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Ask Slashdot: Updating a Difficult Campground Wi-Fi Design?
MahlonS writes "I am a retired network hack wintering in my RV in a campground in southern GA. 3 years ago I reconfigured the Wi-Fi system to a marginal working ability; It's now ready for a serious upgrade, prompted by a new cable net connection replacing a weak DSL. 5 dual-radio HP Curve access points connect to a 6th via single or double radio hops (effectively a Wireless Distribution System) in heavily wooded space. Unidirectional antennas at the APs (the APs are in water resistant enclosures) are placed on poles above the RVs, about 15 feet above ground. Primary hops are about 300 feet to 3 of the APs, secondary hops about the same. Signal measurements indicate that there is adequate RF between the access points. In 2008, average user count averaged about 30 users; newer devices (smart phones, etc) will likely increase that number (winter population total is about 80 RVs). While the old design worked OK when lightly loaded, I suspect that the single DSL line generated so many packet resends that the APs were flooded. This is a quasi-State Park, so money is always an issue, but there is enough squawk from the user community that a modest budget might be approved. The main AP connects to an old Cisco router. Burying wire is frowned upon, due to shallow utilities, and campfire rings that float around the campsites — sometimes melting TV cables. Since I'm not up on current Wi-Fi tech, are there solutions out there that would make this system work much better?"
Ah, getting back to nature and disconnecting.
Surely, any snowbird that can afford an RV can afford a 4G connection?
This immediately comes to mind, though admittedly I'm not good with wireless. My concern with this idea is will it fit your budget.
May also want to swap out the router, depending on how old it is.
Cables are the best choice, if you can accomodate them. You say you can't run them underground, so how about from tree to tree, suspended from a guide wire? I'd say that weatherproof cable attached to a wire is resistant enough. It's also cheaper than most radio-based alternatives and works a lot better than Wi-Fi.
I'd look into some of the fairly inexpensive openmesh routers...they're great for extending networks (or running jasager).
http://www.open-mesh.com/
Lower your transmitters a little. Signals propagate horizontally (perpendicular from the antenna), this is why you need to have an AP on each floor in a house to get good signal. Not because you're on different floors so much as the signals just aren't going in the right directions.
I know you're trying to broadcast over the RVs, but going over them also means no signal is getting to them in this case.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
It sounds like you're broadcasting from one access point to another, instead of from a wired connection to each access point.
Just run fiber to the access points. It's cheaper than you think, and forms a guaranteed, secure connection. Good for a mile, and it doesn't care about EM interference of any sort.
I am John Hurt.
WiMAX is what you need!
Just ask CLEAR.
we've got 5 outdoor ruckus ap's spread across our park. (fairly cheap too)
http://www.ruckuswireless.com
they'll mesh with indoor wifi ap's if you don't want to run ethernet to each one individually.
the "smart antenna" design is actually pretty good. it supports dynamic beamforming, multiple signal paths etc. basically it just takes the path of least resistance, which helps a lot when dealing with a lot of walls/trees etc.
you can give them a call w/ any questions you might have.
I would run two networks, a backbone at say channel 6, and alternate APs at 1 and 11. Get highly directional antennas for the backbone, and either corner-directional antennas or omnidirectional antennas for the access points. Run the backbones up high, and the APs 12 feet or so.
Try to eliminate any double hops via short cable runs and/or smarter backbone placement.
replace the radios with Ubiquiti NanoStations and problem solved, we just did one down here in Florida, same scenerio, longer distances though
From what I got your primary AP (1) connects to 3 secondaries (abc) and 2 more connect those (23). They are dual band are you repeating only over the 5ghz segment on a different ssid? Routing rather than bridging as people tend to just directly connect to these so limiting your broadcast domain is a must. 3 wires out to a b and c should do wonders, you might want to try power line networking for those wired connections since you will reuse your existing AC wiring, keep the 5ghz as a backup.
No sir I dont like it.
Get a half-decent firewall. If you need to do it cheaply, get a small industrial PC, put OpenBSD on it, and use pf. This will allow you to set up packet queueing, which will allow you to prioritize acks over everything else, which will save you mountains of bandwidth in iffy RF conditions like that. (If you do wind up using pf, note that if you assign two queues to a rule, the second queue listed will get all the acks... this makes it very easy to get all the acks in their own queue(s). ) You can also clamp down on bandwidth hogs and set up QOS prioritization, both of which would help in that situation.
