Wireless Internet...

[Suicide]

I feel kinda silly asking this since I work for a company who deals with wireless technologies (including what I use to get on the internet) but my co-workers havn't been able to help me out much, so I'm here seeking advice :)

On a "real world" test from me to the access point I associate too (approximately 6km (4 miles)) away from me and a few tree lines in the way, nothing serious. 2.4ghz 802.11b, and my signal sits pretty stable at 46% Signal Strength and about 92 - 94 % signal quality. Doing a link test to the access point, I set the packets up to 2kb and started transmitting, let it go for a few minutes and came back and looked. Added up the total numbers sent and received, and the number of packets sent and received ok, did some division and found that I'm getting 20% loss (test repeated about 5 times just to be certain (and an hour later... heh).

My question is, does anyone else use a wireless link such as mine (oh the hardware on my end is a Cisco 352 wireless card, and the access point I associate to is a Cisco 352 wireless access point); and in a similar situation to myself and have an idea about how to tweak retries/thresholds so under these cirumstances I cna have something more than semi-stable?
Oh and I cannot repoint my grid just yet, had my shoulder operated on and cannot climb the tower, loose bolts, repoint, etc all with one hand).

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

[llbbl]

I think if you are 4 miles away on 802.11b and getting only a 20% packet loss than you are doing better than ok. Sorry this is not the answer you are looking for.

I remember reading on slashdot about a company that had accesibility from up to 50 miles away. I wonder what frequency they were using and how they had things setup. Not sure if they have a product out. I will see if I can find a link for you.

A better question would be how do you secure your wireless network??

[Suicide]

Originally posted by vindisco
I think if you are 4 miles away on 802.11b and getting only a 20% packet loss than you are doing better than ok. Sorry this is not the answer you are looking for.

I remember reading on slashdot about a company that had accesibility from up to 50 miles away. I wonder what frequency they were using and how they had things setup. Not sure if they have a product out. I will see if I can find a link for you.

A better question would be how do you secure your wireless network??
Well, bit more background, about 6 months ago I had this same type of connection and I was 10km (6 miles) away with less packet loss and was shootin' through 5 tree lines heh... But at that time I still worked for the company I get my internet access from, and after I left they changed configs around on bridges and access points etc (only know this because they contracted work from me) but unfortunately they won't tell me what they changed which'll negate any possibility I have of manually doing this myself so hit and miss I suppose :)

When I worked at this company we had coverage up to 70 km (43 miles) (was the furthest away customer we had on at that time... but I believe they'd have moved him over to something closer by now heh)

Securing it I'm not worried about. The machine with the wireless card in it has nothing on the system but a minimal FreeBSD 4.6 install, and I nat through it (this windows box)... And I only use this windows box for gaming and chatting online so I really don't care much 'bout it at home... At my company, yes, very big concern :D

[Suicide]

Fixed my problem to the best I can (had 'em come out and retune my antenna, didn't help out any), so I changed some software settings... specifically the RTS threshold/retries and while my speed as decreased a little, it's more stable.

[ECA]

1. I dont know where u live.. If you are inside town/city.. See if you can check line of sight. The closer to RIGHT ON the better.
2. Check for any Manufacouring companys in line. Any place that uses heavy machines, or may have a HIGH voltage setup, even a large phone relay station, a cable company along the line also, if drift into there reception from SAT, you can have a problem, Any HIGH power lines.
3. Are you GROUNDED properly. Could turn your whole house into an antena.

[llbbl]

Originally posted by Suicide
Fixed my problem to the best I can (had 'em come out and retune my antenna, didn't help out any), so I changed some software settings... specifically the RTS threshold/retries and while my speed as decreased a little, it's more stable.

What is RTS stand for?

I thought the max range for 802.11b was 150 feet for most transmitter / recievers. Did you have to build your own? It sounds like a custom configuration. What kind of speeds do you get currently ?

Where can I find more information about building my own transmitter / recievers??

[ECA]

Vin,
there are alot of wireless systems out there.. ISP's find it NICe not to use wire. And you get the LOST customers, those that dont get ISDN, Cable, ADSL which all have problems.
The setup fees can be a bit high. A 30+ antenna, hardware, and a place to PUT the antenna.
Speeds can be as fast as 10BT, 10mbps. But that can suffer with range, and obsticles, power lines, and alot of other stuff.
In my area, setup is about $500, about $50 a month for 1mbps, and the hardware $10-300 depending on WHAT I want to buy, or lease. The company wont make a cent unless I stay with them for 7+ months, because they lease the equip to pay for it.

the interesting thing, is there are not alot of people on it, so It will be Very clear, and They may give me better bandpass, untill they get more people on line.

