Hello and thanks in advance. I have been pawing throught the BAWUG several times but I think I really need some help now.....
I operate a very small WISP at a business park. Right now I have a Rangelan 2 but I need to upgrade the system. AT&T was going to come in to the biz park with cable but they backed out so I am it and need to keep customers and friends happy. This is not a money making venture, it has been the only high speed option for our semi rural biz park. My upstream ISP lets me resell the T1 as he (also a small biz) would rather have one larger account that four to ten smaller ones. I cover my equipment costs and connectivity. SO here are the specs: Existing: I currently have 4 wireless customers served with a single directional panel antenna off the Rangelan 2 12 total offices might use the service if I had a good solution. Currently the Ranglan is just acting as a hub, no DHCP and I parcel out static IPs. Requirements: Allow some clients to have a single computer with client card (I have been using Zoom cards with an antenna on a cable or Linksys USB boxes so the antennas can be positioned high in the windows facing my antenna) Allow other clients to install something like a WAP11 in client mode so they can put thier LAN behind the single access point. Easy to very easy client set up No need for automated billing or anything facny like that. Antenna I am on one side of the biz park and the clients are arrayed out in front and both sides for a 180degree field of view. I wired those on either side of me so less than 180degree FOV is OK but more than 90. Max distance is about 350 ft. Clients Cheap. Very Varied in technical abilities. All units are rental so major antennas for them are not an option. Also very difficult to get everyone on one hardware type. Power and sensitivity on my end would be good so that they could position anything from off the shelf USB hardware to more sophisticated hardware for routing. Any new system should be able to support the existing Linksys USB boxes and the zoom cards which are all 802.11b wi fi etc. They would like NOT to be able to see each other in their "network neighborhoods" (i.e. there are some souls with just a PC and a card and Norton Anit Virus - I hope) My end: Easy to use and administer as this is NOT my full time job. Currently I limit access by MAC address which works fine. I do have IP address from my ISP that I can dole out! Can I reuse the Rangelan 2? I have a wap11 sitting on a shelf can I use this? OK can i at least use the existing antenna? I like the idea of remote boxes rather than many really expensive antenna cables although I have one really good one that I got from Proxim. The run is about 25 ft from the rack to the best antenna location. Budget- Not Huge $1000 ish as ATT may decide to install cable again in 6 months and I would like not to praying that my Ebay auction will cover my losses. Used is great. Proposals as well as advice are greatly appreciated. Please email [EMAIL PROTECTED] or call 800 448 8808 with ideas or questions. Many Many thanks to the list Charles Overy Dir of Eng. -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