If you really want to fix it, firewall it AND wire it. Fiber would be best, but I don't know if you will be able to trench across the required areas- but if you have power at all these locations, someone probably already DID trench there. :)
Ah, getting back to nature and disconnecting.
Ah, posting on Slashdot instead of reading a book.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Ubiquiti UniFi. Cheap, powerful, easy.
Your opinion is valid. It's also subjective and irrelevant. And GP's post was rightly modded down for the same reason.
Dilbert RSS feed
This is a quasi-State Park, so money is always an issue, but there is enough squawk from the user community that a modest budget might be approved.
because they can pull money from the marketing budget first as a lure to get people to come as a checkbox feature, secondly because you can install $100 wifi webcams at the "cool places" (pool, lakeshore, whatever) so visitors from the UK feel comfortably spied upon and the promotional web page can have "click here to see the scenic lakeshore live!" buttons.
also they can pull a little money from the security budget, because the webcams can monitor boring yet important locations like the bar's cash register, the general store cash register, the service entrance, the equipment shed (the $20K nuclear propelled lawnmower, tanks of gas for the mower, etc)
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Take a look at Engenius' access points, I think their multihop repeater solution might fit your needs http://www.engeniustech.com/index.php/networking/solutionsdatacom/
Jekyll Island?
On the other hand, if you think the DSL router's doing crazy stuff, maybe you should focus on making it not do that crazy stuff.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Putting wi-fi in a campground is contrary to its purpose. I don't care if the asker and the editors failed to notice this. I don't care if that rains on someone's little parade. It's a dumb idea. Whatever you're doing there, it isn't camping. It's using the Internet outside. That's my genuine opinion, and not only is it as valid as the asker's, it's more valid because it's more consistent with what a campground is for. Some ball-less soul-less sack of shit will mod me down anyway because he hasn't the guts to argue against me, but that's okay.
Except that a lot of people in RVs full time. That means their RV is their primary, and only, home. As such, they need access to their bank accounts, friends, relatives, news. For most people who full time, a campground with wifi is essential, at least once in a while.
My sister lives aboard a sailboat. Full time, all over the world. Wifi is huge for her. Without wifi, we do't know if she's alive or not. We have an RV; we don't fulltime but after 9 days it's nice to do laundry and catch up on world news.
We also backpack and spend a lot of time in the wilderness, so I'll stack my "camping creds" against yours any day. When was the last time you were in the wilderness, with a 2 day hike-out to the nearest trailhead? Are you spending your thanksgiving next to your computer, or in the high desert 20 miles from the nearest town?
I don't think one vendor will supply everything that you need, but you definitely need to take a look at uBiquity. We've used their NanoBridges in studio-to-transmitter links several times and have been pleasantly surprised. The stuff is ridiculously cheap -- so cheap that we honestly wondered what could be wrong with it until we tried it. (Less than $160 for a pair of NanoBridges!)
Ubiquity's Website
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
https://www.open-mesh.com/
Sounds like the obvious choice. Cheap, simple to manage. If the default openmesh hardware doesnt' quite fit the bill, check out Ubiquiti
http://www.ubnt.com for their hardware.
Extremely affrodable, high output. You'd likely be looking at the Pico/nanostation hardware.
http://store.netgate.com/Bullet-PicoStation-NanoStation-C157.aspx
.
Opinions don't deserve to be modded down just because they are opinions. If that is the standard, your opinion on opinions deserves to be modded down.
As for wifi in RV parks -- I'm not an RVer, nor do I desire to become one. However, people who go to RV parks aren't likely trying to connect with nature. They are more likely trying to "get away" much like people who use hotels do, except they have to do their own dishes and make their own beds. Some people are into that and some people are into sleeping in a tent, though some might whine about the latter group too -- seriously, people using sleeping bags? Shouldn't they be weaving temporary blankets out of bark strips?
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Except that a lot of people in RVs full time. That means their RV is their primary, and only, home.
Then they aren't camping, are they Sparky? They're in a mobile home. What I said wouldn't apply to them.
My sister lives aboard a sailboat. Full time, all over the world. Wifi is huge for her. Without wifi, we do't know if she's alive or not. We have an RV; we don't fulltime but after 9 days it's nice to do laundry and catch up on world news.
Another special case. Notice how the post didn't mention sailboats? Did you happen to see that? I could come up with irrelevant special cases too. I just wouldn't pretend that it negates a point that does pertain to the post. Magic, I tell you.
