Bigpaddy_Irl
join:2005-12-12
Ireland
| Advise Please
Please note picture attached. All the drawing in blue is what im currently working off at the moment, Basically it starts with a dsl modem connected to a monowall router which basically shapes all my traffic. Connected to the other ethernet port on the monowall router board is the ehternet port on a mesh box which currently serves broadband to clients in the neighbouring area on 2.4ghz through a 15db omni. Now, for the good bit, I have obtained a site on a mountain which is about 800-900ft ASL and about 4 miles as the crow would fly from my mesh node. I want to put another mesh box up here in order to allow me to serve bandwidth on the 2.4ghz spectrum from this height. My idea was to insert a cm9 card into a empty slot on the monowall board and in turn connect it to a parabolic antenna pointed to my mountain site. On the mountain site I was going to get an Osbridge 5XGi in client mode and connect it into the ethernet port on the mesh box on the mountain site to turn it into a gateway node. My reason for wanting to do this is because I do not believe i will be able to provide the mountain site with adequate bandwidth using only 2.4ghz and only 100mw EIRP. On the other hand I can push out 2 watts EIRP on the 5.8ghz band & I also believe it is better at penetrating trees and stuff. Will my idea work? Thanks |
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lutful
Premium
join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON
 ·TekSavvy Solutions..
| said by Bigpaddy_Irl  :My idea was to insert a cm9 card into a empty slot on the monowall board The m0n0wall firmware does not support CM9 and other Atheros miniPCI cards. 
Other firmware (like WILI and Mikrotik) that run on the WRAP board do support Atheros cards. If you use WILI firmware you do not need meshAP at all. |
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Bigpaddy_Irl
join:2005-12-12
Ireland
| Hi Radialink, The big benifits of the meshap is that you can authorise customers in wiana and give them their chosen bandwidth. Also you can ssh into a node to see how strong a mesh box is seeing a client incase of a problem. How does WILI compare to this? |
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robbin
Premium,MVM
join:2000-09-21
Leander, TX
| reply to Bigpaddy_Irl
said by Bigpaddy_Irl :...On the other hand I can push out 2 watts EIRP on the 5.8ghz band & I also believe it is better at penetrating trees and stuff... You are going to have to have a pretty good LOS for 5.8 to work dependably. Trees kill it very fast. |
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lutful
Premium
join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| reply to Bigpaddy_Irl
said by Bigpaddy_Irl :you can authorise customers in wiana and give them their chosen bandwidth. I think Wiana.org is running customized FreeRadius server and just pushing iptables rules onto the MeshAP boxes.
Anyway, many HotSpots and 802.1x/PPPoE WISP setups have similar features. |
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Bigpaddy_Irl
join:2005-12-12
Ireland
| reply to robbin
Hi Robbin, There is absolutely nothing in the way of my mountain site and the land below, nothing but fields between all the houses, and the odd tree here and there, no more than 20-30 foot. I have clear line of sight to hundreds of houses. Whould I use 2.4 or 5.8 for connecting back to customers?
Radialink, as the old saying goes, "the devil you know, is better than the devil you dont"! |
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lutful
Premium
join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| said by Bigpaddy_Irl :the old saying goes, "the devil you know, is better than the devil you dont"! I know some WISPs still using Karlnet so I understand what you mean.
MeshAP is actually quite OK and your posts do show that you are willing to try new stuff when needed.  |
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superdog
I Need A Drink
Premium,MVM
join:2001-07-13
Lebanon, PA
| reply to robbin
said by robbin :said by Bigpaddy_Irl :...On the other hand I can push out 2 watts EIRP on the 5.8ghz band & I also believe it is better at penetrating trees and stuff... You are going to have to have a pretty good LOS for 5.8 to work dependably. Trees kill it very fast. 5.8Ghz is even harder to get thru trees and other obstacles than 2.4Ghz. Since You now know that M0n0wall will not work and You want to use mesh, I suggest You get 2 OsBridge units and use them in PtP mode to deliver Your bandwidth. If You start bridging and using all kinds of subnets and double and triple NAT, You may have issues along with the fact that You can not monitor all of the radios past the first NAT with jumping thru a lot of hoops.
--
»www.wavecrazy.net Join WISPA today! »www.wispa.org/ |
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robbin
Premium,MVM
join:2000-09-21
Leander, TX
| reply to Bigpaddy_Irl
said by Bigpaddy_Irl :Hi Robbin, There is absolutely nothing in the way of my mountain site and the land below, nothing but fields between all the houses, and the odd tree here and there, no more than 20-30 foot. I have clear line of sight to hundreds of houses. Whould I use 2.4 or 5.8 for connecting back to customers?... If you have good LOS as it sounds like you do, I think it would be beneficial to go with the 5.8 if you can find some that works at your price point. Do you have 360 degree coverage from there or is the site on the side of the mountain? |
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Bigpaddy_Irl
join:2005-12-12
Ireland
| I only have one side of the mountain, which is enough because there is litterally hundreds of houses miles from any exhcange, and the ones that are close to an exchange are only served by a microwave link!! Im going to try and find my digital camera and take a picture from the site tonight. Would this give you a better indication of what I could achieve from the site? |
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robbin
Premium,MVM
join:2000-09-21
Leander, TX | We always love pics! Yes, they would definately help. |
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bryandj23
join:2002-08-15
Bay City, MI
| reply to Bigpaddy_Irl
BigPaddy...
