wifi hot spot - need advice - PLEASE HELP

[mslink]

Hi, I need some advice on this for a client. I've done smaller hot-spots (in one building) but nothing like this. I know I am skilled enough to take it on but I would like some advice & questions answered.

I got a call the other day from a restaurant owner who wants to install a wifi hot spot in his restaurant and send the signal over to two other buildings. He only owns the restaurant and wants to set up a hot spot to offer Internet to two other buildings right by his. Equipment ideally is all mounted on his roof / building. Building one is a convention center type building (all open area once inside mainly) starting at 200' away and the back end reaching about 800'/900' away from his restruant. The 2nd building is a hotel about 1,000' away with the back end being about 1,300 feet away. He also wants wifi setup in his restaurant for his customers separate from his own private wifi. I could use any advice / insight on this if you know anything and would appreciate it very much.

The wifi in his restaurant for his customers I am just going to place a router behind the bar, and if necessary an extender on the far end but one router should handle his whole restaurant fine as it's not very big. His private wireless (for his personal / staff use I guess - I don't know why he wants both) will just include a router in his back office like normal. He's having a T1 ran in and also has DSL (I'm going to suggest to him to keep the DSL too) all that is running in to the back office. A switch will be setup as well for his security cameras, computers, the other routers and the feed for the hot spot (may also need some sort of firewall to protect his computers from the hot spot, where?). From his roof it is a straight shot to both buildings (only parking lot between). From the back office I'll run the cables up to the roof for the hot spot feed where antenna's will be mounted to shoot the Internet over...

Now I know normally what you would do is have an antenna from his roof shooting the Internet to both buildings and then have an antenna/extender on the other buildings to boost the signal into each individual building. That's not possible because he only owns the one and wants everything there. If you have a better idea or don't think this will work let me know. I am still putting the rest of this together.

With cables ran to the roof for the hot spot feed I was going to install at least two (1 for ea building) AP / atenna's. I was going to use Value Point (http://www.valuepointnet.com/products/ruggedap/index.html). I've used them before and am not sure what other companies sell gear like that. Another area I have not decided on is to use Value Point hardware/software to manage the hot spot or to get a separate hot spot router and run the two antennas off of that. What do you think?

I am still working out some of the details and best way to go so if you have any ideas or information or hardware I should take a look at please please let me know. Is the way I am planning on doing this right? Do you think shooting one (or 2 or 3 if needed) of these AP's/antenna's at the hotel building alone will get the signal there strong enough and into the building for people to use strong enough? What about the other building? I am sure the signal will reach, would you suggest using one or two?

If you have any questions about site let me know. I am going to find out in the morning what that hotel is made out of. Which will also help me figure this out. Any help is appreciated very much!

 

[PcTek9]

15 dBi Antenna - 2 miles http://www.hawkingtech.com/products/productlist.php?CatID=32&FamID=58&ProdID=373

** it's omnidirectional !!!

let's see if a mile is 5,280 feet then this means a circle around this antenna extending outward about... uhmmm 10,560 feet unless i mentally calculated it wrong. LOL. enjoy!

 

[thecoldone06]

The antenna PcTek9 suggested is very nice and will get the signal to the other two buildings. The only thing I would consider is upping the bandwidth. If he is going to be sharing this connection with a hotel, there is going to be a lot of people on that connection. With only one T1, nobody is going to be going anywhere very fast.

 

[mslink]

Do you think the antenna PcTek9 suggested is better than the Value Networks ones? If I used that one would I just simply run a cable to the roof and plug directly into it or do I need something else or a router? The cable will be running out of either a switch or the hotspot router to manage everything. Do you know of any good hotspot routers you would suggest? Thank you so much.

 

[thecoldone06]

PcTek9 correct me if I'm wrong, but the antenna he posted would actually connect to where the current antenna is screwed onto the router. Basically you would have to run a coax cable up to the roof, connect one end to the routers antenna connection and the other to the antenna on the roof.

I apologize, I did not see your link to ValuePoint. It looks like good equipment and if you have used them before and are comfortable with them then by all means. Which ValuePoint were you thinking about purchasing if you don't mind me asking?

 

[pc-wiz]

Don't know if this is what you are looking for but looked like a very neat product: http://www.open-mesh.com/store/

 

[chrisaroz]

PcTek9 correct me if I'm wrong, but the antenna he posted would actually connect to where the current antenna is screwed onto the router. Basically you would have to run a coax cable up to the roof, connect one end to the routers antenna connection and the other to the antenna on the roof.?

You could put a bridge on the roof and hook into that.

