are lots of variables and speed issues that makes this not ideal.
If the wiring is already Cat5, then you should be good to swap out the proprietary boxes and find the other end for the router/network closet.
If they are really telephone-grade wires, find the other ends and pull Cat5 through (by tying string/cat5 to the existing wiring.)
Whatever the right thing is, do it right the first time and the hotel will save money either fixing it or dealing with unhappy guests. It may cost more initially. Really unhappy guests don't return.
IMarv
Trusting software vendors is no smarter than trus
Typically, you first step is a frequency finder that can determine signals in your wireless range (2.4GHz - 7.2GHz).
Check the area with a walk-through all common/public areas and meeting rooms. Look for any strong signals in your range that might interfere. Your wireless units should be placed on a channel, that is the farthest in frequency from the signals that might be dirtying your airwaves. Then locate a large scale, centrally managed wireless AP provider. Ruckus Wireless is a good provider, and they offer several options for APs and Management systems. They also have some good competition, and I have used Cisco (Very $$$) and even home equipment for mid-size locations (5000-10,000 Sq Ft). Home equipment, requires massive setup and maintenance. Cisco and Ruckus and the like, require High-Level IT and Network Skills, but are very reliable. Once you have your Company chosen and Management unit set up, start with one AP per floor, in the most central location, then test coverage on that floor. If its bad at the edges, try 2 AP's per floor, one at each end. Continue this per floor, until the hotel or other location has 100% coverage. Best method for security, is a key that changes weekly and is only given out by request. Thus preventing parking lot internet leeches... Hope this helps!
It's possible that running cable through the building is a nightmare. The owners may have painful memories of how things went when the last APs were installed. Talk with them and find out what went badly. There may be a better way, or maybe not.
You may be forced to do wireless repeating. This is going to make a significant increase to the cost, but that may be the only option. First thing I'd do is start scouting around to see where good spots for APs are. The current ones may have simply been spaced evenly with no signal planning/testing whatsoever. Try the roof. You may not be able to run cable around IN the building, but have NO problem getting up onto the roof, and scatter APs around above people instead of in the hallways, thus avoiding the cable running problem. (you'd also be farther from the parking lot)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
and i would bet that one or more will be consulted (since i think that the SlashHive can't show up "on site") but the comments here will give enough info so that any SnowJobs are prevented.
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A few years back we use Meraki nodes http://meraki.com/ to provide internet to the downtown area of Baraboo WI. It worked surprisingly well. Basically you take ethernet to as many places as you can, then use powered wifi nodes to provide access to the other areas. All the nodes auto configure themselves as repeaters or access points, and the entire system has a awesome web interface to the whole network. It looks like their node design has changed a bit in the past few years, but it's at least worth checking out.
He knows that, he's one of them. Are you implying that Ask Slashdot isn't the place to get free advice on how to do work you're being paid for?
.. seems like there is an entire market of consultants ..
Yes, people hire them because they are too embarrassed to "ask slashdot" by themselves.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
if the cable is more than say 5 years old i would bet money that it is not within CURRENT building code (if its within the building code in force at the time). So now would be a good time to rip the old stuff out and rerun with new stuff (bonus if they will foot for proper cable chases and such).
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Please do my job for me. I am too incompetent to google it myself.
Thanks.
There, fixed it for you.
I've done this at a small (~70 room) hotel/conference center with three Linksys WRTG54Ls, one master and two repeaters plus three sets of high gain antennas.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Use MonoWall http://m0n0.ch/wall/ as your router, to balance loads, and monitor stuff. Use your existing wire and AP's (Ethernet only uses 4 of the 8 wires anyway) and connect this all into a good 10/100/1000 switch that connects into the LAN side of your MonoWall box. Have had many multi-unit dwellings setup this way that work really well.
Hi,
Right this is only going from personal experience. At work we've bought UniFi access points.
Not to plug it overly but the roaming for clients between access points and easy provisioning system is a treat including the handling of the "guest" network with user/pass sign-on in the browser.
As far as cabling etc goes if you've got any largeish distance to cover then a simple wifi bridge should do the trick?
All of this of course depends on the amount of clients you are expecting to be online at one given time on the network. If you want to use this as an meshed network then you will obviously get a higher latency the further you go from the core node.
The above example would not be suitable for a very large hotel, and if you want to cover large outside areas then the antennas will cost a few buck not just in hardware but testing coverage / installation.
I've seen a real-world case of success with EnGenius access points: they are rugged, offer very strong signals even when confronted with reinforced concrete.
Last I knew, the Olympic Complex in Montreal, Canada has its wifi infrastructure based on EnGenius. They had trouble getting the signal everywhere with other brands.
That's my 2 cent worth.
Ask Slashdot......
Seriously, why not just get someone qualified and experience to do the job? :(
Could be a solution
http://www.good.is/post/forget-wifi-it-s-lifi-internet-through-lightbulbs/
Get a few routers (I like Linksys), set them up as repeaters, and find strategic places to set them to get the coverage you need. Set up each with an easy to remember password (which will allow anyone "in the know" to use the network).
And you are pretty much done. If you want to do something more fancy for logging in, DD-WRT has many options. I have no personal experience with them, however.
Ubiquity http://www.ubnt.com/ has a device called a nano station it is perfect for your needs it can share the connection using wireless over distances up to 5 miles. but the range can be limited in the device via power management. they run DD-wrt and can be configured as access point or point to point connections. I have used them for years as a network solutions provider.
there are 10 types of people in this world, those who read binary and those who don't. which are you!
Simply put, Xirrus is the brand. They make wireless arrays, which are circular enclosures containing multiple antennas. Their OS is based off of Gentoo Linux, and they support passive capture, multiple SSID's, the ability to map nodes onto a floor plan, integration with internal as well as external RADIUS servers.
Simply badass. They generally target places like schools, hotels, convention centers, etc.. We just bought a bunch at my job (a school) and they simply kick-butt. They are not cheap, but after scouting what's out there, they offer a complete solution which is super easy to maintain and operate.
Check out http://sveasoft.com/ - they have firmware loads for commodity WiFi nodes that turn them into excellent mesh's that do exactly what you want. Excellent tech, dirt cheap. Easy.
