Wi-Fi for 15000 sq ft building?

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NoodleTech

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Mar 14, 2007
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Hello,

I am supposed to deploy wireless 802.11g inside a 15000 square foot school.

I started off by buying a single D-Link DWL-3200AP but I figure I will need 2 or maybe 3 of these to get strong signals throughout.

I was thinking link 3 of the D-Link's together using WDS.

Would this be the best way to get great performance and coverage throughout the building?

Should I rethink my AP choice? (maybe a cisco aironet?)

Thanks
 
How much you looking to spend? I'm gonna say that unless this is a homework assignment or something similar that this project is over your head.
 
under $1000 for the time being. Something I can expand and upgrade as time and budget permits would be nice. The wireless network will be serving 20-30 clients at any given time. It isn't a homework assignment. More like an internship.
 
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LAPs and a controller are essentially mega-expensive... but cool nonetheless...

Depending on the layout you might be able to get away with a handful of autonomous APs...

Cisco has great quality but are expensive (you get what you pay for). HP Procurve is a cheaper alternative and have "industrial" quality features as well. Not as good as Cisco for the most part.
 
For under $1000 your not going to do much besides buying some mid grade AP's. A central controller is a very good idea so look around for something open source and free.
Here is one such open source project http://www.chillispot.info/

If your on a budget just ignore the Cisco fanboys that live in unlimited budget imagination land. A quick search on newegg shows that 2 Cisco AP's alone would break your budget and a central controller is double your budget by it's self so there's no point even looking.
 
blarg said:
For under $1000 your not going to do much besides buying some mid grade AP's. A central controller is a very good idea so look around for something open source and free.
Here is one such open source project http://www.chillispot.info/

If your on a budget just ignore the Cisco fanboys that live in unlimited budget imagination land. A quick search on newegg shows that 2 Cisco AP's alone would break your budget and a central controller is double your budget by it's self so there's no point even looking.
Click to expand...

What is a cisco fanboy exactly? LOL
 
This would be my take on your project with 5 Cisco WAP2000 WAPS powered by a Cisco SRW208P POE switch. Each WAP only requires a max of 4 watts of drawing power, the Cisco switch can deliver up to 7.5 watts on each of the eight ports if necessary. This also delivers an industry standard under your budget. With your budget I don't think you'll be able to afford a WLC, or any of the Lightweight tech out there, those guys made my laugh -that stuff is awesome but expensive. This setup will allows you to setup multiple VLANs, multiple SSID's, and multiple encryption/authentication levels. With 15000 square feet, 5 of these would be more then enough coverage. Just set them up in non-intersecting channels all powered by Ethernet cables, no power adapters necessary, makes it a lot easier to mount and setup... Good luck

123456qs.png
 
blarg said:
If your on a budget just ignore the Cisco fanboys that live in unlimited budget imagination land. A quick search on newegg shows that 2 Cisco AP's alone would break your budget and a central controller is double your budget by it's self so there's no point even looking.
Click to expand...

Ahh, yes, but us Cisco fanboys get it done right, the first time...

Anyway . . .

You need to decide what type of performance and coverage you want. Honestly, even using low-end, stand-alone APs you're going to have a hard time blanketing a 15,000 square foot school with wireless coverage. Does the whole school need to be covered or just a few labs and the library/media center or what? Also, is the wireless for one of those rolling computer labs with a bunch of laptops on a cart? If that's the case, with 20+ wireless clients in one area you're going to want them to be able to associate with at least two different APs.

Also, you mentioned WDS, I would stay away from that unless it is not possible to get ethernet run to where you need an AP. WDS cuts the available bandwidth to clients in half right off the bat. Divide that by several clients and access to the network becomes painfully slow...
 
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Based on your budget I would go with opensource. You can setup a portal using WiFigator and Open-Mesh, push out images onto low end AP hardware and easily build a self-healing wireless mesh for your budget.

I am in the process of learning this same software for a small business. People are using this type of setup to push out wireless hotspots all over the country.
 
Shadowspawn said:
Based on your budget I would go with opensource. You can setup a portal using WiFigator and Open-Mesh, push out images onto low end AP hardware and easily build a self-healing wireless mesh for your budget.

I am in the process of learning this same software for a small business. People are using this type of setup to push out wireless hotspots all over the country.
Click to expand...

Make a post about your experience with that project please. I started a thread about Open Mesh a few days ago wondering if anyone had played with it.

For the OP...my colleague did a project at a jet engine plant, using HP ProCurve wireless access points, PoE, controller. May be worth a look, get good HP ProCurve reliability and performance, and save a bit on your budget vs Cisco gear.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Make a post about your experience with that project please. I started a thread about Open Mesh a few days ago wondering if anyone had played with it.