[Suicide]

Well my wireless setup was a lot cheaper :)

Hardware that's used is Cisco Aironet equipment (all across the network (I helped build the network about a year ago before I quit)), not lucent or any other company, so the equipment is far from cheap; but the setup is only $299 ($329 for a laptop setup) + first month which is 11mbps across the network, but external speeds are limitted anywhere from 128kbps synchronous access to 512kbps synchronous for residential customers (business setups offer more speed with a bigger price tag of course). Cisco used to claim that the maximum distance that they would support is 1.6km (1 mile), but now support for much longer distances. The wireless signal I feed from is amped so I could theoretically get a signal with a 24dBi high gain antenna running my card at 100mW (which on my setup right now, about 36dBi leaves my antenna (FCC Legal limit, not sure about the legal limits imposed on by CRTC but I'm assuming its at least that or more since my isp runs this across a good area in southern ontario and has been up for almost 2 years) from about 70 - 80 km away ('bout 50 miles).

You can find your own information on different sites by doing a google search, or you can go to sites like cisco.com, intel has some good wireless equipment out (hassle to set up properly but even still heh), and the likes.

[llbbl]

I found the cisco site (http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/44/jump/wireless.shtm) with all the info on the different products that they offer. I am not sure which one would be the best for what I am thinking, or how many I would need.

Time to look at how they differ. Man this is too slow I am going to the library. Will update later ...

[llbbl]

OK I have a question. Please help !

Say I want to setup an Omni directional wireless antenna and have it reach the everyone in a small neighborhood. Each person would then have to buy a wireless card to receive data and a dish to send the data. Is this correct?

[ECA]

to RECIEVE what you send, yes..
DISH, NO...
What range do you want to send, what Freq range, computer hookup, HOW manny peopel are you looking at, do you want a HUB.
In the 1 mile range you dont need a licence.
There is a Reasonable system out there by Linksys, for wireless. At 1 mile its 1mbps. 801.11b?
Up to 16 or 32 people.
I think you need a base setup and the rest run from there, there may be another one that dosent need the base setup.
Linksys system can be used with 10bt or USB..get the network card(10bt). Then everyone else has about the same thing. Net card and Sender is only about $100..

PS, do you understand "LINE OF SIGHT"...
that is a OPEN area with nothing between YOU AND IT/them...
Anything between the 2 causes signal loss.. concrete sucks, brick sucks, metal sucks, High power lines SUCK(they cause RF noise) and wireless Telephones and cell phones can suck..

[llbbl]

Originally posted by ECA
to RECIEVE what you send, yes..
DISH, NO...
What range do you want to send, what Freq range, computer hookup, HOW manny peopel are you looking at, do you want a HUB.
In the 1 mile range you dont need a licence.
There is a Reasonable system out there by Linksys, for wireless. At 1 mile its 1mbps. 801.11b?
Up to 16 or 32 people.
I think you need a base setup and the rest run from there, there may be another one that dosent need the base setup.
Linksys system can be used with 10bt or USB..get the network card(10bt). Then everyone else has about the same thing. Net card and Sender is only about $100..

PS, do you understand "LINE OF SIGHT"...
that is a OPEN area with nothing between YOU AND IT/them...
Anything between the 2 causes signal loss.. concrete sucks, brick sucks, metal sucks, High power lines SUCK(they cause RF noise) and wireless Telephones and cell phones can suck..

Ya less than a mile and not very many people. 10-30 people sharing 1-2 T1's depending on how many people.

I want to put it line of site on top of the water tower, but that prolly isn't likely and to get it approved would take a REAALLLY long time. There is another smaller tower in the other direction from the neighborhood that might work just as well.

Good thing is not very many high power lines (I think). At least none of the really high metal ones that carry more than 4 lines. No near cell phone towers, cause of how far out the town is. The only problem would be interference from other 2.4 GHz devices such as our brand new seimens mobil.

Does this mean that each house would have to have its own Linksys base station?