I work for a school and we have run Ruckus gear for a few years now and have had a lot of success. I have heard they do a lot for hotels too so it might be worth looking into. http://www.ruckuswireless.com/enterprises/hospitality
As for Xirrus, I hope they have improved, we did a test of the arrays a few years back and had nothing but problems.
As usual for "Ask Slashdot," you have left out key details that would allow people to give you meaningful responses. For example:
There may be more to this job than you have considered.
Breakfast served all day!
But it seems like there is an entire market of consultants whose entire job description is planning this sort of thing?
Which seems absurd as well. Why is there an entire market of consultants whose entire job it is to plan wireless access points and routers? Seems like the kind of project that you could figure out by googling and reading the docs from the wireless network equipment companies; and then checking technology websites (like slashdot) online to see if people had any feedback/reviews they wanted to give for such systems.
You should really take a look at http://www.liveport.com. They provide a fully managed and supported mesh network. They take all support calls including helping clients configure and setup their WIFI if need be. They are also a recommended provider by many hotel chains and very cost effective.
I am not affiliated with Liveport but do use them as a client and highly recommend them.
Like the title says. Set up multiple routers with the same SSID on different channels. Make sure each channel is as far away from another router with the same channel as possible. Connect each router with its own cable. Turn off DHCP and set up a dedicated box to act as a DHCP router (I suggest Untangle, it's free and you can install it on any old computer). You can even set up caching ($5 per month) which covers large downloads and windows updates, among other stuff.
I can't remember the vendor, but we purchased some converters that did ethernet over a single pair of pots lines when we were doing some fiber re-routing on campus. They were very reliable.
I don't know how reliable wireless mesh is. If reliable, then may be a better (simpler) solution. All our APs (hundreds) terminate with cabled connections.
We use Cisco (airspace) stuff on campus. It took several tries of early release software to find a version that would work with the latest APs we purchased, and did not break other things. We have had a few (highly visible) issues caused by buggy cisco software. This stuff is OK, but I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending it to others.
CSU went with Aruba system-wide. Not sure what their selection criteria were, though.
Disclosure: I work for a major service provider/telco.
Don't worry about the wi-fi system so much, there are plenty of solutions for that. Instead, worry more about the connection.
You can have the best wi-fi in the world, but if your connection is down, then you've still got a hotel full of angry customers.
Some things to consider?
1. Network diversity. If you are going to get a multi-T1 setup, then make sure you request network diversity. Yes, it costs more, but if you have all of your T1 connections riding the same sets of DS3s to your hotel, you have a single point of failure. I work with this my entire shift, every day at work. The customer bought a 6-T1 MLPPP ckt to make sure their business had enough bandwidth, but all six are riding the same DS3. The DS3 craps out and *poof*. And DS3s crapping out is dreadfully common. Also, having your circuits come to you from different central offices is also a good idea. Again, it'll cost more, but it'll be worth it when some idiot takes out a telephone pole or punches an auger down through the F2 pairs.
2. Employee training. I cannot stress this enough. Every single hotel we do business with all has one, maybe two "IT people", and everyone else in the entire hotel cannot tell the difference between a Cisco or a Black & Decker (router). And trying to find that "IT Person" at 1AM is like trying to find chicken teeth. In the meantime, I'm sitting at my desk, getting escalations from your senior management, pulling my hair out and waiting for SOMEONE on-site to pull the cable out of the RJ48X so I can test to a loop.
Teach your employees where the smartjack is located and what the lights on it mean. Teach them what the CSU/DSU is, and what the lights on that mean. Show them how to do a hard-boot (unplug-replug), how to follow the cables, how to "exercise the jack" (unplug-replug). And if you REALLY wanna give me a warm fuzzy, make a loopback plug, show them how to use it, and leave a few of them hanging on a peg in your telco room.
I know that sounds like a lot to ask from your "associates", but if I can teach a grocery store manager how to do it over the phone, you can certainly do it too.
[End Of Line]
Yet another Ask Slashdot that can be summarized as...
Go and learn about wireless networks, read the books associated with CWNA for instance.
Ignore the monkeys on here, i've seen about 5 or 6 people posting what I can only assume is a joke or perhaps 1just distilled ignorance, you really just need to RTFM.
This must be what it feels like to be an admin on #linux :o
He knows that, he's one of them. Are you implying that Ask Slashdot isn't the place to get free advice on how to do work you're being paid for?
I thought that was Google... but I've almost never seen an Ask Slashdot that shouldn't have been an Ask Google. I mean it's not like setting up a WiFi access point is some kind of exotic unheard-of endeavor that no good information has been written about. Apparently basic research skills are on the decline in modern society...
And you think that half of those consultants actually know something before being hired? At least the OP seems to be doing a little research into a good solution...gotta learn sometime.
I spent several months researching wifi hotspots for a similar installation. I settled on the Checkbox Hotspot (http://www.layerfour.net/store/index.php/checkbox.html). It is a "standalone" hotspot router, which means you put out a one time purchase price, it is not an ongoing service. In addition, you can buy "repeaters" which extend the range as far as you want, and are integrated with the main "Checkbox" hotspot router. All the software is built into the router. It gives you options to print "tickets" which can be for any period of time. They can also be preprinted, say for 1 day, a week, a month, etc, etc. You can also specify "tickets" for special events which let all computers attach using the same "code". Also, you can specify "permanent" tickets. The router locks to the MAC address of the connecting computer, and the service expires when the ticket expires. Those are the key features I was interested it, but it also has a number of other features. Definitely worth looking at. I believe the Checkbox router is a "G" series router, if that is an important issue.
It sounds like you have zero experience deploying enterprise class wireless for high traffic scenarios. It's a lot more than just plopping a couple commodity access points and hoping for the best.
You have to do a site survey to determine the best layout for the APs including equipment placement, channel patterns and power levels to maximize the best SNR against the overall cost. 2.4GHz or 5GHz or both? What are the structural barriers in place? Do you want to have blanket coverage or only cover certain areas? What level of WLAN redundancy do you want? How much should your coverage overlap? Are you bridging wirelessly? Using extended VLANs, centralizing the traffic and management? How are you handling zone handoff?
There's a lot of initial prep work that goes on before you even begin to place equipment.
