mesh wifi network in semi-rural area

B

bds1904

Gawd
Joined
Aug 10, 2011
Messages
1,007
My neighbors and I would like to set up a mesh network to share access to a PBX and some simple file sharing. Line of sight point to multi-point is really out of the question. No one has a tower tall enough to be seen LOS from more that 1 or 2 houses because of some really really tall 200 year old trees. All the houses can see each other, even the ones that are far apart, but a base station would be very impractical and expensive because there would have to be 8 backhauls for 16 houses. I've been looking at open-mesh for a bit now, and I like the way their software is set up, as well as their firmware but their hardware is going to be lacking for my needs.

I know that we need to go with dual band AP so the backhaul can be on 5GHz and the client can be on 2.4GHz but some of the houses are about 125 meters from each other. Even placing their dual band AP outside is going to be stretching it's ability, especially since you can't change antenna's or anything (so it appears).

What I am looking for is a mesh configuration that uses dual band AP's that I can change both the antenna's on. I can put an omni on the 2.4 and a directional on the 5ghz and use one piece of hardware for both the client side and the backhaul.

Only 4 or 5 of the houses would need an AP with a directional antenna, but I want everything to work seamlessly and all under the same system.

Also, does open-mesh support mult-wan?

Any ideas or different solutions to create a high speed backhaul and still deliver 40-50mbps to the client for 125/ap or under?
 
Has anyone used mikrotik's routeros HWMP+ to set up a mesh? seems like a pretty good system, and the hardware is powerful and inexpensive.

With their hardware I could run the mesh to distribute the wireless signal, and then use a router with L2TP support to VPN into my network. That would separate the user wireless and the mesh.
 
Open-Mesh should do everything you need. Their hardware is cheap but I have heard plenty of good things. Just get a router/firewall combo to handle the dual wan.
 
Last edited:
From what i can find on the internet it does look like they can support multi-wan by just setting then up as backhaul nodes in the mesh. This is very interesting idea hope it all works out. just out of curiosity why exactly are you setting this up with your neighbors, i can under stand the file sharing (so long as you computers are safe) but the PBX, wouldnt everyone want there own number?? are you trying to lower cost of phone and internet services?
 
taaaaa-daaaaa

http://www.ubnt.com/unifi

comes in 1 pack 2 pack or 3 pack.

1pack a single unit is 89$ 3 pack is 200$ :)

I'll be ordering one soon for my new house I just bought.

screenshot-01.jpg
 
Dash the Unifi stuff is great but it does not do mesh networking like the OP is looking for.
 
schnell said:
Dash the Unifi stuff is great but it does not do mesh networking like the OP is looking for.
Click to expand...

****One UniFied Network
Option to create one large wireless network across multiple APs that lets users seamlessly roam.***


same thing ? ( kinda ) ?
 
schnell said:
Open-Mesh should do everything you need. Their hardware is cheap but I have heard plenty of good things. Just get a router/firewall combo to handle the dual wan.
Click to expand...

Open-Mesh hardware does not meet my needs. In order for to get good signal some of these are going to have to me mounted outside with a directional, high gain antenna.

Poplap said:
From what i can find on the internet it does look like they can support multi-wan by just setting then up as backhaul nodes in the mesh. This is very interesting idea hope it all works out. just out of curiosity why exactly are you setting this up with your neighbors, i can under stand the file sharing (so long as you computers are safe) but the PBX, wouldnt everyone want there own number?? are you trying to lower cost of phone and internet services?
Click to expand...

The file sharing would all be accessed over VPN and password protected. It would be no different than a regular enterprise network environment. As for the PBX, I have hosted my own IPPbx with PBX In a Flash for a little over a year now. I can set up individual numbers for everyone for a very cheap price. Most of the people around here are older and would average less than 1000min/mo. All in all, the phone service would cost me $4.56/mo if they use less than 1000min/mo. If I charge 15/mo for a number that leaves plenty of overhead. I can also keep track of useage live, so I can set up a overage system if necessary. Like over 3000/min per month and it is .09c/min.