For most people who full time, a campground with wifi is essential, at least once in a while.
There's this technology that's been around for years called cellphone tethering. Many people who couldn't afford an RV can afford this. I know I'd have a good data plan instead of depending on random strangers who happen to be campground caretakers to meet my essential needs for me, but again that falls under preparedness doesn't it?
Hmm let's see... take care of your own needs when the means to do so are ridiculously available, affordable, well-known, and easy to arrange... or depend on random strangers to take care of them for you. Hmm... wow that's a toughie. I think that's what is wrong with this nation. No one can handle their own needs anymore or otherwise carry their own weight and they resent the suggestion that they should. If you can afford to live full-time in an RV you're not exactly dirt-poor. This isn't at all like expecting those who wonder where their next meal will come from to purchase a yacht.
Ruckus wireless. Boom. Done.
Ubiquiti has some very cool products and customer support, you might want to look into their gear.
If you can get line of site from the remote sites back to the central site you should use 5Ghz for the backhaul, and 2.4Ghz for the client side radio. This will reduce your interference. Also, the backhaul should use _very_ directional antennas since the two endpoints are known. This will also prevent interference. It doesn't sound like any of your distances are enough to require a multi-wireless hop, although your sight lines may require it. Avoiding a double hop will increase performance.
You'll also want some intelligent QoS on both the WiFi and cable modem side. You don't want one user to be able to make the experience really bad for all the other users. For instance, if you had a 20Mbps cable modem you might want to limit any one IP/MAC to 5Mbps, or so. WRED or similar can also be your friend. Make sure there is a good local DNS server, as well
Then they aren't camping, are they Sparky? They're in a mobile home. What I said wouldn't apply to them.
OK, if you say so. Last time I checked, a mobile home and an RV are two different things, but I guess not. Hmmmm.
As for the cell phone tethering, that might work for some but not for others. Last I checked, cell phone coverage wasn't universal; it certainly isn't for me. And I pay for a campground so I'm not exactly "depending on random strangers"; I'm paying for a service.
First and foremost, how good do you want the wireless network to be? The CG's upstream is the key thing. If you can't get at least a fast cable or DSL line, having a good connection will be impossible.
If you just want one subnet and have some application throttle everyone, that is one thing. However, a serious Wi-Fi network in a campground will require multiple subnets, repeaters, IDS/IPS systems (because there are those who will be running nmap and other tools looking for an other target), pr0n blockers (so the CG doesn't get sued because Jane Ativan's daughter accidently found a shock site, but allows Joe Sixpack to browse his stash), traffic shaping (so one guy doing P2P doesn't completely saturate a shared network), etc. Don't forget to block BitTorrent so users have to use a VPN for their warez/moviez/tunez fixes. This way, you don't get a knock on the door from some copyright "enforcement group" or a pack of lawyers. In the US, if it comes from your IP, you are criminally and civilly responsible unless you can 100% prove otherwise, so locking out pr0n/warez/etc. and telling users to use VPNs out if they want that is the best policy.
I was asked to do a similar contract, but turned it down as I didn't have the time. The CG had a basic Wi-Fi system, but during a holiday weekend, the system got trashed where antennas were all destroyed/stolen. After the insurance claim got paid [1], the CG owner wanted to upgrade to a top tier Wi-Fi system. For one that had enough bandwidth for everyone in the CG, it would have to have to have a good upstream, multiple subnets, and a large routing infrastructure.
Of course, a campground can use a WISP like Tengo and let them handle everything, but you are then dependent on them on service, and it is yet another party to deal with that might force long contracts. A number of good CG owners avoid WISPs, because some actively add ads into Web browsing (think Phorm), and demand pretty stiff fees.
Just make sure, for the CG, how good do you want the Wi-Fi to be? There is a BIG difference between hanging a consumer level AP in the office versus even site-wide coverage with decent bandwidth for everyone even when the campground is full.
[1]: The CG now charges extra on holiday weekends, and has tow trucks and off-duty police on site. If someone is causing trouble and when asked to leave, says they are too drunk to move their rig, they will be arrested for public intoxication, and their RV impounded. This way, trouble is dealt with quickly.
It sounds like you don't exactly know where your problems are, so how can you solve them?