"This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence" - Vyvyan "The Young Ones"
that a hotel will actually provide a decent Internet connection to its guests? I don't think I've ever stayed at a place that gave me more than 1Mbps down. I usually have to tether my droid to get a functional connection.
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
They already have a wifi system. Why are they replacing it?
Unless you get someone who knows what they are doing, you're fucked and you're going to get your friend/relative fired or look bad because of your fuck up.
You could do like the timeshare did where we recently stayed at in Ocean City, MD. They boasted free wi-fi. That said, the access point was in the office and was accessible only in the office, on a small bistro-style table (and only when the office was open) or in the indoor pool next door.
Epic fail.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
I do this for a living and my typical hotel manager (or campus, camping, etc) would not know where to start. Maybe for many of us is easy to look for documentation troubleshoot all the quirks you can find on commodity hardware and deploy a wireless network across several floors or several building. But for many people this is not trivial even when you have the usual computer wiz as cousin. Of course you can always for a nice cisco solution with controller, the problem is these solutions are very costly and they still need trained people for setup and deployment.
In situations like hotels and hospitals, coverage is not that big of an issue. Client density becomes more of a concern with a 2 person room possibly having 6 devices (tablet, phone, laptop) 4 rooms can have 24 devices connected which leaves handy homeowner routers in the dust. An Aruba, Enterasys, or Meru have worked well for me in the past (with these companies doing a cloud based controller these days so you don't have to purchase the $10,000 device up front)
Apparently basic research skills are on the decline in modern society...
Just for consultants
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I use Chuck Dejarnett's (of ergonomic keyboard fame) to setup tons of these apartments. http://www.chilliwave.com It has been under developement for 4 or 5 years and is at version 7.
Take a look at PhyBridge. They manufacture a box that will provide ethernet+voice over an existing/installed 2-wire phone system. Data rates are 10Mbs on the current gen product, however, their newer soon-to-be-released product should tout 100Mbs.
You can also route VOIP phones on the same system. It's very easy to install. Also, quick. You could most likely install 100-200 drops inside of a weekend, eliminating downtime for your hotel guests.
No. I don't work for the company.
Oh, man. Not only NSFW but an extension of the goatse image to new heights of disgustingness. You do not want to click on these links, trust me.
https://sites.google.com/a/uprm.edu/ccli/Home/testbeds-1/wireless-mesh-network-testbed-using-wrt54gl-dd-wrt-and-olsr
wpa2 enterprise and give them login pass at their arrival to hotel
motorola sells equipment with 802.11s support out of the box, no reflashing needed. (i have no relationship with motorola)
Set up the hotel like a small DSL ISP. Each room has a DSL modem that connects back to the phone closet and a wifi access point. This ensures that each room has a strong signal, and it means that the hotel does not have to rewire as it will use the existing phone wiring. I have seen this setup in numerous hotels I have stayed at so I know it works.
In our home automation business, we use Luxul range extenders to good effect. These units provide great coverage to 15,000 + square foot homes, and can extend far past the walls depending on the aiming of the antenna.
From what I remember, a company called Xirrys specializes in high density deployments. You're going to have to look it up because I'm not sure of all the details, but what I do know is that it packs a number of radios in a circular enclosure (those radios are directional as well) and can handle a lot of users at the same time. Additionally, the range is supposed to be better because of te directionality so you need fewer devices.
They used the Xirrus products for Microsoft conferences I think (although it was branded ATT due to sponsorship deals).
A lot of hotel's use DSL or Cable infrastructure. The back end equipment is more expensive than traditional Cat5+, but that is typically offset by the wiring costs. If you already have Comcast Business Systems or Comcast Telcom delivering the 100Mbit then I would ask them if they have a line up on bridging technology ready to roll.
The biggest issue you'll have with the actual WiFi is selecting a product that can handle the load in your common and event areas. Consumer/SOHO APs start to crush after 10+ clients.
While you won't have to have a billing system, you should still have something on the backend that will track the users and make them accept an AUP. Astaro is the cheapest turn key system combining firewall capabilities and pre-integrated APs.
You would want a login interface so users have to accept terms and conditions.
*sigh* What's the point? They won't read it or at least very few will and since it's going to be free, why bother? It's one thing if it's going to say "you'll be charged $X per minute" and by clicking on this you agree to pay that amount but to one to state legalese crap in a pathetic attempt to limit non-existent liability.
And as far as saying "you're not allowed to do anything illegal" like kiddie porn or whatever, again, what's the point? It's like having a terms and conditions when you check in that you won't rape the cleaning staff.
I'm just aggravated with all these goddamn "terms and conditions" everyone has and the fact they update the fucking things every other month or so (Netflix) or every download (Apple). Come on! it just makes you look like you're controlled by your lawyers and that I have to be extremely diligent because when I see Terms and Conditions -especially ones that change often, I think that the company is out to fuck me - like cable companies and ISPs. When they fuck you , they always say "you agreed to the terms and conditions and it states quite clearly that we're allowed to fuck you."
I suggest you shop for a turnkey vendor with an up-time monitoring & support package and signal strength survey as part of installation. That way when any trouble is observed, its logged and dealt with before the front-desk gets inundated with calls. Nothing is going to make you more unpopular with this business than the sheer volume of calls when it stops working. It will be inconvenient for you to drop everything to service this low-markup client. Save tinker toy wi-fi play for hobby time.
If you need to ask slashdot how to do your professional work, may I suggest that you get another job more appropriate for your skills - like, flipping burgers or something?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Which is probably why he asked the question. Is there any vendor neutral books you would recommend? I don't have any experience in this field either, but it's always interesting to see where other people started from.
I feel you're overthinking this.
Existing WAPs. I'm assuming you have admin access to them. If they're connected to telephone wire that means the hotel has its own DSL network (search for the DSLAM) or some prorietary data over phone solution (weird little dongles on each end). No need to replace these things. 90% of the work is already done.
Find the DSLAM or whatever router is currently serving the WAPs. Pull you comcast line to there. If the router or switch is aged, consider replacing them.
Verification, for small businesses I prefer to just give out a WPA key that changes monthly (teach staff how to change them). Ideally, you can have a radius system but that will require API access to their guest management software to pull values like last name, room number, etc. That might be overkill though.