[ECA]

http://www.linksys.com/

Have fun...

http://www.provantage.com/scripts/go.dll/dltime/fp_66311

go here to buy...

One hub, base... then you can have 32 linked to the HUB.
This is LINe of SITE...
there is a trick with the water tower tho... USE it as the antenna. DO put grounding on it, as if its hit by Lightning, you WONT have a system.

[llbbl]

Originally posted by ECA
http://www.linksys.com/

Have fun...

http://www.provantage.com/scripts/go.dll/dltime/fp_66311

go here to buy...

One hub, base... then you can have 32 linked to the HUB.
This is LINe of SITE...
there is a trick with the water tower tho... USE it as the antenna. DO put grounding on it, as if its hit by Lightning, you WONT have a system.

Not sure if I would want to have the whole water tower act as a antenna. That would make it more than a mile for sure if I did that. I guess I could test it out and reduce the power so that it doesn't go over that mile. Is there a good way to test the signal strength other than walking around with a mobil WAP? Also do you have more information about the water tower trick? plz plz :)

The way I understand it. Each house would want to decide if they want to buy one WAP card or a base station that could then be used to connect all the computers in the house too. Too bad they can't use wireless to connect the different devices in the house, as this would interfer (I think). I'm not even sure if they make a device like that, maybe you would have to use one base WAP and then connect a directional dish to it on top of the house.

Anyone else besides ECA have any good ideas? I don't want to bug him TOO much :D

[llbbl]

This is what you sent me too at the provantage site.



NKS158. Manufacturer Part # BEFCMU10
Available to USA only.

Click to Magnify
# Are you ready to step up to high-speed BroadbandInternet? The EtherFast Cable Modem with 1 USB And 1 Ethernet Port, from Linksys provides you with the perfect Solution For a Fast And, easy Internet connection. Now you can make the most of the Internet ...More



I am pretty sure that I don't need a cable modem anywhere in my wireless setup. It doesn't have all the features as a router has. I would need one that is specifically built to filter MAC addresses and a bunch other other wireless security crap. I will seei if I can find you a link to what I am looking at.

I would only need this at the water tower of course.

[ECA]

Water tower trick..
NOW, you can do this alot of different ways. ANY High metal object will satisfy what is needed, even a TREE with a Wire strung to the upper parts...
Coil part of the wire around your main anttenna, and have it connected to the highest point you can, try to make it a SINGLE wire.. Coil must be at least 20 cycles around your main antenna.

NOW with the HUB, you can have other devices, but they need to have a computer connection, and then you can address them as Network nodes..
We (DT) did a review of this same thing also done by Panasonic(?), and it cost alot more, but you couls have INDIVIDUAL devices hooked up, without the comp interface.

[llbbl]

That sounds a bit complicated.

Read this table from Cisco...

Table 26-29: Technical Specifications for Cisco Aironet Bridge Antenna

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/pcat/ao____o1.htm

Either the AIR-ANT2506 or the AIR-ANT4121 sound like what I am looking for. Now I just got to figure out where I can buy one and some cost estimates before I start writing up my little plan to irriadate my neighboorhood.

[ECA]

If you want expensive, and quick setup, DT did a writeup from panasonic(?) That is totally easy..
But $500 for the HUB is a bit much if you ask me.

[llbbl]

Originally posted by ECA
If you want expensive, and quick setup, DT did a writeup from panasonic(?) That is totally easy..
But $500 for the HUB is a bit much if you ask me.
Here I found the article that you were talking about.

http://www.designtechnica.com/article.php?sid=1868

This is not what I am looking for. I need a commercial grade router that has all that the Panasonic has to offer, but does not have the wireless network antennas built in.

In order to get the range that I need I have to have the antenna large enough to cover an area outside of about 1/2 mile or 805 meters. I also found that the Cisco Aironet 1200 series (http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/witc/ao1200ap/) has what I am looking for. I still don't know what the price is, I suspect that the other Cisco Omnidirectional antennas that I mentioned are going to be cheaper. It would be nice if the Aironet 1200 had IPSec and Mac Filtering.

As it is this is going to be a pretty expensive endevour. Eveyone, except those who are closest to the antenna, who wants access is going to have to have a directional antenna of their own mounted line of site pointed towards the main antenna if they are going to want decent speeds. I don't think the signal will be able to penetrate the electrical wiring of all the houses.

