Help Scoping Wireless Network with several access points (Diagram Attached)

[TenYardFight]

Here's a diagram of the network

They'd like to give WIFI to all the residents. The red line represents a hallway with attic access. My first thought was a POE Router and 4 Ethernet Powered access points mounted high on the wall at strategic points along the hallway. I'd want them to all have the same SSID, same password, on different channels, so people didn't log on and off the different APs. First of all, do you see any flaws in this strategy?

Secondly, I need to figure out how to get the signal to the two out buildings. They are the buildings marked 108 feet and 180 feet in the drawing.

a.) The 108 foot building looks connected, but it's not. It does however, already have an exposed telephone cable running to it. I could run my cable next to that one.

b.) The 180 foot building is not connected at all.

I have reviewed these threads:
http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31789
http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28893
http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33883

Sometimes I have a hard time differentiating solutions that "sometimes work" from solutions that are bonafied enterprise grade. I don't want frequent router reboots, etc... The Ubiquiti nanostations get many mentions, but I might need some clarity as to how they'd work. Is line of site required? Could a pair of nano stations be used to take the wireless signal from one of my hallway access points to the outbuilding? Would I then add another access point in the outbuilding?

Thanks in advance...

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Not bad.....some questions for you.

Guessing this is a nursing home?
My first hunch is 8....maaaaaybe 6....APs throughout the main building. I'm guessing initially 8..depending on the walls that separate each suite/room.

Ubiquiti Unifi "LR" models. PoE driven

1 at each end of the long horse shoe.
1 at each elbow above that.
1 at each of the long ~250 foot hallways.
and 1x at each of the beginning of each wing (basically where each wing starts...near the central entrance where you have "router" labeled.

Hopefully existing fast ethernet throughout the building...and switches in place?

As for the central building...probably 2 APs diagonally across.
Most likely have conduit running to it to run some ethernet.

As for the at second building up in the NW corner...any conduit running to it? Usually these complexes have an existing CAN setup (campus area network)..sharing some utilities through conduit.

I'd thoroughly look for options running copper...before falling back on wireless point to point units.

 

[TenYardFight]

Thanks Stonecat. Yes, you nailed it. Old folks home!

Those Ubiquiti Unifi's say 600 ft radius. Obviously you think that's unrealistic, right? What about 220 ft?

Check out this drawing. Those yellow circles are 220 feet or so. That would cover everyone, right? For that matter, the 108 ft wide outbuilding could be covered by a 6th one, where I do have attic access marked by a red star on the drawing. Am I being to optimistic?

There is no ethernet in the building. My guy will be running that. There are no switches anywhere. Just a modem and a wireless router that serves the lobby, dining room, etc...

I will look for options to serve that NW building using buried cable...

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

How much bandwidth do you have? I'd want at least a 15/2 connection.

Separate physical internet connection from the business network? Or will it be sharing...if so, VLANs to separate them.

A firewall with good QoS and UTM.

They must run something there...SOS, Optimus, Abacus, online Pharmerica, etc. Gotta be some existing network for the nurses office, nursing stations, and administration offices.

From the length of those halls....usually at some intersection/elbow of the wing, they'll have a utility closet. There's your spot to run ethernet to from the center...and have a switch in there...APC UPs...and POE to the APs from there.

600 ft radius is under ideal circumstances...middle of a parking lot with no obstacles. Throw in some walls...not to mention the cinder block walls of a nursing home, throw in lots of electronics/monitoring that healthcare has (tons of interference), thick fire stop walls, oh yeah..your range will diminish. You'd be amazed at how the signal will drop soon as you walk 15 feet into a room. Don't go light....those Unifi LR APs are just under 100 bucks each..that's minimal for cost. A realistic budget of around a grand in APs...plus another 800 to a grand of running wiring, plus several good switches ..and a larger core switch, and a biz grade UTM appliance at the edge...another 1500 bucks easy. Now factor in your time...I'd want 1500-ish to oversee this project...you're a little over 5 grand. And this is just a guestimate from without seeing it.

 

[TenYardFight]

Thanks again my friend. Lots of things for me to follow up with them on.

1.) I thought I'd get one large POE switch to put where the router is now, and feed all the access points from it. I guess there's a limit to how far you can run POE, I should have known. So I'm going to need to run Modem>Firewall>POE Switch>Ethernet>POE Switch>Access Point?

2.) To clarify, this is am 'independent living" community. Not alot of nurses, pharmacies, etc. I'm going to double check what they're doing, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn they aren't doing anything on their computers but using the internet...

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Masonic or something?

My initial thought...without seeing the setup in person,
Router/firewall towards the center.
Core switch in the center.
From there..probably uplink the closest 2 or 4 APs....I'd probably have a POE-less switch (non POE)..and just use injectors for those couple of APs.
From the core switch...long home runs towards the...err...."elbows" of each wing. I'd guess there's a utility close near each of those. Put smaller POE switches in there..or non POE..and just use injectors for the APs...and run the farther away 2 or 4 APs on each wing from those.
Similar home runs from the core switch leading to each of those 2 separate buildings....where I'd have a small switch in each of those.

If budget allows..and to future proof, those "home runs" should be fiber. So you can do gigabit to those separate buildings. The nursing home I recently wired up we did fiber for the home runs to each wing...going to the core switch near the server cabinet.

 

[TenYardFight]

Kinda surprising the lack of response to this thread. I honestly think this is an area where most of us are lacking in knowledge, and I'll keep updating the thread to hopefully help alleviate that.

I firmed up my quote, delivered it today. There's enough profit built in that I can improvise in order to get the job done. Stonecat, here's some more information.

It's not Masonic. It's just not really a medical setting. There's only 2 staff computers, and they're laptops. They get on the same wireless the residents do.

So to keep them status quo and get my foot in the door, I did this:

Main Building:
7x Ubiquiti UniFi Long Range Access Points
1x Cisco SD208P 8-port 10/100 Switch - PoE/QoS where current router is
2x TRENDnet 8-Port 10/100Mbps PoE Switch TPE-S44

Closest Outbuilding:
1x Ubiquiti UniFi Long Range Access Point (served by Cisco SD208P)

Furthest Outbuilding (Which doesn't have a CAN)
2x Ubiquiti UniFi Long Range Access Points
1x TRENDnet 8-Port 10/100Mbps PoE Switch TPE-S44
1x This Kit

Thoughts?