If you can get at least the network installed i would recommend for having a router that can handle that pipeline and do QoS, Content Filtering, Password Logon. is to find a support company that offers those sort of products, Ethostream, the company i work for does this and we also do support for the guests and staff for connecting and if there is any issues that come up. There are other companies like ovation, and a few others that work but a few use the Nomadix gateway which is run on licensees, if too many people connect it stops handing out DHCP or stops the internet. Otherwise if you go for you own router, make sure you doing something with at least 3ghz cpu (P4) or better and at least 512mb-1gb of ram. if you use a simple linksys router it will probably be able to due routing at 20mbps max, sure if just one person you can get maybe 30-40mbps out of the linksys but not for a large number of guests, it just wont have the cpu oomph to handle all those packets per second.
Also i do recommend a mesh network, something from openmesh or if you want some backing of support, go with ruckus. it costs a bit more (less than cisco) and is highly backed by support.
Other things to remember Concrete will kill signals, some channels really suck, there will always be a need for some support of guests as most cant seem to find the power button and need someone to call and talk em on. Staff usually things wifi is an unnecessary expense and usually wont want to deal with reboots of equipment even when she is refunding 30 guests because its not working, then they blame you for not fixing it when your a thousand miles away and all they had to do was power cycle the poe switch, (PoE can be a life saver for remote troubleshooting). also it might be only possible to give good signal by having the AP's in the rooms, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SECURE THEM SO THAT GUESTS CANT UNPLUG THEM OR STEAL THEM.
I've done a half-dozen hotel deployments in my time. Mostly very much on the cheap, because the owners weren't charging for the service, so it had to be low over head to maintain, as well as cheap upfront. Not economical, but really really cheap. The first one I did was with buffalo equipment. All the equipment set up as dual AP/repeater mode devices, since there was no wire in the walls for back-haul. Just a box in each of the linen closets with an external hi-gain antenna. We set WEP keys on the devices and gave the owners some text about how to configure the wireless on a guest's PC. The went to a business card printer and had the instructions and WEP key printed on cards that were handed out to guests at check-in. I also hooked them up with some USB wifi dongles they could rent out if the customer's PC didn't have wireless (this would have been in the early 2000's, so wireless wasn't baked in to everything). It worked fairly well for a while. The owners and full time staff learned what they needed to do when guests on one floor or another couldn't connect, basic troubleshooting steps for the front desk staff, sending up staff to a closet in the right area to reboot a locked up access point, etc. Over all it worked, but was far from bulletproof. With subsequent deployments I've tried a number of other setups, and I think I have a pretty good solution that seems to work with minimal hiccups.
1) Always use a wired back-haul. this was the main issue with my first deployment, and there were enough issues with it that I never had confidence in the lower-end marketed devices to try it again. If phone cable is all that is available you could try HPNA gear for the back hauls, but I've never gone that route.
2) Use POE devices where possible. This is for 2 reasons, obviously placement is easier, but also because this give you a central place that all the devices can be power cycled. A front desk dude at 2 AM can cycle power on the POE switch , or more likely power strip with all the injectors plugged into it, rather than chasing down all the APs that might potentially be causing the problem (this will potentially briefly p*ss off all the other users). At 2 AM, with the staff hired by most of the places I've installed, an on-off switch is usually the maximum technical demand you can put on these guys.
3) Do a site survey to check for channel crowding and signal strength. The APs don't even need to be configured, just get them powered up in an approximate area of where you're thinking of placing them. Coverage can surprise you, specially with the way that hotels are constructed with metal firewalls between segments and a lot of metallic infrastructure in the walls. It's not like a house or an office building, there is a lot more metallic plumbing/HVAC/laundry chutes in some of these older buildings than you'd think. I used to use a laptop and Netstumbler, now I usually just run WiFi Analyzer on my android phone.
4) Try to upsell the ownership to at least some business class WiFi gear. My favorite stuff is Netgear WG302's. They seem to run pretty well over long periods and you can find them at reasonable prices. They support two external antennas for better than average low-end device coverage, and a variety of omni and directional antennae are available for them. WG302's can run on POE as well. They are not perfect, you can get a bad one, and I have returned some with infant mortality in the past. Once they've burned in for a month you're usually pretty safe. They are B/G only, not N.
5) Use some type of encryption on the network. I prefer WPA-PSK (that's WPA version 1) because it's a good compromise of compatibility and encryption quality. It'll keep most of the non-guest riff-raff from using your WiFi from the parking lot, while allowing the actual guest riff-raff to type in a simple password instead of a long hex string. WPA2 is better encryption, but I've seen a number of un-patched XP machines that couldn't connect to it, and the goal isn't really security, but minimizing the amount of sta
While I do see your point with that satire(and it is a good one!), what's wrong with asking? A professional should be able to tell what he needs to do without asking, sure, but I respect the professional who both knows, and asks to check himself/find better ideas.
Humans are terrible replicators of Godly things.
True, but judging from the hotels I've stayed in over the years, I'd be willing to bet that few, if any of them did... well... any of that. They buy or lease some pre-built router box, toss in two or three access points per floor, all in bridging mode, cable it up with 100BASE-TX or maybe Gig-E, connect the other side to some sad DSL modem, or if you're really lucky, a T1, and call it a day.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Accept no substitute. Good luck finding hardware that's manageable which uses it, I know the DIR-825 is atheros-based and uses openwrt; it's not nearly as easy to configure as tomato, but a solid bump up from any regular setup. I'm guessing for a 5-acre hotel you can't afford a WCS system from cisco, even if you could they're far from bulletproof.
As others have said, you're missing some details. Does the hotel expect to use this connection for operations in addition to supporting their guests? You'll need multiple APs, and in order to supply a high throughput network you'll also need hardware that uses the 5ghz channel; good luck finding it, you'll need high quality APs (like the DIR-825) and Intel or Atheros wireless cards in all client computers. Broadcom makes some 5ghz capable cards, but they are terrible. It sounds like a lot of trouble but having the extra bandwidth and freedom from 2.4ghz interference is worth it. Just don't expect this to be a weekend operation.
Just buy a bunch of tp-link, replace its firmware with openwrt and do whatever you want: mesh, wds, etc...