My advice would be to do some serious analysis of what's going on in your network. Hook up an ethernet sniffer to your internet connection and see what's going wrong. You suspect it's a lot of retransmissions do to the DSL, well find out if that's true. Consider buying a cheap spectrum analyzer (wi-spy can be had for under $100). Track when you get problems, and where. Throwing money and equipment at the problem is more likely to waste money and equipment than solve the problem. Since you're retired, it sounds like you're more short on money and equipment than you are on time to analyse and diagnose the problem.
Once you actually know what the problem is, then you can go out to the wireless community and ask for a solution. K You're seeing a lot of very, very different solutions here because people are guessing what the underlying problem is, largely based on what's worked for them. Obviously you can't follow all of them, but which one should you try? Knowledge is power, and ignorance is folly.
AccountKiller
You're not enjoying nature until you do it like this guy.
Ignore the haters. They don't understand that camping in an RV park is not the "camping" they are thinking of. It's more like a portable cabin, and it's a great way to get out for an inexpensive and hassle-free vacation especially when you have little ones. And you still have the option of remote camping with the same rig if you really want to disconnect. Or using it as a base camp to take tent camping excursions.
Sounds like what you really need here is to separate your "backhaul" form the APs. Since you can't reasonably use cables, you'll want to look into bridges that use time slicing, preferably on a different band than your access points. This lowers contention and retransmissions from the many stations you have that can see the AP they have associated with but not each other (so they both talk at the same time). The more clients you add and the more traffic they send, the worse this problem gets. Time slicing radios were designed to solve this exact problem, and are getting less expensive these days.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
With line of sight problems and lots of water-containing organic obstacles (aka "trees"), lower frequency means much much better signal quality. Use a 900MHz WDS and many of your problems will vanish. I know Ubiquiti offers 900MHz kit, can't say for HP.
Stop being lazy and run freaking wire between the locations. you already have power there so you can run wire. you can use phone wire which is cheap and use ADSL modems for the links, again cheap.
Honestly there is no magical wireless setup that will handle the load, you have to run wire if you want to avoid performance issues.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Meraki cloud based network is a great value over a 5 year ROI. More importantly you will no longer have to really maintain the network, but rather you will be able spend more time strategically expanding the operating scope of the network as reliability will shoot up.
My non-profit is evaluating the architecture of it, but I'm sold.
First of all, you have provided very little information about the terrain. One option is that you should find a spot where you have a clear line of sight to all the other access points and put a 5 ghz omni in there. Then, at the local base stations, you install one 5ghz directional panel and a 2.4ghz omni for the clients. Another option is to install four 2.4ghz sectors in one spot (assuming you need to cover a 360 degree area around it). But without some additional info about obstacles it's impossible to say what would work better.
As long as you run the network and power lines *together*. The more worried you are, the tighter you should couple them. The ideal would be a coaxial-style ground shield around everything, but twisting them together works well, too.
You might try outdoor grade signal boosters. I've had some decent luck with them. There's no substitute for power. That might reduce the number of hops, improving latency and cutting down on retries.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Since you already ran power to the APs, why not use Ethernet over powerlines for the backhaul ?
He's not there to get back to nature and disconnect. He's WINTERING there. - a place that he's already configured once for WiFi three years ago and now he wants to upgrade everything.
Putting wi-fi in a campground is contrary to its purpose. I don't care if the asker and the editors failed to notice this. I don't care if that rains on someone's little parade. It's a dumb idea. Whatever you're doing there, it isn't camping. It's using the Internet outside.
Not everybody at a camp ground is trying to disconnect. Some do it because it's cheaper than a hotel.
Some ball-less soul-less sack of shit will mod me down anyway because he hasn't the guts to argue against me, but that's okay.
Don't take it personally, he could just as easily be modding your post down because you're wrong.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
What's the point of the internet when you're camping? A smartphone for emergency alerts can be practical, but why the full-blown setup?
Because every "Ask Slashdot" has to contain at least one comment thread that misses the point entirely, asking "why bother?"
Then they aren't camping, are they Sparky?
Irrelevant. They're still in the campground.
You have power to the APs. Use Ethernet over powerlines and be done with it.
One for distrobution of service, the other for devices connecting.
I.E. each "point" will have 2 AP's, one which consumers directly connect to, the other which just communicates with other AP's on the site....
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
Eh you can mod it down because he didn't go along with the premise and you just can't stand that ... but it's the fucking truth. Whoever modded this down is a pansy girlie-man with no functional testicles as evidenced by his inability to deal with a contrary opinion.
Evidently you can't stand the moderator's opinion that the parent is off-topic (personally I think it got off lightly). Is your resultant rant irony or rank hypocrisy?
