Long Range Wireless LAN

[3fingersalute]

Has anybody ever worked with or have any reccomendations on equipment for tying 2 LAN's together about 5 miles apart? I know there is wireless equipment out there that will do up to 25Km (15 miles or so), but I would like to get some input if anybody has ever worked with anything like this.

[InTheWayBoy]

Haven't worked on it myself, but have read about it...the biggest thing you'll need is a clear line of sight...meaning no trees, buildings, hills, etc to obstruct the wireless signal. If you have that, then all you should need is two high-power directional (omni-directional is not good here) and some time...how you line them up is beyond me, although I think it shouldn't be too hard. Two people, one at each location and two cell phones should be enough...it'll be tedious, but probably cheaper than getting any kind of alignment tools.

I haven't tried these yet, but they are based here in Jacksonville, FL so I intend to find out more:

http://www.direct2data.com/d2d.htm

Not quite five miles, but it might be a good platform to build off of.

Also, Netstumbler is a tool I would recommend for testing signal strength, and this kinda topic gets discussed there all the time at their forums...start in this one:

http://www.netstumbler.org/forumdisplay.php?f=23

And to determine how powerful of an antenna you'll need, try this page:

http://www.signull.com/fsc.php

Good luck!

[Radical Dreamer]

At my last job (ISP) we sold wireless access up to 3 miles and found out really quick that using anything except cisco is a joke, and still then it tended to get very unreliable in severe weather.

[Outcoded]

Guess we're thinking more directional microwave than broadcast WiFi right?

[TechZ]

Is WiMax a possibility?

[3fingersalute]

I'm still looking into my options, but it looks like due to line-of-sight limitations and equipment costs, we might try to go with a VPN instead. I'll let everybody know, but thanks for the suggestions!!

[Outcoded]

Line of sight isn't really an issue given the height. Place I used to work for linked two cities by line of sight microwave over 60 miles in 2 hops.

[Quattro]

check out these guys: www.smartbridges.com
I use their equipment all the time, very rugged and they have used it up to 35km. Have not gone that far yet personally.

Good luck,

Q

[raul]

thanks...i have another question...sorry i'm not a tech nor a programmer so u have to explain it to me how this works..
clients can use any wireless unit as long as it is the same bandwitdh???
lets say that the roaming area is about 2-3 km...do the clients need booster antenna to be able to connect or the airpoint xo is powerful enough to accomodate the distance...??? i'm a newbie so pls be patient...

check out these guys: www.smartbridges.com
I use their equipment all the time, very rugged and they have used it up to 35km. Have not gone that far yet personally.

Good luck,

Q

[Quattro]

thanks...i have another question...sorry i'm not a tech nor a programmer so u have to explain it to me how this works..
clients can use any wireless unit as long as it is the same bandwitdh???
lets say that the roaming area is about 2-3 km...do the clients need booster antenna to be able to connect or the airpoint xo is powerful enough to accomodate the distance...??? i'm a newbie so pls be patient...

Clients can use any wireless unit as long as it is the same standard (802.11 a/b/g), 802.11g can also handle the 802.11b standard.
The smartbridges are all 802.11b which is 2.4Ghz frequency.
The area that I have to cover is very mountainous and has a lot of trees, this means that I can't cover that much area like if it was open space and flat.
And I also have to struggle with zinc roofs...so a lot depends on what kind of buildings and terrain you have to cover.
I use in each house that is away (1km or more) from the tower an extra panel antenna of 13dBi or less (depending on how many trees) and an airbridge.
The repeaters are airpoints...haven't installed my XO2 yet to see how they work.
The distance you can cover doesn't depend so much on your XO but more on the antenna you will be using. You can adjust the output power from the smartbridges which is really handy.

Goodluck,

Q

[Grateful_Dad]

I'm no expert - but to help clear things up- IF you mean you want a roaming area for a client ( using a laptop ) of 2-3km - you can't so this.
Even if you have a powerful base station megawatt even, the clients wireless device has to be able to transmit back to the base station. If you connect 2 Lans that are say 10 miles apart ( with poerful custom equipment) a person with a laptop , who is more than 1000 feet away from either city access point will not connect. his device is not powerful enough to transmit back to the WAP

By all means - you can connect the 2 sites using 2 of those powerbridges devices ( 1 for each end your connecting )

HTH

[raul]

Now its more clear to me thanks...for my xo...what the most effective antenna???i'm thinking of using omnidirectional,because houses are all around me...what kind of output should i use for the radius of 2-3 km???

Thanks...

Clients can use any wireless unit as long as it is the same standard (802.11 a/b/g), 802.11g can also handle the 802.11b standard.
The smartbridges are all 802.11b which is 2.4Ghz frequency.
The area that I have to cover is very mountainous and has a lot of trees, this means that I can't cover that much area like if it was open space and flat.
And I also have to struggle with zinc roofs...so a lot depends on what kind of buildings and terrain you have to cover.
I use in each house that is away (1km or more) from the tower an extra panel antenna of 13dBi or less (depending on how many trees) and an airbridge.
The repeaters are airpoints...haven't installed my XO2 yet to see how they work.
The distance you can cover doesn't depend so much on your XO but more on the antenna you will be using. You can adjust the output power from the smartbridges which is really handy.

Goodluck,

Q

[raul]

And also the internet satellite provider only gives a max of 128 kbps
how the xo would handle traffic for my clients???

Clients can use any wireless unit as long as it is the same standard (802.11 a/b/g), 802.11g can also handle the 802.11b standard.
The smartbridges are all 802.11b which is 2.4Ghz frequency.
The area that I have to cover is very mountainous and has a lot of trees, this means that I can't cover that much area like if it was open space and flat.
And I also have to struggle with zinc roofs...so a lot depends on what kind of buildings and terrain you have to cover.
I use in each house that is away (1km or more) from the tower an extra panel antenna of 13dBi or less (depending on how many trees) and an airbridge.
The repeaters are airpoints...haven't installed my XO2 yet to see how they work.
The distance you can cover doesn't depend so much on your XO but more on the antenna you will be using. You can adjust the output power from the smartbridges which is really handy.

Goodluck,

Q

[Quattro]

And also the internet satellite provider only gives a max of 128 kbps
how the xo would handle traffic for my clients???

We have the same system for my setup. Satellite with 128 down and 64 up. But I am living in the middle of no where . With the XO you can also manage the bandwidth and give certain clients more bandwidth than the regular ones. Handy for billing aswell.
I second what grateful_dad said....you won't be able to roam over that distance but you can always add more repeaters.
If your clients are all around the antenna than using an omni antenna is the cheapest and easiest. If you have enough money to splurge on a nice setup with 3 directional antennas in one that is always a better option.
Maxrad has one of those.

Ciao,

Q