Even if the hardware might not be as robust as a cisco, just multiply the number of units you buy. It's the same principle of RAID (redundant array of inexpensive discs). Just build an RMIR (redundant mesh of inexpensive routers)
Currently I own a 9 acre property on Alaska. I have used the Ubiquiti ns2l's for years and they work great! Just set them up with lazy wds and they go for miles! Call me at the perch resort if you have any questions about them!
IMO Open mesh should do the job. 60$ to 99$ a piece, no dependency to third parties (unlike meraki); free, open source. Zero config, just plug in power and go. You can centrally manage things like bandwidth, splash page, etc.
Meshes have no practical coverage limits, can be finetuned as you are using many small APs (which connect wirelessly to each other) to customize the coverage areas, only one of them needs a link to the lan/wan.
Meraki started nice, but became proprietary and expensive, open mesh retained the openness of the original MIT project, and is even more reliable.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
Running on old telephone cables is a very bad idea, you may put a lot of hardware to compensate for the cabling but the right solution is to rewire to CAT6.
The WiFi solution should be something like a Zyxel NXC5200 and NWA5160N or the older Zyxel NXC8160 and NWA8500 or a similar Cisco solution (which will cost you at least 50% more). The NXC provides a central management point, firewall and a captive portal, NXC communicates with its NWA's over Ethernet.
Do not take the gig if they insist on running on old cabling, if you do prepare for serious trouble.
Why not support Slashdot and click on one of the http://meraki.com/ adds? There is one at the side of my page right now (ymmv).
It seems like the products they are pushing would be perfect for you.
They will allow you to manage them remotely, which you'll probably value, and it seems like you can avoid a lot of cabling with them.
Their site touts features such as splash pages / walled gardens / guest isolation / and the like, all things a hotel will likely find some value in. /insert some other brand here/ but it looks dead simple to configure and manage, so that could be worth the extra cash.
Sure, it's probably not as cheap as
As for the wiring situation, consider HPNA if necessary? Generally I wouldn't recommend that in an enterprise setup, but if they are very cable adverse, that might not be a bad solution for at least some of the APs. If HPNA doesn't work, how about power line network adapters? I have used these before with decent success. Example, we had a customer with a sign installed in their yard, but no cabling to their main building. When they wanted to change the sign message, they had to walk outside. They did have power running to the sign, and Powerline networking solved the problem for them, as tacky as that is, they still use it today, without issue. Yes, do your research, vendors offer 'secure' versions of these technologies if that's your concern. :)
And then, there is wireless bridging / WDS / whatever they are calling it these days - which Meraki will support.
My only experience with Enterprise wireless is a school district with about 500 Cisco access points deployed, and a single AP controller. It works flawlessly, and cost an arm and a leg - but for voice etc, they can roam from AP to AP on cordless cisco phones without issue. Cabling also wasn't an issue for them.
Best of luck
This is a solved problem. There are any number of companies that provide wireless systems for hotels. There is no reason to go any other way.
We might as well be discussing how to find an electrical provider for the hotel.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
A SmartShare on the main connection will give you a few nice things:
1. User Load Balancing - the 100 Mbit/s connection is shared evenly amongst the active users. No bandwidth waste and no unnecessary bandwidth limits. (No configuration required.)
2. Dynamic QoS - VoIP (including Skype) is prioritized over Data traffic. (No configuration required.)
3. Limit bandwidth for Peer-to-Peer users, so they don't swamp the wireless access points, and possibly even stop using their Peer-to-Peer application. (Optional.)
4. Redirect SMTP connections to the ISP's SMTP relay, so Outlook (and other email clients) still works when guests' laptops are configured for using the SMTP relay of their ISP at home.
5. Real-time and historical graphs showing how much bandwidth is available for each user, so you know what kind of bandwidth the guests actually have available, and when it's time to upgrade the internet connection.
Did I mention that I work for SmartShare Systems (http://www.smartsharesystems.com/), and that we sell lots of SmartShare boxes for hotels, dormitories, highschools etc. for this kind of network. And lots of smaller SmartShare boxes for small businesses using internet and cloud based services on low (or medium) bandwidth connections.
Meraki. Simple internet based control system. Yes it does use a cloud based control system, but that's not really an issue as it uses very little bandwidth and when the net is down, you have other problems to deal with. It also meshes very nicely for where there's no cable runs ;)
I've heard some good things about CWNP. I don't know about getting their certs but their study guide seems to do a good job of covering the fundamentals.
"This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence" - Vyvyan "The Young Ones"
Too f-ing true.
"This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence" - Vyvyan "The Young Ones"
Holy crap...you weren't joking. I think I'm going to be ill.
The hotel plans to provide this service for free, so there is no need for any type of billing management system
Business conditions can and will change, and at some point in the future management will decide to charge at least some of their guests for Internet access. My point is simply: be flexible. Don't go with a system that prevents charging at a later date. Your best strategy might be to go with a solution that handles payment, and then set the price to zero (i.e., free). Then, at a later date management can set a different price.
You know, Google has to get this information from somewhere. I can't even count the times when I Googled something, only to find 15 other people who've asked the same question, and nothing but snarky replies saying "just Google it you moron!"
Suggestion for you: just don't click on any "Ask Slashdot" links and leave this feature for those of us who actually want to learn something...
There is no shame in asking -- nobody is born knowing everything.
is there a reason no one here has mentioned open-mesh, or setting up a ROBIN system with openwrt?
Don't have time to through all the replies, so I don't know if anyone already mentioned this:
You may want to have a look at Motorola T3 PowerBroadBand solution (just google for Motorola T3) and check it's features. The best one (in your case) is reuse of telephony wires. All you have to do is replace the wall outlet with the one provided by this solution.
Good luck.
A pointless anecdote: I stayed at this motel once, probably only had 20 rooms. Around 11pm the wifi stopped working. The front desk was going to be no help. Discovered I could connect a web browser to http://192.168.0.1 and, amazingly, there was no password required. Rebooted the AP and was back in business. Not saying you should leave it wide open like that, but at least in this one case, it was handy.
I've recently installed some Linksys WRE54g wireless expanders for a setup very similar to this one. They are quite simple to configure, and offer a single wireless network managed by the configuration of the base router.
