Industry Forums > Wireless Service Providers > Type of router at AP end?

Type of router at AP end?

I am very much in start up mode too Bob, but you will have no problem remoting into the AP. I could when I had my crappy Linksys stuff on my roof and the Deliberant is very user friendly and much easier to work with. Even if you have the AP set to DHCP from the router, you can remote into the router, look at the client list (for your MAC), and know what address the AP is.

reply to Airplane777
Personally I never focus on the equipment end of things so soon. There are several different routers depending on your needs and wants and the various scenarios.

I would instead of looking at specific brands, look at what you need.

For example to "remote" past the router to manage the AP which is important, get a router that will act as a VPN server. Then you need to decide if you are going to do any kind of throttling of the customers as some routers support this and other's don't.

Almost any router these days can be remoted into without much of a problem.

Finally you need to decide how you will design your network, if the AP is connected to an upstream source like a T-1 or DSL.

reply to Airplane777
If your using the Canopy stuff, I would recommend a good Netgear router. Not anything special, but mine has lasted a long time here at my office and never gives me problems. I'm talking in the $300-400 range.

At our tower sites I run Cisco 2600 and 3600 routers, and they are great. Up time over 2 yrs with no problems. No QOS on the Ciscos right now.

The Canopy comes with a QOS thing (kind of) so to get started I'd stick with a less expensive unit. No sense in breaking the bank until you get some income.

"If I use a Canopy 9000SMC, I realize it has a router built in. So I guess I don't need to worry much there about adding a router to the customer end." Not sure what you are saying here. Could you repeat this in different wording?

"For example to "remote" past the router to manage the AP which is important, get a router that will act as a VPN server." - This doesn't have anything to do with anything. VPN means nothing to accessing the AP or any clients. They could be sitting behind a $40 linksys router and I could still access them.

reply to Airplane777
Several options for you. I use mikrotik routers at the bottom of all of our towers along with a remote reboot device. The remote reboot can turn off everything on the tower and back on. All of the equipment on the towers(and client cpe's as well) have local 10. addresses. Clients pppoe to a dhcp public 69.addy. Mikrotiks are the way to go in my opinion.

reply to Airplane777

Mkrotik Screenshot

reply to Airplane777
goldenspacek please enlighten me as to how you are going to get to the AP behind your $40 router? Getting to one AP is easy, getting to an entire network is damn near impossible.

reply to cmaenginsb
Hi cmaenginsb:

What you say about not focusing on equipment at first, but on my needs and wants, sounds pretty reasonable.

I guess my scenarios are going to be pretty much just an AP on a tower or hill, reaching out to hopefully a bunch of clients. I don't expect a big system at first. I don't know that each of my APs will serve a whole bunch of people. Hopefully enough though to make ROI. So maybe a T1 will be all I'll need for a while.

I don't know enough about the WISP operation so as to know what I need in a WISP router. I guess I just know I need some kind of router that I will need to be able to remote into, so as to be able to "reach" the AP and the SMs for remote configuration. I don't know about the extra things that are good for WISPs to do...I guess they might be statistics.

Well come to think of it, you did mention one that there...that is the throttling and BW shaping (or whatever they call that). But at first that might not be so necessary if I don't have a bunch of people on the system. However, maybe if the router that does all this isn't prohibitively expensive, maybe I should at least consider some kind of router that does this stuff.

I would want to offer VoIP. That would be a plus to get clients.

Why would I need VPN? Couldn't I remote into the router without VPN? Or do I need the security VPN provides?

I guess the design of my first WISPs will be pretty simple. The first one I expect will just be an AP connected to a router, which is connected to the Internet. And on the other end, I hope to have a bunch of clients with 9000SMCs...or 2.4 G CPEs if I can get some good line of site shots.

My AP end might have a 2.4 G AP and a 900 MHz AP. I'll use the 900 MHz for NLOS customers. And 2.4G if I can get LOS. I expect to have quickere ROI with 2.4 G. So I guess each AP will need its own router? And the two routers will go to a switch, which goes to the Internet.

That way I can remote into each router, with its own static IP address.

I probably won't even have my office at the AP end. I expect it will be an unmanned site. But I will probably want to remote into both APs and their respective APs from my office or home, etc., to manage them.

I hope that info helps give an idea of what I was thinking of. I hope I'm not "all wet" with my considerations for setting up this system.

reply to hamiltonjm
Hi hamiltonjm:

Thank you for that screenshot.

Please forgive me for my lack of knowledge on this router stuff.

I have definitely heard of Mikrotik before. But I'm still confused.

I use to think Mikrotiks were APs and CPE devices with the special Mikrotik firmware built in. Something that only a guru would want to fool with.

But now I'm starting to think that a Mikrotik is just a router, built mainly for WISP operations. And now I assume that the Mikrotik is not the AP at all.

So you can see I'm pretty confused with this Mikrotik stuff.

So I guess the Mikrotik is a router, just like Cisco, Netgear and Netopia have routers. Except that maybe Mikrotik is made more specialized for WISP operations?

Thanks much for everybodies help,

reply to Airplane777
You got it. With the mikrotik, you can create pppoe accounts, limit bandwidth, set up vpn accounts. It also takes heat very well which works very well in my hot ass enclosures at the bottom of my towers.

I would use Mikrotik too.