Putting wi-fi in a campground is contrary to its purpose.
You mean providing network access where wires are expensive or otherwise inconvenient? Wi-fi sounds ideal.
Some ball-less soul-less sack of shit will mod me down anyway because he hasn't the guts to argue against me, but that's okay.
You got a -1, stop whinging and deal with it like everyone else.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
What's a "quasi-State Park"? Obligatory "Georgia is a quasi-state" joke.
What is that area really? Does Georgia allow people to live on public lands, even allow/provide utilities (however shallowly buried the wires) including cable TV and now wireless Internet? Do they make you move somewhere else to summer, after you winter in S Georgia? How often do you have to move? Do they charge you anything, like property taxes? Do you receive US Mail to your local address?
The setup sounds wonderful. Or maybe we're talking about the (maybe not so) ex Communist country Georgia.
Snark aside, my questions are serious. And it does sound wonderful.
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make install -not war
OK, so Slashdot is answering your WiFi questions. How about telling us whether you get a better home out of a mobile home (integrated motor and driving seats, etc) or out of a trailer that you rent a car to haul the few times a year you actually move.
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make install -not war
Combine that with Power Over Ethernet to run the APs, and the whole shebang is totally wireless!
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make install -not war
Does Meraki's equipment work installed outside, in a campsite? Or would it have to be installed inside the trailers? How about booster mesh points between trailers too distant for a single hop to work?
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make install -not war
Look at ubiquiti's stuff. M5 Wireless bridges out to to the AP's and UniFi [normal or long-range] for the clients.
www.ubnt.com
Nanostation M5 [5Ghz]: http://ubnt.com/nanostationm
UniFi: http://ubnt.com/unifi
Not as slick as Ruckus or some other stuff, but incredibly cheap. [Bridges are about $200 for a pair - and super solid, massive through-put. UniFi is about $70 per AP.]
You also get the ability to help pay for the system via UniFi. [Paypal subs, no admin reqd. Vouchers for "free" use etc.] That's all included for "free" in their system.
Plus you can use Pico's for outdoor use. Already weather-proof.
[I've not run the Pico's - so check it out in the forum: http://www.ubnt.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=48 - you should be able to get your answers there.]
It's really some of the best bang-for-the-buck for non super-high-density WiFi use around, IMO>
-Greg
Get off your High Horse.
Campgrounds serve a number of different purposes to different people. And the degree to which one wants to "get back to nature" depend on the individual. Wi-Fi is certainly well within the modern concept of a campground.
And why, if you're all into the get-back-to-nature thing to the degree that you seem to be pontificating, why are you at a campground at all? I mean with all those modern conveniences like, you know, hot showers and fulshable shitters? And what about that pay phone?
By the way, why not log in and pontificate your tripe with your user name? Afraid of something?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
You got a -1, stop whinging and deal with it like everyone else.
You mean the +2 Informative where it currently stands? Yeah. What you just did, that's how you count your chickens before they hatch. Why, it's almost as though 3 other mods disagreed with the -1 score. Looks like they dealt with it to me! Your point?
.. when did it become trendy to misspell "whining" on purpose? I missed that meeting. "Whinging"? Sounds like something a bird would do, you know, with its wings ("whings?").
And
do you have power to the campsites (or at least to some of them)? Maybe power line networking will work. It typically works if there is no transformer between stations. E.g. a Netgear XAVNB2001 will give you a wifi access point (and an ethernet plug) with backhaul via power line.
What you're saying is that I don't deserve Internet access because I I don't live the way you want me to.
Get over yourself.
depending on random strangers
You mean like 4G network operators? I guess you must roll your own mobile broadband service.
Getting back to seriousness, most RV campgrounds cost money to stay at, and the money you pay pays for services like Wifi, kinda like the money you pay to Verizon for your 4G. This sounds a lot like what the OP was talking about.
Good luck with your radical self-reliance, though. I hope you have time to weave your own clothes while you're growing your own food and designing your own computers.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
I work with a local WISP and they use Mikrotik products running on all three bands (900MHz, 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz) and they provide networks for many campgrounds and parks along with coverage for over 11 counties. Using 5 radios with omni antennas and doing a WDS mesh or relay you could blanket the whole park for less than you think. Ubiquiti radios are okay but they don't offer the management and configuration options like Mikrotik products.
Read my articles call "Tales from the Towers" on www.triadwireless.net. I cover this type of deployment.