For the OP...my colleague did a project at a jet engine plant, using HP ProCurve wireless access points, PoE, controller. May be worth a look, get good HP ProCurve reliability and performance, and save a bit on your budget vs Cisco gear.
Click to expand...

Sorry if my post was misleading, but I am not actually using Open Mesh. I need a local controller since I only have satellite at my current location. I am experimenting with a Chilli portal using their built in solution...promesh, I think is its name. I would like to use Open Mesh but any little hiccup with the satellite connection would bring my network down - which is why I am replacing my Sputnik box.

However, for the OP, assuming more reliable broadband is available, Open Mesh could be a great, cheap, solution.
 
man... you guys got me wanting an all cisco stack.. hopefully i can get some cash from the grants and roll that out in the future.

I should have been more specific but this school is actually an old supermarket. There are Cat5e drops around the outer walls of the building so I don't need coverage there. In the middle are 6 classrooms with moveable walls. It looks like a bunch of office cubicles. I only need coverage in that middle area because those classrooms are temporary. The director plans to add a second floor to the school and build in permanent walls in two years so there was no point in putting Cat5e drops there yet.

I can't work with my current D-Link DWL-3200AP? I was planning to add one or two more and manage them with one of those open source controller software. What are the alternatives to chillispot? It seems that the last stable release was in 2006.

EDIT: I just looked at the blueprint and the middle section that I need coverage for is 5730 square feet.
 
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doesn't d-link have a managed solution for this? poe access points, and a poe switch and software to control em all.

how about pepwave?

talk to the guys at hdcom.com they can point you on right direction.

i doubt 2 of the AP you want will cover it, we do some houses that are that size or larger, and usually use like 4, plus you want more commercial based products
 
+1 for Cisco WAP's I've had really good experiences with the 1242's. POE is the shit too... much easier to wire.
 
Do spot coverage with cheapo AP's until you can get the budget for proper solution. It's also your job to ensure that the organization has the "proper" expectations of performance given the budget.

I wouldn't even bother trying to set up a blanket without enterprise AP's and management. I've been there, done that with cheap shit and I'll never do it again. Complete waste of money and time (more expensive than the gear itself.)
 
Going to throw in some wireless porn, just because :p

Cisco WLC 4400
Cisco LAP1522AG
Cisco 7921 Wireless IP Phone

1522.jpg
 
The cisco wireless ip phones are freaking awesome... i tried to get myself one but i couldn't justify it in any way.



Your users need to realize that with your budget, and your knowledge, their network is probably going to suck pretty hard...

You need to realize, this thing will be a support nightmare...
 
crazyfinx said:
This would be my take on your project with 5 Cisco WAP2000 WAPS powered by a Cisco SRW208P POE switch. Each WAP only requires a max of 4 watts of drawing power, the Cisco switch can deliver up to 7.5 watts on each of the eight ports if necessary. This also delivers an industry standard under your budget. With your budget I don't think you'll be able to afford a WLC, or any of the Lightweight tech out there, those guys made my laugh -that stuff is awesome but expensive. This setup will allows you to setup multiple VLANs, multiple SSID's, and multiple encryption/authentication levels. With 15000 square feet, 5 of these would be more then enough coverage. Just set them up in non-intersecting channels all powered by Ethernet cables, no power adapters necessary, makes it a lot easier to mount and setup... Good luck

123456qs.png
Click to expand...

+1 for this. I used a similar setup (WAP4410s instead of 2000s) to cover a client's house and surrounding property (poolhouse etc). The whole system was a piece of cake to setup and they have had minimal connection / throughput problems. The one thing you need to watch out for with the 44x0 series is the tendency to drop the Ethernet connection. The AP stays online but suddenly the clients can't connect to the network anymore. A powercycle fixes this but it is a bit of a pain in the ass, but oh well. Cisco knows about it, and most likely have a firmware update in the works.
 
okay I went ahead and bought the WAP2000's and SRW208P switch. How would I position them for best coverage?
 
@marley1 thanks!
@lightworker wow..... I wish I had that setup

how long can the ethernet cable be to run Poe?
Also does that srw208p control all the APs?
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
doubt it, just log in, set IP address out of dhcp range, and alternate ssid.

just be aware hte computers roaming may be an issue.

poe is probably fine for length of 300ft or the normal cat5
 
Alright so each AP will have separate ssids? And the clients will just connect to the one with the strongest signal strength?
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
you probably want to keep them the same ssid and different channels, but a laptop may for example connect to the access point on the other side of hte place instead of the one directly above them.

sometimes the machine doesn't "roam" to the new highest one.

look into it its in the Device Manager under the settings for the Wireless Card, think its even called the Roam settings.
 
marley1 said:
one in middle, then one on either side, like a big +
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Do not arrange your AP's like this, sorry marley but that's some poor advice.