If you go to wisp-router.com or various other places you can buy one all ready to go in an outdoor enclosure if necessary.

If you already have some computer lying around you can load it up with the routing version only for around $45 if I remember correctly.

It will take some getting used to, but you'll learn A LOT just playing around with it in a test environment.

Plus, it will limit your P2P traffic too.

reply to Airplane777
Airplane, Mikrotik is both. It can be used as a router,AP, or client device. It depends on the hardware you run it on and what you want to do with it.

On our network for example we have 2 mikrotik wireless bridges and a router for bandwidth control.

You do not need a router at each AP, at least during startup. You need a router where your network enters the real internet.

As to bandwidth control, while you might not need it now, it's easier to do things right the first time then try and figure out how to do something later.

As to "remoting", I generally find it a good idea to be able to get into the router,ap and client radios from the internet (ie like starbucks). If you use private ips for your network, the only realistic way to accomplish this is a VPN, once you establish the connection it's as if you are sitting on your network. Mikrotik will also do VPN.

Personally I'd use Mikrotik, but you have to understand it's as complicated as a Cisco which isn't easy.

reply to IntraLink
Hi ILC:

Ah yes. I forgot about P2P traffic. I don't understand P2P traffic much yet, but I know that is a "bad thing"...LOL.

Oh BTW, I ordered the Learn To Subnet CD, so I expect to get more up to speed on subnetting. Its part of the TCPIP series I understand.

reply to cmaenginsb
Hi cmaenginsb:

What might be a second choice other then Mikrotik, for someone like me who isn't a router guru?

Aren't there any other router products out there that can be used for WISP operations, that can do pretty much what Mikrotik does? Some kind of router box, that doesn't require me to be a router genius, like Mikrotik does?

You said:
"Mikrotik is both. It can be used as a router,AP, or client device. It depends on the hardware you run it on and what you want to do with it."

The preceeding statement is what confuses me about Mikrotik. Where did Mikrotik get its transmitter and antennas to be used as an AP? Does Mikrotik sometimes come as a regular router and sometimes come in a box with a transmitter to be used as an AP? and sometimes as a CPE device? That doesn't make sense yet.

Also..."You do not need a router at each AP, at least during startup. You need a router where your network enters the real internet."

If I understand the preceeding paragraph, that means I would go from the Internet, to one router, then to a switch, and I could then have several APs connected to the switch.

After I remote in through the single router, I guess I could address each of my APs, by their local IP address...as opposed to each AP having its own static IP address?

But then, if my customers have a router at their location, they would probably have NAT turned on also on their router. So that would be NAT behind NAT, I guess, since I'm doing NAT at my AP end of things. I heard that could be a problem? Maybe after I look over the Learn To Subnet CD, I'll understand it better?

On one of the other threads, I heard that some WISP operations use something called 1 to 1 NATting at the clients end. But some do not. That is, some WISP operations handle routing at the customer end various ways. That is a little confusing.

I guess all customers have a router? I might be able to use the built in router in my 9000SMC? Or would I want to turn off the router in my SM and have the customer supply their own router?

I apologize for what are extremely elementary questions to you all, but to me are difficult questions.

reply to Airplane777

reply to Airplane777
www.learntosubnet.com or www.learntcpip.com

These are great sites that explaing tcpip and subnetting. I taught a networking class for a couple of years and the students really benefited from it.

reply to cmaenginsb

reply to hamiltonjm
Hi hamiltonjm:

Yes. I ordered the Learn To Subnet CD a couple days ago. I guess its part of the Learn to TCPIP series.

I'm looking forward to getting it.

I tried to run the free version off the Internet, but it kept locking up on my computer. I understand that some video cards won't run it off the Internet. I guess I have one of the bad video cards...LOL.

Thats what I need to do, is take a course like you taught. But our local community college only gets into the subnetting stuff as part of much larger and much more expensive courses.

reply to nwn
Hi nwn:

Thank you.

I ordered the Learn To Subnet CD, so I'm sure that will help.

I don't understand how Mikrotik can at times be just a router, and other times it can be an AP, and other times a CPE.

But from what I gather, most of the time it is a router.

Is it applianced based...in a box? And the Mikrotik APs or CPEs are then just in boxes with transmitters and antennas?

But I'm glad to hear they are easier to configure then Cisco, since I have heard that Ciscos can be fairly complicated.

I know a local company that supplies T1s uses Adtrans. We have an Adtran supplied by this company to our office. Fortunately we don't have anything to do with the configuration of the Adtran. But this company uses them all the time.

Does an Adtran have the necessary features a WISP operation would want? Features similiar to the Mikrotik?

We tend to use the term Mikrotik to mean 2 things:

First, there is RouterOS. This is a Linux-based OS package that will run on any Intel/AMD based PC, and some others. It has all the router, AP, CPE, Backhaul (PTP) functionality in it. You just have to have the right hardware for each function.

Second, there are the RouterBoards. A couple of models with some options on each. The are designed to run RouterOS, but they are capable of running other OS as well.

So, I can configure a machine (PC or RouterBoard) with RouterOS to run as a router, an AP, a routing AP, a CPE, a routing CPE, an AP and CPE together, multiple APs and a Backhaul, etc. You can add multi-port Ethernet cards, radio cards, etc. to get the kind of device you need at a given location.
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Scott