Step 1: setup a consumer wireless router at the point where your connection comes in. I used a very cheap but reliable Asus WL520GC.
Step 2: get a Linksys expander close to the router, press the autoconfigure button on it. Once the LEDs stop blinking you're all set up.
Step 3: place your expanders at any convenient locations so as to cover the entire area.
note. You should check with a laptop to see the wireless signal strength... you should have at least 3 bars so that your speed does not degrade too much.
In my experience, placing the expanders about 50 meters/yards apart proved quite efficient. Try to keep the expanders away from possible interference sources... microwave ovens, industrial equipment, high voltage lines and such.
You should be able to convince you client to buy a couple of extenders "just in case" so you can check their accuracy without appearing that you have never worked with them.
You should provide for the fact that it's not only your signal that matters, but also the power of the devices that will be used by the clients... a mobile phone has a much lower signal strength than a notebook, and a notebook a lower signal than a desktop computer, and so on. It's all about balancing range and speed.
Hope it helps.
Check CapturePoint. They have a pretty simple way to do it that puts everything in the router and can extend the network using inexpensive mesh nodes instead of hardwired access points.
-- $G
I do this for a living, so here's a few more questions (I see some were asked by PCM2 already):
How many buildings are there on the property? How tall is each one? What is the layout (facing each other, central courtyard, one long line)? What is the construction material of the exterior of the buildings? The interior (between rooms)?
Is there a central telephone room that all the buildings link into? Have you run a line tone to make sure?
Check each room to see how many telephone pairs are going in. If there is more than one pair and the n+1 pairs are not in use, then you can throw in and mount a wireless modem in each room. There are vendors that make mounts that are tamper-resistant. The trick is to find out how much penetration the wifi signal from that modem is going to get between each room. Buy one modem, get access to a room, and to all the rooms adjacent (above, below, sides, and across the hall) to see what kind of coverage you can get. Download inSSIDER to help with this analysis.
From this testing you'll be able to determine what kind of signal you're getting in the adjacent rooms, and thereby determine what layout of modems you need.
Get a DSLAM on the property, and get your system up and running.
How you chose to manage the back end is up to you; we use RADIUS. However, since you're managing a single location, you could probably do it with an HP Procurve MSM 710 or even an MSM 313. This will track user logins and sessions independent of any wireless access point that you set up.
No mention of how many floors there are: if its a hand full go all out, if its many floors deffinately go all out.
Its best to keep the TV and internet and telephones comming in on diffrent networks for larger hotels, ask the cable installer/tech support if the cable TV and internet can remain on the same network untill the point in each room if the hotel is that cheep.
If they don't already have quality coaxual cables running through every room for t.v. it's going to need wireing otherwise if there is high quality coax network comcast will just tap into that anyway! So you can minimize other installs...
But now you need to hit the main source nodes. Then anywhere you have coax running you can have a splitter leading to a cable box and the other lead to a modem then wireless N and a land line. The internet and cable tv signals run in on the same line but with diffrent converters, one a cable box the other a cable modem. Placing a few wireless N routers in one spot is just shotty work, if there isn't a stong signal that can keep up with full demand everywhere there will be complaints and they'll realize they need to redo everything: may as well do it right the first time. If there isn't. A tv coax network in place... why? From some splitter node points you'll actually need more wifi-free traditional routers for the hardwired network to every room.
For larger hotells they would still likely use RJ-45 to keep up with call volume even used in a small office. It would be expected and otherwise a bad plan not to have an RJ-45 LAND network in place for internet to every room, paralell to the phone line. This can be snaked through with a loop guide around the phone line to each room, carefull with snags. How many rooms will determine how many modems, switches and routers you'll need.
on Broadway! I'm moving in next week...
Two things:
Firstly, make sure that if you have a captive portal, a guest staying for a reasonable period of time will only have to accept the terms and conditions, log in or whatever *once*. If I put my phone on the hotel wireless, I expect it to *stay* on the hotel wireless, and automatically register to the VoIP server whenever I'm in the building. I do *not* expect it to keep breaking every few hours until I fire up a web browser on the phone. It's almost as annoying on my PC — when I'm away from home in a hotel with timezone differences, there are often work-related IMs or IRC conversations which happen during my "night", and if a broken hotel network cuts me off during the night and forces me to re-login, that *really* hampers my productivity.
If a hotel has a captive portal which doesn't *remember* the fact that I've logged in and accepted the T&Cs, I will *refuse* to stay there on my next trip.
Secondly, we are well into the 21st century now. It is entirely unacceptable to provide a newly designed and installed system without IPv6 connectivity. It's not even as if IPv6 is *hard*, so there's no excuse.
Have you thought of using internet over mains wiring?
"It's as if millions of Radio Hams suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced."
Broadband over power line wipes out short wave radio.
http://www.arrl.org/broadband-over-powerline-bpl
.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
You're not going to like this job. The owners need to buy a turnkey solution like others have suggested. You're asking too many questions - don't take your learning curve out on this property. Not all turnkey solutions are necessarily paywall... The property can pony up more and it'll just be a "Welcome to XYZ Hotel, click here to agree to the TOS and get on the Internet!".. then, it bandwidth shapes as necessary, blocks as much torrent as is currently known how and people with viruses get shut down... etc etc. Well, you get what you pay for, anyway.
I would much rather see a professional ask other professionals for advice, not a gang or internet thug nerds
I been at hotels where at best I was getting 1.5 on a speed test and other time I needed to reload web pages over and over just to get them to load. So don't cheap out on the links from the AP back to main hook up.
I rolled out a 35 AP network @ a 345 room hotel by myself; giving support support blows; people are idiots and expect you to fix problems on their end (usually wifi or dhcp turned off); it's nice to have a 3rd party to handle it. If you want to use existing phone lines you're looking at an additional cost per run to go Ethernet --> PhoneLine --> Ethernet. Our system is far from perfect but hey, it's free! It cost ~$25k in Cisco equipment.
Locate the hotel next to a Starbucks.
It's been my experience that there is no such thing as _tamperproof_ bolts. For 99% of tamper-resistant bolts/screws you can buy the bits to remove them on-line. For the rest, cut your own screw slot and replace the bolt.