As far as providing internet, the highest speed that we can get from comcast residential around here is 25/3Mbps and costs 34.99/mo for the first 6 months, then 49.99 after that. At&t uverse gives 24/2mbps for 39.99/mo for 6 mo, then 54.99 after that.

I can get 100/10 for $369/mo and if I ended up with 20 users, that means I could charge 20/mo for internet, 15/mo for phone. If every customer ended up with phone and internet I would I would still be way in the green, and if I no one got the phone, it would still be enough to cover a decent part of the electricity per month. I mean really, I want 100mbps internet access too so I am alright with not making a large profit off it.

dashpuppy said:
taaaaa-daaaaa

http://www.ubnt.com/unifi

comes in 1 pack 2 pack or 3 pack.

1pack a single unit is 89$ 3 pack is 200$ :)

I'll be ordering one soon for my new house I just bought.
Click to expand...

It is a true mesh, but their hardware doesn't meed my needs.

Overall, it looks like I am going with picostating 2HP's for the nodes and flashing them with robin open-mesh software. That will allow me to use open-mesh's coudtrax, which I really like. For the client side I will be using a TP-Link wired router that supports L2TP on the wan side if the customer does not need wireless, or a TP-Link wireless N router if they do.

In a mesh config with everyone using wired or a separate AP, people are seeing 80-100mbps throughput on the picostation HP2's over the mesh, even over 2 or 3 hops. My network at it's worst with those picostation's mounted outside will be 3 hops. I plan on setting up at least 2 LOS backhauls with a Picostation 5 and a 2 27dbi grid antenna's.
 
Now thats a good idea...

for coverage you could extend the mesh but using out-door node with a battery pack and solar panel on a pole between to other nodes to get a better single. just get some 12v dc batts and a 12v 1'x1' solar cell and wire it up.

i see one potential problem getting people to switch to your homebrew telecom and thats phone number switching, if you can carry their existing phone number over then your good if not then it may be a little harder to get them to switch.

Good luck
 
Poplap said:
Now thats a good idea...

for coverage you could extend the mesh but using out-door node with a battery pack and solar panel on a pole between to other nodes to get a better single. just get some 12v dc batts and a 12v 1'x1' solar cell and wire it up.

i see one potential problem getting people to switch to your homebrew telecom and thats phone number switching, if you can carry their existing phone number over then your good if not then it may be a little harder to get them to switch.

Good luck
Click to expand...

Actually, the DID (direct inward dialing) provider that I use does in fact support number porting. It only costs me like $15 for setup and that's it. I didn't even think of that! Glad you reminded me. It's not exactly homebrew really, PBX In a Flash is based on Asterisk, which is what quite a few pre-built production PBX's use. I have it on a dual 2.4ghz xeon server with 2GB ram, and 3x 73gb scsi drives in raid 5. It is designed to run on an atom platform and support 50 users on that.....

The advantage to incredible pbx is that it does not require you to open any ports to the internet, unlike traditional PBX's. Much more secure that way. With traditional PBX's you have to have your SIP port open all the time, easy to hack that way.

PBX in a flash also supports the "Incredible PBX" package. With that you can use google voice for all your extensions, both inbound and outbound calling. It is really a cool setup.
 
Ya i have heard of the PBX in a flash and Asterisk and i have wanted to try it out but dont have the need or the funds.
 
You'll need line of sight even with Mesh unless you go 900mhz, which can penetrate leaves on trees more easily.
 
well yes and no, direct line of sight is plus and in a lot of cases a must but not all the time, i have seen setups of people doing similar things in England that provided wireless internet to a whole village just using a couple of high gain directional antennas at the top a hill and this was consumer equipment, and did not have the cleanest line of sight. what your main worry would be are power lines as their EM interference can stop a single dead in its tracks, this happens to me as i have a large trunk power lines next to my house that will not let the single get past but i can go father in the opposite direction.

This is why a recommend the solar node in a earlier post, place a couple down and over an area and even if one goes down the the others will take the load.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top