Large scale wifi network

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geoffsurber

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I'm wanting to create a wireless network for a building that is about 400' long. My internet connection is coming in on the very end of the building. I want to do it completely wireless. I was wondering if anyone has tried to chain a line of range extenders or anything like that. If anyone knows of any special equipment or a neat way to do it I'd greatly appreciate the info.
 
geoffsurber said:
I'm wanting to create a wireless network for a building that is about 400' long. My internet connection is coming in on the very end of the building. I want to do it completely wireless. I was wondering if anyone has tried to chain a line of range extenders or anything like that. If anyone knows of any special equipment or a neat way to do it I'd greatly appreciate the info.
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What type of building? Office, warehouse, etc.
What kind of construction? Block walls, Wood, metal, etc
Are you opposed to running a few cables if needed?
How many simultaneous users?

Need more information about the building before we can give suggestions. However range extenders tend to drop their effectiveness in a daisy chain configuration.

I would first do a site survey to determine how much area can be covered by a wireless AP. Then I would run a cat5/6 cable to each AP location with Power over ethernet and have them connect back to a common switch that is uplinked to your internet connection.

400' is not considered a large scale deployment :p
 
Large scale? Try a 300,000 sqft warehouse.

First order of business? A site survey.
 
The problem is the building is a long chain of rooms. The walls are concrete block. It is a museum and they would like to be able to have a laptop on a cart which can move around the whole place and stay connected to the server. If the only option is to run cable I guess it has to be done, but it would be very difficult to do. Im just saying large compared to single router/access point configurations.
 
geoffsurber said:
The problem is the building is a long chain of rooms. The walls are concrete block. It is a museum and they would like to be able to have a laptop on a cart which can move around the whole place and stay connected to the server. If the only option is to run cable I guess it has to be done, but it would be very difficult to do. Im just saying large compared to single router/access point configurations.
Click to expand...

Your first step is to perform a site survery using equipment you plan on purchasing. That will give you an idea of just how far the wireless signal will travel. No one can tell you exactly what you need since coverage will vary greatly upon the construction and density of the walls in the Museum.

My suggestion is to use business class APs like Proxim, Cisco, etc. They perform far better that consumer grade equipment. For each location where you need an AP, run a network cable back to your switch. One thing to remember is you'll need power to each AP, Proxims equipment can be powered over the same ethernet cable as the data.
 
yea but ethernet can only run "100"meters or 330feet , sometimes making it further then that but it might get weak don't ya think? maby adding another small switch somewhere in the middle or toward the end
 
site survey as mentioned. That will give you an idea of what your coverage is given your environment. You don't want to use repeaters. You'll need to run some copper to the AP's. Figure out how many AP's it's going to take first, then you can figure out where your ethernet runs are going to be and how many you'll need. Cisco would be the first choice if money is no object but proxim makes good wireless gear. Buffalo is sort of the middle of the road. Good gear but affordable
 
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