In summary, look at combining Ubiquiti Rockets with dual-polarity antennas. You can use use the new UniFi versions if you want the whole package but not if you want to use AP+WDS for hopping. The dual-polarity antennas and the 802.11n will punch through the trees a whole lot better.
For backhaul between the APs, you can use the radios in AP+WDS mode for 2-3 hops but you lose bandwidth each hop. However, using 5GHz Nanostations for backhaul, thus making them a 2-3 radio combination, is the best. If you have a lot of trees between the APs, use either Nanostation 2M's or Nanostation 900 Locos. The problem with the 900's is that you have limited channel width to work for each hop and they make you run AirMax which is slow and doesn't work right. My preference would be Nanostation M2s or NanoBridges to get through the trees for backhaul.
Meraki has outdoor access points available, but I think they cost more. Several RV parks here in British Columbia switched to Meraki this summer and have dramatically improved their reliability over their previous systems (purely anecdotal...other than knowing they went to Meraki, I don't know what else they changed or how much "better" it is, I just noticed I could connect consistently and with usable bandwidth, unlike before when it was hit-or-miss).
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
Suspecting what may or may not be the problem is not enough. Do a survey, possibly with fake loads and everything. You may find that QoS on the DSL will already help a lot, for example. You will also want to know what else is in the air. If there's people running local APs in their RVs, or other kit on 2.4GHz (video repeaters, some cordless phones, microwave ovens, what-have-you), everyone suffers. So, if you must do wireless, consider moving to 5GHz for the distribution. If at all possible do wires, maybe fibre on top of poles, perhaps old multimode if you can get that cheaply. Perhaps only run wires to APs; saving a couple hops would save a lot of hassle. And, well, how does power get distributed? Bury fibre alongside? Failing that (but how do those APs get their power?) you could always try a mesh system with enough overlap that problems get routed around automatically. But really, why are you asking random strangers what's wrong with what is right under your nose? You have a sort-of working setup. Use that to find out what its current problems are. THEN you can start and figure out what to do about it.
Anagama means well... but for him I have to say this:
Oh man. You're trying to suggest to a woman that her own standards should apply to herself. Good luck with that! Men have been trying to do that for millenia. There's just no reasoning with a woman's fickle ego. It's all about them and theirs -- they're the most self-centered beings on the planet. The only time they object to a double-standard is when it puts them at a disadvantage.
Have a look at Mesh Potato
http://villagetelco.org/mesh-potato/
No, it was downvoted because it didn't answer the question, and therefore was irrelevant.
And yes, my comments in this thread deserve to be downvoted.
Dilbert RSS feed
What exactly gave you the impression that I'm a woman?
Dilbert RSS feed
Your access points must be getting their power from somewhere, and I'm guessing at least some of them will be on the same circuit. Therefore, link them with ethernet-over-powerline back to the DSL. Job done.
(That's assuming that any of the wifi is the actual problem and that you don't have any radio hams on the site...)
I would venture to think Aruba Networks over Cisco. They are both robust players in the field, but considering Aruba's current market position and the fact it appears to be their primary focus, there may be an oppurtunity to get a "bigger bang for the Buck" situation going, everyone wins.
my 2Cents,
3936
What exactly gave you the impression that I'm a woman?
Well you could also be a gay man. You're definitely feminine. You use emotion a LOT more than you ever use logic. You tend to overreact and dramatize. You're quick to contradict yourself without realizing it. Your posts are largely content-free fluff about why you don't like something, just like the way women gather in groups to chatter endlessly about trivial bullshit like other peoples' relationships to boost their serotonin levels and reinforce their group-minded tendencies. Feminine or effeminate, choose the one you like better.
So Meraki is basically WiFi equipment you rent and that's managed remotely by the Meraki company across the Internet?
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make install -not war
Wireless and woods don't mix. Obviously, the only technological and economically viable solution is to cut down the trees, sell the lumber, and use a single AP with a nice powerful omnidirectional antenna.
But seriously, its quite astounding that no one seems to be working on this very real problem, wireless and woods (or wireless with obstructions). I guess the neato factor of wireless, that it works at all, is blinding everyone to the fact that it doesn't work when something is in the way. Someone really needs to fix that.
The Admin and the Engineer
If you have power run to several parts of the campground, how about Powerline Networking with a wireless access node at each point of coverage. The range might be good enough for your application.
And how did you arrive to such conclusions?
