wireless LAN for the home

Topic 255 [homeowners]: help: wireless LAN for the home #88 of 92: Ivar Sanders (isanders) Sat Feb 1 '97 (19:04) 7 lines CB is probably the cheapest and most viable commercially available approach, with the bonus that you can, if you like, verbally add information about parking-spot location, etc. Radio Shack and others also have "private" paging systems that might do the job for you. Topic 255 [homeowners]: help: wireless LAN for the home #89 of 92: Paul Terry http://www.spring.com/yapp.html (terry) Sat Aug 9 '97 (12:48) 50 lines I'm perplexed and overwhelmed. And I'm looking for Dave Hughes and all for guidance. I have a whole website full of choices for wireless 2.4 gHZ and 900 mHZ etc. All I need to do is go from my T-1 8 miles from here (maybe less) to my LAN at my home/office. I need to create a 24/7 seamless ethernet link. I want to spend as little as possible. The future of my business depends on this. I have a 4500 sf office that is standing unconnected. I'm overwhelmed at the choices listed at http://hydra.carleton.ca/info/wlan.html Oh, and the Bastrop school district needs to be connected which is 7 miles further down the road from my home/office and I could potentially be a link from the T-1 to them for Internet connectivity. As far as "line of sight" I have "near line of sight" but not perfect visual line of sight. There's a bit of a hill in the way. My T-1 site is totally line of sight to all of Austin so I have potential to become a wireless isp for Austin at some point. Austin is about 8 miles from this site which is opposite to the T-1. Let me use the whiteboard for a minute: Austin -------- T-1 ------- home/office ------- Bastrop ISD I'm looking at C-SPEC, Digital Ocean (the rep was going to meet me for lunch this week but he canceled out, bigger fish somewhere else), KarlNet, Persoft, OTC Telecom, and others in the 900 MHz arena. I'm looking at 2.4 GHz solutions from Breezecom, Clarion, C-SPEC, KarlNet, NetWave, Proxim, RadioConnect, Solectek, TAL, WaveAccess, Wave Wireless, Wi-LAN, Windata, and others. Dave, which of these should make the final cut and which should end up on the cutting room floor? Should I even consider 5.8 GHz from Western Multiplex, Cylink, Windata and RadioLAN? Further adding to my frustration with all these choices is that I left my file box with all my product literature from all these companies at the hamfest last weekend and I'm having to re-send for this information via email. I need some advice. It would be most appreciated in this crucial decision making process. Topic 255 [homeowners]: help: wireless LAN for the home #90 of 92: Dave Hughes (dave) Sat Aug 9 '97 (14:50) 61 lines Yes, it can be complicated. But you are putting your energy at the wrong end of the problem. If you are going to try and do this as a do it yourself project, then you have to: 1. Do a 'site survey' with some exactitude. 'About' 8 miles is not good enough. 'Exactly' 7.3 miles is. And just how clear the line of sight is, is crucial at that distance. Either a hill blocks the line, or it does not. And, at that distance, exactly where you are going to have to put a directional antenna - on a roof? How many floors above? With what path for either an RF cable, or an Ethernet cable from the vicinity of the radio/antenna to the exactl slot on your computer. And how many feet? 2. Define your requirement, short range and long. Big difference between 'just' connecting up your office to a T-1, and 'serving Austin as an ISP,' and 'extending to a distant school' or'all of the above. At what true thruput speeds? With how many seperate connections? To whom? Now. Later. 3. Define your limits - total $$$ for just your T-1, the 'whole city', the School. 4. Put it all in *real* perspective by toting up all the costs for each of three wireless solutions and one or more telco solution, over 2, 5, 10 years (low startup with telco, but recurring costs till hell freezes over, versus higher startup with wireless, and no recurring local loop cost). Do a graph. That will put the cost/benefit in perspective. 5. *THEN* compare radios that meet your specs and limits. (When you talk to a Persoft saleman, say 'what speed will I have at 7.3 miles with your radio and a proper antenna - at both ends?' Discount what he says by 25-50% and you will be close. 6. Then decide 'who' is going to install the radios, solder the RF cables, if needed, bore holes in your roof, sealing behind them, mount the antenna, and test the installation? The most important item above is the Site Survey. Do that right (or pay for someone to do it right) and your ulimate costs will be lower while the performance will be there. In any case, don't guess and just buy a radio pair and hope, based on specs. See if you can do it on a money-back basis, or 'loan' of a pair, or a field test by the sales/installation folks. Remember the old story of the falling-down-building guy, who was hired by a family whose building was creaking and about to fall. He showed up, walked carefully around the building, three times, went to the trunk of his car, go out a spike and a mallet, came back to the building, *very* carefully sited the spike, drove it home, and the building stopped creaking. "There" he said "Its fixed." The husband said "What do we owe you?' The Fixer said "One Hundred Dollars." "What!" exclaimed the man of the house "That spike only cost $.50!" "Yes" answered the Fixer, "...and its Ninety Nine Dollars and Fifty Cents for knowing where to put it." Now become buddies with a TAPR (Tuscon Amateur Packet Radio) ham member, and maybe you can get some expert antenna and site survey work done free, or on the cheap. Topic 255 [homeowners]: help: wireless LAN for the home #91 of 92: Paul Terry http://www.spring.com/yapp.html (terry) Sat Aug 9 '97 (18:07) 41 lines I've been a ham and a member of TAPR since it first started up, I built one of the very first tnc kits. Let's start at the beginning. What is a recommended test procedure for determining line of sight? I have a USGS map and a bunch of uhf and vhf ham rigs I could use for obtaining some test data. My requirement initially will just be to bridge from the T-1 to my home/office. Dollar limits, I'd like to get in around 4-5 grand or less if possible. I'd like as close to T-1 throughput as I could get, 128k at the low end, tantamount to ISDN. Telco is out of the picture, I'm philosophically opposed to it and they gouge for isdn if you're out of the city limits. I'll grill those salesmen. I'll do the install, I've had beams, rotors and dishes all over my place for years. No one will even notice a 2.4 GHZ beam next to my hf yagi, my dual band antenna, my tv antenna, and my sat dish, etc. etc. Just adding to the antenna farm I already have. So, again, where do I get up to speed on doing a site survey? And do you have a short list for me or some vendors to eliminate from this list: Breeze Clarion C-SPEC Cylink Karlnet Netwave OTC Proxim RadioConnect TAC - Tetherless Wave Wireless Wi-LAN Windata Topic 255 [homeowners]: help: wireless LAN for the home #92 of 92: Dave Hughes (dave) Sat Aug 9 '97 (20:16) 28 lines If you can get the loan, or loan-test, of the Breezecoms, try them first. For if you do NOT have good line of sight, you can scount for a 'relay' point between, where you put just a Breeze 'AP-PRO' (access point) radio, with an omni antenna, to act as the relay. The AP is perhaps $1,200 or so with the antenna and mount $200+ more at most. So first, with one AP and one WB, and hand held yagi 16dB gain antennas, and two people, see if you get signal all the way. (green link lights will light up). If not, go to the halfway, or hilltop site and try, with omni mast antenna on the AP at the middle point, first from one end to the middle, then the other end. If both work, then 2 WBs and 1 AP, one good omni and two yagis may do the trick. Drop TAL, they, after bad mismanagement of venture capital from Australia have shut down. Stay away from the really pricey '10mb' promised radios. Solectek can span the distance at the speeds you want. They use teh Clarion engine too. At the distances you want, look for the radios puttingout more than the 100 milliwatts a lot of them offer, in order to comply with the European markets. Except for the Breezecoms whose price/performance make them worth seeing if they will span the distance reliably.