atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Networking 200 acre wireless setup with large house in middle

I thought that there might be other posts that I could read to help me out but after reading a few about wireless, I got a little confused.

My customer has a 200 acre circular (almost) site with a house in the middle. Not any line of site issues.

I have done some residential wireless (single router wireless) but not anything that would need access points. One typical residential router won't cover the whole house. It is a large single story house. I will probably need a router and two access points ???. The 200 acres is flat and open with no line of site issues.

Does anyone know of a previous post that might get me started? Or can someone out there offer me some advice.

Thanks

Is he trying to just cover the house or the whole 200 acres?

He is trying to cover the house and about 5 acres on one side and 10-15 on the remaining sides. He might want to go out more. There is a spot about 1200 yards away that he might want covered. line of site is clear. The house is on a small slope and the spot is at a river below that you can see from the house.

In the future he might ask for the whole 200.
It wouldn't suprise me.

I've had good results with Engenius products.

I just looked at the Engenius products. They look pretty good. I could use two of the smoke alarm access points on each end of the house with the exterior wireless points placed outside. Any tips and/or pitfalls?
Thanks

to avoid having to pull power I would use a PoE switch or mid-span, that way one CAT5E has you covered for both the WAP and power.

Thanks, thats a good idea. Do PoE devices work as well as non Poe devices. Are there any drawbacks?

Thanks, thats a good idea. Do PoE devices work as well as non Poe devices. Are there any drawbacks?

The Engenius EAP3660 is a high powered access point that i've had very good success with. Ive had 1 3660 cover three floors in a hotel. Depending on the size of the house one centrally located AP may work. Now covering outside is a whole other challenge. Your not going to reach 1200 yards with an access point located at the house. You need to look at some of the 1watt equipment from Bountiful to get the most coverage outside. Is there any power by the river? If so you may be able to setup a wireless bridge and then an AP at the river. Yes POE equipment works just as well as having local power.

No power at river location. I am looking at the EOR7550 because it will support 802.11a/b/g and 802.11n/b/g. I'm not sure about the distance.

The EOC2611P has Long Distance Transmission: 1km to 30km and supports:
IEEE 802.11g
-92dBm @ 6Mbps
-74dBm @ 54Mbps
IEEE 802.11b
-97dBm @ 1Mbps
-89dBm @ 11Mbps
Which is probably OK for the river area.
If I mount something like this on the side of the house will there be any issues between it and the EAP3660 mounted inside the house? Hmmm.

Those distances are not for Access Point configurations. Those are going to be directional line of sight in bridge or point to point mode using high gain directional antennas. The EOC2611P will have roughly the same distance as the 3660 and the 7550 in AP mode. Their all 600 MW devices. I would go with a 1 watt device outside to get the maximum reach but your not going to reach 3600' in AP mode with any current device. The only way youll feed the river is with a bridge to bridge/ap setup. With 600 MW youll get somewhere around a 300 to 400' radius from the access point.

Well it looks like the river area might have to go on the back burner for now. There is no power at the river area. I could put up a simple DC solar panel set-up I suppose. I think that running power down to the river is not in the picture right now. I wonder how far a directional antenna on a 600mW device would work.

This is a quote from Engenius:
"EOC2611P supports distance control by 1km to 30km." Doesn't this mean 1000 meters to 30000 meters?

Today I ordered the Ubiquiti HP access point. I've been hearing good things about it, so let's see how well a 1 Watt access point works :-)
https://ubnt.com/downloads/datasheets/picostationm/picom2hp_DS.pdf

This baby is price competitive and, if it works, we'll use it over the EnGenius ones we're using now.

Carl

Telman, Those distances are for directional line of sight where you have two APs in bridged or point to multipoint mode and they communicate with each other. Theres no access point in AP mode that will cover 30km. Wimax is the only wireless technology that can handle that kind of distance. The most ive seen out of access points is about 300' and thats for a high power unit.
Carl, take some distance and power level measurements and let me know the results.

You may want to look at the Omni-Wifi product.

I looked at the Ubiquiti web site and the HP link that you posted. It looks to be a nice product and should fit into my application. I am looking forward to how well it works for you.
Thanks.

Can anyone recommend a good but $-cheep-$ signal strength meter?

I just took a peek at the Omni-Wifi site. I couldn't concentrate on it right now because have to go on a job. It looks interesting. I want to look at Wimax wireless technology as well.
Thanks to everyone for your help and advice. You have been more than helpfull!!!

Use a laptop with innsider software to check signal strenght. Its free and works great.
https://www.metageek.net/products/inssider

Wimax is a different beast and I dont know much about it. I do believe you need an FCC license though.