Dilbert RSS feed
I'd suggest you look at Xirrus WiFi. They put multiple radios into a single AP array, it hits all of the frequency bands 802.11abgn, so you're set for a year from now when folks all upgrade to "n" wireless devices.
One unit installed in one of their outdoor enclosures, and you've got WiFi 1/4 mile in any direction.
I like to go camping where there is wifi - motorhome with hot/cold water, bathroom, tv, wifi - now THAT is camping! I've done the tent thing with kids and rain and everything else while they were young - now they are gone, and I can enjoy my camping experience whether it storms or suns!! :-)
I'll second the Xirrus arrays as being a good option. We use them in a school environment - so very different to what you require - but they do have several features which may be of use to you... The arrays all come with multiple radios (4, 8, 16 etc) and some of these can be configured to 'back haul' your data with a directional antenna while the other radios in the array provide a multi-directional network for your clients..
The outdoor enclosures also look really good - temp controlled and a rugged design that should be able to take a beating from critters/kids etc ..
Obviously trees / etc will cause nightmares - but with careful placing we've been able to serve multi-story solid concrete buildings with a single array (providing plenty of throughput for ~100 clients all doing network intensive stuff at ones) - so your mileage may vary... But they (at least in Australia they do) offer a no-commitment site survey which was better than I was offered from the other big names resellers when we were researching last year..
Forgot to say - they do come at quite a cost compared other solutions - but we went with them specifically because we could minimize the number of APs actually needed to cover the area.. ~20 arrays compared to ~100+ APs..
One Xirrus WiFi Array will cover. It gets 802.11abgn all with a single unit 1/4 mile coverage any direction. They also have outdoor enclosures.
I heard someone makes an antenna that is made for outdoor mounting up high, that ends in an Ethernet connector that you then plug into your own router so you can get long distant signals then connect to them from inside your own structure. (Sorry its not exactly what you were asking about, but combined with other equipment this item might help.)
I heard of this item being used on a boat, so the owner could connect to the marina supplied wifi, by picking up the signal OVER the neighboring boats
If you care more about enjoying Internet than enjoying nature, wireless might be the way to go. However, a repeatedly confirmed Dutch study has shown that WiFi is bad for vegetation, drying it up. It's a crime to run WiFi in a park - wire up the location. It's also safer, as I'm sure you know.
"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that ones work is terribly important." -BRussell
Were you born an asshole, or just well trained?
What the hell are these people there for? They can't put Facebook down long enough to hike or roast marshmallows?
Unplug the damn things and let the desperate addicts supply their own cellular connection.
There is a wide spectrum of RV-ing out there. You can hit a RV park which essentially is just a parking lot with hookups. Or, you can go to a BLM dispersed camping site that is 100 miles away from anything and is only accessible by a 4x4 pickup with a camper on it, or a Jeep with an Australian made tent trailer.
The best way to go is to run Ubiquiti equipment as the backhauls, ie. across the campground. I would recommend some NanoStations, to go point-to-point, and then once you're bridged use some OM1P routers from Open-Mesh. You could even loan/rent an OM1P to each camper so they have their own box that they can hardwire into if they want.
Every device should run ROBIN, which is a free and open-source firmware alternative built on top of OpenWRT which specializes in meshing. It's perfect for campgrounds like yours :) To manage it all you might want to contact the guys at Surreal WiFi who are finishing up their hosted dashboard to manage ROBIN (and other) wifi networks.
Don't worry about getting 802.11n gear, it won't matter so much because almost all traffic is going to the internet AND any G devices on the network will just drop everyone to G speeds anyway.
Ubiquiti NanoStations cost around $100
OM1Ps cost around $60
Use Aerohive.http://www.aerohive.com/
Pain free mesh networking that simply works . We have recently deployed a few and impressed with the quality of the product as well as ease of use.
Not to mention the controller less design.
Good luck
Regards
anjanesh
Use some tp-link tlwa5210g in bridge mode with AP function enabled. most wifi for your money and easy to set up. http://interprojekt.com.pl/tplink-tlwa5210g-24ghz-high-power-wireless-outdoor-p-918.html
http://www.aerohive.com/
Aerohive would work under these circumstances. They mesh without a fuss , reasonably priced and very easy to use. And a controller less approach.
Use one of the AP330 or AP350 to get more grunt. We have recently deployed a batch of Aerohive kit which pushes all the configuration,computing and processing at the edge leaving the core network relatively free of traffic.