"must come in at one corner" and " no new wiring" read to me like: You definitely need mesh wifi (really, really good mesh).
I've installed Meraki at a few businesses (nothing huge like a hotel, granted) and the web interface works wonders. They build in features like QOS, traffic shaping and splash pages. Basically _anyone_ who isn't a total technophobe can manage a Meraki install. Their meshing is, so far as I've seen, very strong. I think you'd want to have more than 1 "gateway" device (That which is connected to the internet), but you don't have to unless it's a problem (so you can skip most new wiring, except for power of course).
snowulf.com
You will need to have some sort of captive portal. Even though it will be free, the property must indemnify themselves from potentially illegal activity. To do this you will need to have DHCP logging, web traffic logging and most importantly, Terms of Service that require the users to accept that their actions are their own and that they may be logged. ClearOS is nearly done with a captive portal module that brings the costs of this way down, outside of this it provides the logging required to make this work.
To that, I say "Fair enough."
Humans are terrible replicators of Godly things.
You could purchase a bunch of Airport Expresses with a Airport Extreme and setup a WDS, but depending on the size of the location and floors it might not provide the best results with a single large WDS setup. This is because every extender to the network loses about 50% of the bandwidth. IE Airport Extreme located at internet connection to Airport Express 1, thats 50% bandwidth. then from Airport Express 1 to Airport Express 2 thats another 50% of the bandwidth. What I would do is create a few networks, one for each floor Airport Extreme 1, 2, 3 located at the internet connection. Each on a totally difference frequency. Then run Airport Expresses on each floor linking to each other to create 3 WDS networks. Name them by floor so guests can attach to the one on there floor for best results. Another option but more complicated is to use a few Airport Extremes on a private network at 5ghz as a backbone then plug a Airport Express into each one on 2.5Ghz to broadcast out the public network. Keeps the backbone running solid. The Cisco wifi units will have the same problem of losing bandwidth but cost 4x as much as the Apple Hardware. The Apple Hardware is very capable and easy to manage for a fraction of the price of pro Cisco hardware which is what I would normally recommend. Personally I say spend the money and wireup PoE Wifi base stations with a Server controlling DNS and access to do it absolutely right.
A Comcast 100M connection is a single DOCSIS 3 modem, no DS3 or T1s involved at the customer site. There will be a standard COAX into the building someplace, probably near the TV signal distribution areas.
If you live in a place serviced by Comcast, you can get 150Mbps to your house. They sell the service. I have it, just at a lower speed. If I want more speed, it is just a phone call. No new equipment needed.
First of all, you need something to transfer the data over until it hits the air. For that you have a couple options as to the physical plant -- the stuff the data goes over: phone line wire (cat3), twisted pair (cat5), power lines (with 120VAC on them), fiber optic, and coaxial cable. CAT3 (phone wire) is cheapest, especially if you can reuse existing lines. Cat3 will support 10BASE-T Ethernet and DSL. Cat5 will support 100BASE-T Ethernet. Fiber Optic -- can be ATM or Ethernet. If coaxial cable (RG-59 as used in cable tv) can be used with no other signals on it (if you can), then 10BASE2 is a "simple" but obsolete and slow solution. Best forget about it. You'd much rather use something like Gefen TV Ethernet over Coax to push a 100Mbit/s full duplex Ethernet link over the coaxial cable. If you have to coexist (tap into) existing cable TV distribution plant, then use a DOCSIS-based solution.
I would not use 10BASE-T since a segment is limited to 100m in length, same for 10BASE-2, and it's really obsolete. So you are left with, most practically:
- Cat3: DSL
- Cat5: 100BASE-T Ethernet or DSL
- Fiber: 100BASE-FX Ethernet
- Coax: Gefen solution for dedicated run, DOCSIS solution for coexistence with cable tv distribution
That's just the first step, but a very important one. You have to inventory existing physical plants that are available, also inventory available power, and price all options out.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Check out Mikrotik hardware.. inexpensive, stable, and made for this.
Also easy to manage and maintain.
This is pretty much what Meraki was designed to do.
They may not want to lay new "cables" but either the DSL or Ethernet suggestions could put routers every 3-4 rooms along an eve. Hopefully every room will have at least two routers to choose from. They are cheap and wireless is a "key feature" of hotel service now. By doing it on an inside eve it will be weather protected and externally mounted for simplicity. The routers can be just inside a front window or out. This will give the parking lot excellent service. I personally have mine set to public since range is only 300 feet and I am bandwidth limited anyway.
For an inexpensive, easy to install & setup, self-configuring, self-healing MESH network, there is none better than openmesh.com
I have used this, and it is highly scalable. Your hop count (and latency) will be reduced if you can centralize or have multiple ethernet connection points, which is highly desirable but not absolutely necessary. The newer equipment uses an 802.11(n) backbone with 802.11(g) client access.
You can buy a lot of nodes, and just plug one into an AC outlet every 3rd or 5th motel room. You can easily plug int in behind dressers and in utililty closets or wherever there is a convenient AC outlet. Centrally define & control and monitor your network very easily, online. Enter each MAC address, locate them with a Google map overlay, plug the units in, and you're done.
http://www.open-mesh.com/ is a great, low-cost solution for this kind of purpose. They supply hardware and FOSS software for handling large, meshed networks at a much lower cost than other companies.
15 APs? Seems like not enough...
Personally, I have experience with my company's 110 AP Aruba Wifi network, but that includes a few branch offices with barely sufficient coverage (ie. 3-5 APs).
Now, to be honest, we have a rather dense deployment, which uses some of the APs as what Aruba refers to as Air Monitors. The Air Monitors simply monitor the network by jumping from channel to channel listening for clients, listening for interference, and assisting load balancing when roaming between APs. I don't know if another solution provides features like that, but the system works great. Plus it's all centrally managed, from a device called the mobility controller. Since we treat this network with the same regard as out GigE LAN (ie, for business to continue smoothly, it's critical), we have redundant mobility controllers.
Big Caveat! It's not very cheap, however I've been looking for a smallish mobility controller to use with the APs left over from our last upgrade and they run 2k-4k for the smallest version (A-800 - manages 16APs), and thats just for experimenting/testbed... What we actually run for production currently can handle up to 128 APs...