For proper client mobility, each AP's zone will need to overlap a bit with an adjacent AP. If you don't want your network to suck due to interference, you'll need to have each adjacent AP on separate non-overlapping channels (1,6,11)--that's not going to work with the + layout. You'll want to stagger them in a honeycomb-type fashion where you can get away with only using channels 1,6,11 without frequency overlapping.
 
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A little late to this convo, since I see you already made a purchase. But some real world feedback:

I have a 30,000 sq ft building with 15,000 sq ft per floor. I run Cisco 1231 AP's with diversity ominidirectional antennas, 2 per floor. I get total coverage. I run all 4 autonomous, because I couldn't justify the cost of a controller at the time I got them (6 years ago). There are now cheaper controller options, but a controller isn't necessary in your environment.

You can get a pair of 1242's for around $900's, and the antenna's are around $150/ea. It would have be slightly over your budget, but a hell of a lot better way to spend your money than the Cisco SMB (Linksys) stuff. IMHO.
 
@ Lightworker - Thanks for the diagram. I will do the honeycomb layout. Are there any books you would suggest I read to familiarize myself with all things cisco?

@ HDClown - I'll just work with the linksys crap stuff for now and go for an all cisco stack when I have the budget but thanks for the suggestion!
 
1+ for Lightworkers advise, positioning is very important. Lightworkers suggestion is an industry standard, but I would say that if you don't have many users moving around that need constant connectivity like doctors would need any hospital or mechanic in a shop with cart laptop I would put the WAPs were they are needed the most. Working with only 5 waps makes it hard to cover all areas. Overlapping coverage is good but not necessary in your case. For example if you have 8 classrooms and two public areas you need to provide access to all of them, with four classrooms in one area, four in another area, a libary thats separate from all other structures and a office area attached four of the classrooms, In this case overlapping is not possible with 5 waps. Just put them where are needed the most, then add more as needed when you have the budget in overlapping coverage positions. I would put one in the office, one in the library, the rest shared by the two areas for coverage of the classrooms. Just make sure if you are going to overlap the coverage to put them in different channels. I would also consider providing multiple SSID's. Sit down with your boss and ask for requirements. Simple questions like, are guests going to be able to connect. What resources are going to be available through wireless? Who will need access to these resources? For example at work with one of our remote sites where we have wireless we have multiple VLANs setup with a pretty straight forward configuration. 1 VLAN has access only to the internet, 1 VLAN has access to certain servers and Intranet hosted websites, another vlan has access to another clients servers, and we a vlan just for IT which has access to all VLANs and resources. Through wireless we have one SSID for each VLAN thats broadcasts from each WAPS so everyone can access there own vlan if they decide to connect to a certain WAP. (Your switch and WAPS have this feature). So guests can only access the internet, clients can only access their servers and not other clients servers, and of course IT has access to all VLANS and resources. Also with POE with your equipment I wouldn't go over 200 feet of cable without adding a POE extender . I've had experinces where the WAPS will start acting funny like freezing our turning on and off if you don't have enough power. The cisco standard is 100m, or 300ft, buts thats with enterprise level switches that provide 12.5watts of power per port. Heres a cool site to help you determine your max length for your POE setup. If you reach your max length just get a POE extender and you should be good. Simple but important security considerations. Apply the max encryption/authentication protocols your laptops support, make sure they all support the same security protocols. For instance you don't want to enable WPA2 when most of your laptops do not support it. If you have to use WEP, highly unrecommended, apply other security measures like using 256bit password versus 128bit, not broadcasting SSID's, and locking down by mac address. Although these all can be compromised fairly easy it just adds a security layer that wont hurt.
 
@lightworker - thank you so much!
@crazyfinx - thanks for the tips. the whole school doesn't need coverage for now, so these access points will do until I get the proper cisco equipment.
 
archivalbackup said:
QFT!

When it comes time to rip-and-replace because the system never worked properly, then come talk to the fanboys.

A WLC+Cisco or Muru would be the way to go.
Click to expand...

This is probably the best advice of the thread. Don't get me wrong, though, there's a bunch of Cisco products that aren't worth the cost (*cough* nexus 5010 ;)), but their WLC+APs are pretty damn good.
 
what other companies have controllers? maybe that would be a good topic for the smaller business side? something where cisco knowledge isn't around, but people still want a quality product.
 
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