Anjanesh
Sorry bro, the post really is at -1, Offtopic. Deal with it.
It's not a mis-spelling: it's whinging. Comes from whinge.
So there.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
As a person with first hand experience on Cisco and HP Access Points, I have some disappointing news for you. There is no comparison between the Cisco and HP wireless gear. The HP stuff is repackaged Calubris Netowrk gear and it is kludgy, at best. I really, really, really have a shudder of fear when client select the HP stuff. It simply doesn't work well. The Cisco gear using a WLC (Wireless LAN Controller) is the absolute best I;ve ever seen. It's a breeze to install and performance is great. Keep in mind that when using a mesh, the bandwidth goed down 50% at each hop. So, if you have 54Mbps at the first access point, the next access points are limites to 27Mbps and the next at down to 13.5. This is under PERFECT conditions. Your distance of 300 feet is too far. I would recommend a mesh being no more than 150 feet outdoors. Preferably 100 ft. There are limitations to wireless LANS and in the end, your best bet is to create multiple meshes, each with a hard drop back to a switch. You can get underground CAT5 pretty cheap. Rather than running the whole mesh off one drop... have 3 or four of them out to the field and set up your access groups accordingly. But seriously... I would just lose the HP gear. It's so bad. I even yelled at the HP rep... just my $0.02.
"Signal measurements indicate that there is adequate RF between the access points..."
RF strength is simply not enough information to determine the issue with your network. You've got signal/noise, echo and multi-path issues to deal with, at least, in a wooded environment. Saying you've got lots of RF strength is like saying that because you've got lots of volume in a loud room, yes it's loud, but you can barely understand the person you are talking to.
"Unidirectional antennas at the APs..."
Why? How are they connected? simply strung in to an aggregator and fed in to the AP, or does the AP have multiple antenna inputs designed for several Unis? Seems multiple uni antennas on an AP would aggravate the echo and multi-path issues I mentioned above and a single high-gain omni would be better suited.
This is all, of course, a dramatic over-simplification.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Ruckus' meshable outdoor APs with a Zone Director controller unit are the ideal solution for something like an RV park.
Ghosts. I'm afraid of ghosts, ok?
ghosts and death. Maybe really large spiders..... Never seen one of those before. Bet, i'd be afraid.
We use Ubiquiti APs. Unifi Outdoor and NanoStation's. Very low cost, much easier to manage than Mikrotik although less flexible. We use Ubiquiti for all our APs and bridges and then a 450G for routing etc. Next year Ubiquiti will be releasing a Vyatta based embedded board that I expect will replace the MT gear.
http://www.merunetworks.com/
Unlike most everything else mentioned here, they use a very novel approach that actually works, and scales. The challenge you've already run into is that every node on the network spends more time performing collision management than actually performing work. As things scale, this will get much, much, much worse.
Once you see their approach, you'll understand why the others suck in any non-trivial production.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
I saw a marine grade antenna at islandtimepc.com. the antenna is the access point and power is sent to the antenna over the Ethernet cable that comes out of it, so if you have a nice tall pole or tree this would be very easy to hide up high, then bring down to your router at camper level, the only drawback is this is only b and g networks according to the web page. If I were building a system at a RV park I would investigate running a wire or fiber based backbone between the routers around th park, if it was too costly to bury new wires then could I do Ethernet over power line, for the backbone. Last option I would do was wireless for the connection of the parks routers to each other.
Also I would use a map of the park and where the routers will be to plan which ones get omni directional antennas, and which ones get other shapes of coverage.
Using WDS to daisy-chain links between APs is a pretty bandwidth-hungry way of doing things, potentially tripling the on-the-spot bandwidth usage of a single client.
While working at a school, the wireless network scheme I came up with was to get dual-band APs that supported multiple SSIDs and encryption settings. By placing the end user SSIDs purely on the 2.4GHz band and the WDS link SSIDs alone on the 5GHz band, WDS wouldn't be retransmitting on the same frequency, easing network congestion. It would also leverage the superb range of the 5GHz band over a direct line of sight.
The AP I selected for this (a D-Link of some sort, can't remember) had quad antennae, two for each band. I would like to have tried refitting the omnidirectional antennae on APs in the middle of WDS daisy chains with directional 5GHz antennae, one pointing at the upstream AP and one at the downstream AP. Whether the increase in raw signal strength could make up for the loss of teaming, I don't know. I had to leave before the project got out of the planning stages.