Now, the benefits are awesome! It can handle just about any authentication mechanism, it supports virtual ESSIDs, it will load balance users across APs, it supports firewalling, intrusion detection, IPsec, centralized traffic handling... This list goes on for a long time. Honestly, if you can afford to get it used (check ebay), it's super worth it.
Neat trick it can do is trilaterate a user's position and place it on the floor plan, along with it's margin of error. This works on a per floor basis.
I guess, unless money is no concern, you would have to buy it all used. Look for AP-52s and an A2400, or a pair of A800s.
Unfortunately, this solution requires POE, which may be possible. You would need a few POE midspans placed appropriately based on your layout. Any place you have a distribution switch, you should provide POE either from the midspan, or from the switch itself, if possible.
Look, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but it's a fairly costly solution, but it is a correct solution, and it would be a deployment done right if you can afford the density you really need.
I hope the "telephone" cable is cat5; that would really help...
(note: we have run FastEthernet over 2 pair T1 cabling for reasonable spans (50-70 meters) with custom patch cables at each end to put the correct signals on the right pins for 100BaseT. ymmv)
Sorry for rambling, been at a cookout all day. ;-)
TL;DR Aruba Wifi is awesome but pricey compared to commodity stuff, but it's worth it once you see what it can do.
Nomadix Gateway
Ruckus AP's with a ZoneDirector
Easiest to manage and support.
And sell the hotel on new cabling.
There are companies that make AC outlet to wifi devices...
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/42691
You will need to survey the area (building) for optimal placements, but I think that for a hotel of ~50 rooms, you could do this for under a grand. A little engineering in the antenna design combined with outlet placements could also help secure the building from becoming a hotspot to parking lot surfers.
Turn an old comp into an IP-COP firewall with Snort/Squid running and you could have a nice network! I have about 60 users on a 4Mb connection here in Iraq, and we manage just fine.
I've read (almost) this whole thread and while everyone is talking about cabling and whatnot, I've not seen anyone mention DHCP leasing. I just spent the last 2 weeks traveling and spending every other night in a new hotel. EVERY place had problems with DHCP leases. That is, you could connect to the WiFi spot(s) but often could not get a lease and ended up with a self-assigned IP. From what I read, this is due to leaving the routers in the factory config. which is for long lease times (I think 4 days is common). That sux when you have guests coming and going daily; the leases take days to expire and the router runs out of IP's to dole out. So whatever you end up doing, please have the routers configured for *short* leases (perhaps 1 hour?) so when guests depart their slots can be reallocated to new arrivals.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Go to openmesh.com they will help you with planning and we've used their gear in several hotels works really well.
Check http://www.liveport.com/ and http://www.open-mesh.com/
Slashdot = Sarcasm
Check out the open-mesh routers. Low cost and self healing mesh network.
How many rooms, how many stories. What's the size of the building? What are the walls made of? What's your budget?
All of these things make a difference in what will be needed to provide a usable WiFi signal to all rooms. Don't do anything less than WiFi; most traveling devices have WiFi capabilities, but many of them do not have LAN jacks.
Comcast already has cable to the office; have them put their cable modem there - not at the property line. Then you'll be able to secure the networking equipment and make the owners feel more secure.
Beyond that, distances and construction matter. You're going to need multiple access points; how many and where to put them depends on the particular scenario. Even the height of the access point from ground level makes a huge difference in coverage.
It's quite possible to do this at a fairly low cost and provide reliable service to the guests. But if you've never planned and installed a network system like this before - run away as fast as you can and let someone else do it.
The specs on the access points are wishful thinking under the best of conditions; this job really needs someone with experience in wireless installations to plan it.
Aerohive (http://www.aerohive.com/) is another "just works" alternative to Meraki for a hands-off meshing Wireless LAN. Strategically position some AP 330s (internal omnidirectional) around and you should be good to go. The "HiveManager" system can be physical or virtual -- even as simply ran within VMware Player on a spare PC machine -- so don't let them oversell you on that component of the system.
Check out the Tom's hardware report on Independent Wi-Fi Interference and Capacity Testing
Omnidirectional, modular board, control if you want direction.
What are APs?
Ruckus Wireless can do mesh networking for the backhaul and does really nifty beamforming for the AP functionality.
hi, I work in a company inside the Tech Incubator of the Politecnico di Torino. (http://www.i3p.it/) Inside there are a lot of NewCo: one of them has a nice solution for Wireless management as you ask. This company is Trampoline (http://www.trampolineup.com/). I checked the website and it looks like they don't have an english translation, but you may contact them easily. Let us know how it'll end! AS P.S.: I don't work @ Trampoline :)
Hi. Based on a friend's investigation, Ruckus Wireless has a very compelling solution for distributed, planned wireless.
I agree with some comments that nowadays, the only hotspots I get good connections are the very well planned ones. Places where a WIFI hotspot has been installed usually gets overloaded and doesn't work well.
I mean, do you really think there is going to be an issue with a person pulling into your parking lot, trying to use your WiFi? You may get a few of these, but so what? I doubt it will be of any significance - they can go across the street to McDonald's and get Free WiFi. And, hate to break it to people, but WiFi really does not travel THAT far. IF it penetrates the building material of the hotel, it very likely will not pass the parking lot. Shoot, at a McDonald's, I can be across the street at Walgreens and SEE the access point, but I cannot really connect until I get into the parking lot of the McDonalds, and cannot really get a decent signal unless I get right up to the building or go inside (even then, sometimes you do not get a usabel signal). Let's face it - WiFi is just not strong enough for that.
I say, screw the password-protected WiFi. Its really not needed at a place like a Hotel where they are giving it away.
You might want to investigate AirTight Networks Secure Wi-Fi delivered and managed in the cloud with full wireless intrusion prevention (WIPS) capabilities, no capex and no heavy lifting to install.
...seems to me that ethernet-over-power to wireless APs would be the simplest solution. Each AP would have its own password, and it all connects back to the single WAN insertion point.
Least, that's how I'd do it.
Netgear's Powerline 500 would offer duplex throughput adequate for multiple 802.11n wireless access points.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
avoid meraki - they tried to sell us 17 access points/radios and we only needed 5 !!!!