On Wed, 3 Jul 2002, Alex Short wrote: > I have 3 offices within 1000ft of each other, rather the two remote > locations are within 1000ft of the main office. I propose to connect > the two to the main office hopefully using some kind of WAP. > > My idea is to buy 3 Linksys WAP, consumer grade, but then one has the > issue, what, do you strap 3 of these things on the roof of each > building? > > Just wondering at 1000ft, what advice people have, i imagine on of > these in server mode at the main office, and two acting as client with > some kind of external antenna should do the trick. Any advice out > there? Is linkshys a poor option, should i be looking at other > potentially better solutions.
The Linksys devices should work fine, but if you want to guarantee rock-solid reliability, go Cisco or Avaya or something (about 5x the money, though.) If you do go WAP11's, remember you've got a limitation of 32 MAC addresses. My recommendation is always to put an ipsec gateway right behind each router, so you get strong encryption across the link. If you do put a firewall/gateway behind each router, you'll also neatly sidestep the MAC limitation (each gateway and the network behind it only counts as the gateway's MAC, obviously.) I generally locate the access point inside of the building, as close to the antenna as I can get it. This way, you don't even have to think about weatherproofing (well, except for the antenna and the cable connecting to the antenna). Remember to put lightning protection on the cable coming in from the roof -- many people also recommend that you use a pair of fiber transceivers and a meter of fiber on the ethernet side of the AP, just in case. This way, if you do get a direct hit from lightning that jumps through the protector on your antenna cable, you'll only fry your AP and not your switch, etc. How much bandwidth do you need between the offices? If you just put one AP at the central office, remember you're sharing the 11mb (well, 5-6 throughput) between both offices. Are the two offices on opposite sides of the main office, or are they both in the same general direction? If they are in the same direction, buy a sector/panel antenna for the main office with enough beamwidth to cover both offices. If they are not in the same direction, you'll probably want to go an omni at the main office, and sector/panels or parabolics at the remote offices. Remember, if you don't have perfect line of sight, it's going to be a lot harder to get the link up. -- Nate Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Phone : (952)943-8700 http://www.real-time.com | Fax : (952)943-8500 -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