 

[PcTek9]

o. you need to know more about radio don't you. ok. Well ... Several things help radio receive and transmit better... rx & tx... think of radio as just an input signal which is superheterodyned on top of a carrier wave. the wavelength factors in the length of the antenna. if it's too short OR too long you get a traversal wave subharmonic reflection not correctly dissipating as signal. so better antennas can transmit and receive further - that's #1. Another way you can transmit and receive farther is to have better transmitters and receivers. This is usually measured in wattage - unlike antennas which are measured in decibels of gain - and this is an indication of the systems ability to send signal and amplify it.

so basic radio principle applies here even if it's computer signals being transmitted... you have a waveform being combined with a radio frequency carrier wave in the rf modulator, and then that combined signal is sent to the power amplifier where it is broadcast and shot out the antenna.

the best idea is to have a matched system... the right antenna for the right router... just buy it and try it, if it doesn't do what you expect, get a more powerful router. I seriously think the antenna would give you a huge connection radius and you will be delightfully surprised.

** please remember that if you have a crappy antenna, even a higher wattage router isnt going to get a signal out to anywhere...

*** One more thing i need to touch on (sorry for double edits) The antennas that appear with the valuepoint stuff are flat panel. Flat panel antennas are UNIDIRECTIONAL this means you point them in a direction and they receive/send in that direction. so 36 decibels sounds great... but not when you gotta reach a building over here And a building in the middle and... a building over there.... lol. That's when you need an OMNIDIRECTIONAL antenna like that one from hawking tech. Omnidirectional just means it radiates in all directions and you are at the center of that. So I figured a 2 mile omnidirectional antenna for such a low price would suit your needs.

 

[mslink]

i understand what you mean PcTek9. I am not sure which hardware I am going to go with. I've worked with value point before but am unsure. I'm okay with having two different directional ones since the buildings are not right by each other and he doesn't want it go to the back side of his building since there's nothing there but a parking lot. I've talked to him about just the T1, he has a wireless DSL connection through a local provider, I suggested he keep that and up the speed if needed on top of the T1, or he's going to see about getting a 2nd T1 put in. I am not sure even how much to charge for something like this.

Do I charge by the hour and give a quote on that, or do a give a flat rate based on my hourly fee and up that a little to cover for problems etc?

 

[PcTek9]

well... value point has some omnidirectional antennas but their largest radius omni was only 12 dBi @ $129, on that same note, hawkingtech is 15 dBi @$100. Also remember that dBi increases in such a way that 15dBi is not just 3 units greater than 12, but much more.

See I know it seems silly to you to make such a huge deal over 3 dBi of gain. but... look at my calculations...

Because bels over watts increases exponentially, we see that if we have a transmitter with 2 watts output and an antenna with 12 dBi gain, then:

on 2/12 system:
erp: 12.862 dBW = 19.328 W
eirp: 15.010 dBW = 31.698 W

on the hawkingtech 15 dBi antenna using the same 2 watt transmitter (router) we see:
erp: 15.862 dBW=38.564 W
eirp: 18 dBW=63.246 W

so you can see we double the effective radiated power (erp) and the effective isotropic radiated power (eirp) by using an antenna with only 3 more dBi gain.

If nothing else, it's a huge distance, and it's cheaper... Since it's a pretty much omnidirectional dipole, the eirp model of radiated transmission suits it best. Also this is the best type of antenna to use b/c the H-plane and E-plane are critical to everyone getting a good signal in this particular case.

Also sir, please do not let me sound to critical, but you may need to look at ALL the antennas offered by valuepoint - it doesn't matter if you buy from hawkintech or not, i dont work for them. But they are the better value in this case. Also even if you don't purchase from them, I still would not get a flat panel antenna. See you need to look at all value points antennas, and look at the technical spec's. If you observe the h-plane and e-plane you will notice that for the flat panel it pushes everything out in 1 direction, even though it's not focused like a dish, it's still in a general direction. In the very least I highly suggest you purchase instead, an omnidirectional antenna from valuepoint, if you dont get the better one from hawkingtech.
On that same note: valuepoints routers look much better than hawkingtech, as far as features like radius, and power (wattage) etc. But it depends on how much he is going to get in to... Obviously when you start talking about routers that cost nearly $1,000 dollars or more your getting into serious pockets.

** how much to charge? honestly I don't know how much your time is worth... your overhead is different from mine... research time, etc...

 

[pactech]

Not sure if I missed something but,does each of these buildings (2 additional)have phone/cable service inside? Wouldnt it be easier to just go wireless inside each building from the service provider instead of the antenna?

 

[PCSupportGlasgow]

Not sure if I missed something but,does each of these buildings (2 additional)have phone/cable service inside? Wouldnt it be easier to just go wireless inside each building from the service provider instead of the antenna?

yup especially once users complain about how slow the net is because of bandwidth issues.

Intrtanet yes could understand antennas but fort public internet the OP is just asking for trouble

 

[PcTek9]

well.... not really.

It would be if the guy giving everybody free wireless actually OWNED the other buildings... LOL. He's doing this out of the kindness of his heart.

* who dares awaken djinn from slumber?