I too am experimenting with MeshAP based stuff. If you really want to use 5.8, why not just stick a 5.8 radio in each of your Mesh boxes and utilize the WLAN1(or 2) interface? From what I gather on WIANA, you can initialize and set up two (maybe more) wireless interfaces.
What equipment are you using for the "mesh box"? |
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lutful
Premium
join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
1 edit | reply to Bigpaddy_Irl
said by Bigpaddy_Irl :take a picture from the site tonight. A picture is always nice but we have RM analysis for your site in this thread.
»Use a Omni or sector antena for hillside access point?
Originally, I had suggested 5.8Ghz PtMP broadcast from the hillside feeding many dual-radio nodes [ 5.8Ghz CPE + 2.4Ghz AP ] in the villages. I guess you could achieve same effect using separate 5.8Ghz CPE connected to 2.4Ghz MeshAP.
Edit: I had mentioned Mikrotik in early March, but WILI will work better to make a transparent 5.8Ghz PtMP network for easy management of your MeshAPs. |
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ghmorris9
join:2006-05-14
Minden, ON
| said by lutful :Edit: I had mentioned Mikrotik in early March, but WILI will work better to make a transparent 5.8Ghz PtMP network for easy management of your MeshAPs. Very interesting. Why is WILI better in this application? I wonder if it would help us...
George |
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robbin
Premium,MVM
join:2000-09-21
Leander, TX
| reply to lutful
Thanks for the link lutful -- although that thread is extremely confusing. One of the radiomobile graphs I would like to see most (0% trees for 5.8) is not showing for me.
Bigpaddy_Irl How many of those hundreds of homes would you be able to get on the roof of and see your mountain location? What would be the typical distances to these customers? |
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Bigpaddy_Irl
join:2005-12-12
Ireland
| Hi Robbin, I can stand on the lawn or driveway of about 90% of the homes and see the site clearly with binoculars! I have gotten some pictures from the site. The pictures are from 1 to 5. Pic 1 is starting from the very left. There is a large village there just to the left of the trees called Mountmellick which I have several nodes in. Im betting on getting a connection from here to supply my mountain site network. As the pictures progress 2,3,4,5 the camera is turning further and further to the right. Picture 4 has another very large village called Portlaoise which I also have another network in. These towns are 7km's apart by road. I hope to cover the gap in between and coming back up the mountain. Eventually I will be able to get a 24mbit sdsl+ link out of portlaoise so I will be gunning on connecting both towns together in the future. How do you think the coverage will be by the pictures? |
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Bigpaddy_Irl
join:2005-12-12
Ireland | reply to bryandj23
Hi Bryandj23,
The reason im not too keen on 5.8 is because firstly I have never used it & secondly the cpe end of it is very expensive. We bought the mesh box's direct from Locustworld pre built |
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robbin
Premium,MVM
join:2000-09-21
Leander, TX
| reply to Bigpaddy_Irl
I wish someone could clarify the rules for different bands in Ireland. As I understand it --
2.4 GHz - output must not exceed 20dBm at the antenna to comply with UK regulations.
5.8 - 2 watts EPIRB
Interesting info on licensed -- "In 2004 ComReg announced a new scheme for the licensing of broadband fixed wireless access services in local areas. Each local service area was defined by a 15km radius circle from a base station, with an interference zone extending to 30 km radius, at the perimeter of which a certain field strength should not be exceeded in order to limit interference into adjacent areas. Since its inception, 110 licences have been granted on a first-come, first-served basis."
Bigpaddy_Irl Have you looked into licenses? It looks like a dream come true for a small WISP and it looks like you may be able to use much higher power levels with a license. If that is the case, go with a PtMP on licensed frequency from your mountain directly to each customer (assuming it can be made to work financially). |
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cmaenginsb
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-19
Palmdale, CA | reply to Bigpaddy_Irl
I noticed WILI being mentioned more often lately. Has anyone hear actually deployed it or are we still talking theory about it? |
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Bigpaddy_Irl
join:2005-12-12
Ireland
| reply to robbin
Hi Robbin,
Im afraid where I am at the moment there is no more available channels. all 4 are used up. The licence is €2800 per annum. Besides all that, the 3.5Ghz gear is just to expensive to buy. All the big wisps over here, Digiweb, lastmile broadband, Irish Broadband, etc all get goverment grants of up to 40% of the total cost of equipment. It would just not be possible for a small wisp. Over here they are able to offer free installation. |
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