[ECA]

WOW, you are starting to understand...
YEA.....
NOW, a radio signal that is rated for 10 miles, is best at 5 miles, and then starts to degrade. WITH line of sight.
NOW for each obsticle(sp)(for best reception, devide by 2.
Cement or brick or OLD stucco, divide by 2.
Heavy duty Electrical High voltage within 100 feet, devide by 2.
Trees(large, and blocking line of sight, devide by 2.

ALL 3..... 5/2/2/2=2.5, 1.25, .625 miles.. REALLY sucks..
But I still dont really know WHERE you live... In a city, town, Rural or what.

PS....
NOw a fun lesson.. WATTS are your friends... 10 watts is generally 10 miles, Line of sight. Its NOT the main system you REALLY have to worry about, you can network with a Short wave radio, you only need the interface to hook it up.

[llbbl]

I am begining to think that the fastest I am going to get out of it is not going to be worth it. I need to figure out the prices of wireless and then compare that with diggin holes and hard wiring everything. I would be happy if everyone would be able to connect at twice that of dial up if they did not go out and buy the extra directional antenna.

I live out in the country. It depends where we would put the Omni. I would try to avoid anything that would block line of sight or degrade the quality of the signal. I am not talking about massive distances.

Are you trying to be obnoxious again? "WOW, you are starting to understand... "

[ECA]

did you look up the linsys system...

It has a range of 1 mile, at 1meg per sec. With line of site.
And at closer ranges it is much faster upto 11meg per sec.

Getting line of sight ranges isnt to hard, but raiseing the watts would require someone into shortwave/CB to boost the signal.

[llbbl]

When was "Linsys" mentioned??

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Linsys&btnG=Google+Search

I can't find what your talking about. HELP!

---

You mean raising the watts in a cheap manner would require someone with an electrical engineering background. I bet u I could figure it out when I get to that point.

Don't get off the subject, cause I don't even know how much it will cost. I need a baseline estimate to compare wireless and hardwire. Then I can start figuring out the details. Your jumping right into problems that I might expirenece.

I will keep you updated will pertient (sp) info.

[ECA]

sorry..
Linksys.com has the wireless.
and best prices are at
www.proadvantage.com

[llbbl]

Did you visit those links that I posted ? I don't think Linksys has what I am looking for, which is the equipment that is required to setup Wireless Networks. I do not want to shop for the best wireless router for my home network.

See this link .. for Linksys wireless products and you can see what I am talking about.
http://www.linksys.com/products/group.asp?grid=22


---

That Provantage link doesn't work. It is some mortgage group. Don't bother with any more of your "help" because the majority of it has been off the wall advice that just causes me to do more work to prove that you have no clue as to what you are talking about.

How about spending some time on each thread, instead of posting what ever you can find the quickest that loosey corresponds to what you remember reading. That way we can actually get something accomplished by providing a forum where people can come to browse intelligent discussions not idle rantings.

[ECA]

http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=22&prid=452

Im getting info...

WWW.provantage.com

[llbbl]

Originally posted by ECA
http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=22&prid=452

Im getting info...

WWW.provantage.com

Good Job ! ;)

Thanks for the link to the provantage site.. That might come in useful in the future.

I looked all over the linksys site for information pertaining to how far from the base unit the Wireless cards could be, but was un able to find any definate numbers. The data (Up to 54Mbps ( 72 Mbps in Turbo Mode)) rate on the WAP51B is excellent and would make a great wireless router for the home.

I doubt that it has the distance needed to act as the access point for the whole neighborhood.

I called a CISCO reseller yesturday and they said that they would call me back when their engineers return to work (out sick). I think they were bull****ting me, but we will see. I give them another day and then I call to let them know that I am serious. I want that damn price quote !!!

Frig what does it take to setup wireles. I should call someone else today .

---

ftp://ftp.linksys.com/pdf/wap51ab_ug.pdf

Check the picture out. Linksys's pictures suck! They need to resize that by increasing the resoultion. Don't they know anything.... LOL

[llbbl]

Ok i got to post again in order to get my picture attached.

:)

[llbbl]

Here is an article on why Wireless Internet isn't viable for large companies. They are talking about a national wireless plan here, similar to what Biongo has in place. I think that smaller companies such as Starbucks will find it a very profitable business venture.

http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,3959,533207,00.asp