rural lot needing 1000' range in three directions

[100acres]

Hi,

Have been reading through this forum and it has a lot of great technical advice. Looking for an optimal solution to a relatives rural lot.

This lot is undeveloped at this time, and somewhat hilly. We believe we can centrally locate a tower for ISP access and it will have line-of-sight to the three primary sites on the lot we'd like to develop/have wifi access. Each of these would be less than 800' feet from this single access point but are in completely different directions.

We could do a mesh, but there's no power here and a central location would be easier to deploy with solar-power. So, simple, rugged, optimized power and hopefully not costing an arm and leg.

My ideas:

1) Would prefer a single rugged router/access point (2.4 or 5GHz or both) and 3 directional antennas to cover the areas of interest. I can't find many 200mW solutions that support three ~9-14 db antennas. I've found a couple that support two. I know something like an Asus N66 or RT-ACC66 can be ramped up to 120-200 mW, which is probably enough, and there are optional 9db antennas - but not sure about putting this into an enclosure and dealing with non-directional antennas with beam forming and all that (it would be a pretty big enclosure with optional antennas). Temps are going to range from 40 to 105F.

2) From the ISP access point, we could just buy a gateway and 3 outdoor tp-link, engenius or something like this: http://routerboard.com/RBSXT-5nDr2 AP's and point them where we need them. But I'm concerned what happens when instead of having a mesh, the three APs are on the same pole. Won't I get interference?

I'm guessing option #2 would end up being cheaper. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[PrivateJoker]

Hi,

Have been reading through this forum and it has a lot of great technical advice. Looking for an optimal solution to a relatives rural lot.

This lot is undeveloped at this time, and somewhat hilly. We believe we can centrally locate a tower for ISP access and it will have line-of-sight to the three primary sites on the lot we'd like to develop/have wifi access. Each of these would be less than 800' feet from this single access point but are in completely different directions.

We could do a mesh, but there's no power here and a central location would be easier to deploy with solar-power. So, simple, rugged, optimized power and hopefully not costing an arm and leg.

My ideas:

1) Would prefer a single rugged router/access point (2.4 or 5GHz or both) and 3 directional antennas to cover the areas of interest. I can't find many 200mW solutions that support three ~9-14 db antennas. I've found a couple that support two. I know something like an Asus N66 or RT-ACC66 can be ramped up to 120-200 mW, which is probably enough, and there are optional 9db antennas - but not sure about putting this into an enclosure and dealing with non-directional antennas with beam forming and all that (it would be a pretty big enclosure with optional antennas). Temps are going to range from 40 to 105F.

2) From the ISP access point, we could just buy a gateway and 3 outdoor tp-link, engenius or something like this: http://routerboard.com/RBSXT-5nDr2 AP's and point them where we need them. But I'm concerned what happens when instead of having a mesh, the three APs are on the same pole. Won't I get interference?

I'm guessing option #2 would end up being cheaper. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

First I would buy maybe one engenius model that has both a built in directional antenna, and also an external antenna connector built into and get a panel/sector antenna too to try with it (with appropriate connector), just to make sure that the performance is livable based on distance to one of the buildings. I can try to look through my old notes to see tests I did using an engenius 802.11g AP and a 3com directional panel antenna and see what kind of speeds and range I was getting out of it.

Multiple APs at the same position will not interfere w/ each other if you separate the channels, which should not be difficult.

 

[stevech]

I'd either use 2-3 Engenius bridges, outdoor, at 5m height, each on a different channel 1, 6 or 11, and each vertically separated by 2-3 ft.

Or, a 14dBi omni at about 5-10m. No higher, due to the narrow vertical beamwidth. Coax from ant. to AP should be fat diameter, Type N connectors, length 18 in. or less.

The second method is the easiest/best.

In either case, the goodness of the client device's RF situation is a big factor. If it's immobile in use, put a gain antenna there. Or use a client bridge device connecting by ethernet to a PC or switch, or by USB to a PC, or by Ethernet to a WiFi device to create a new WiFi bubble.

 

[Daybreak]

Hi,

Have been reading through this forum and it has a lot of great technical advice. Looking for an optimal solution to a relatives rural lot.

This lot is undeveloped at this time, and somewhat hilly. We believe we can centrally locate a tower for ISP access and it will have line-of-sight to the three primary sites on the lot we'd like to develop/have wifi access. Each of these would be less than 800' feet from this single access point but are in completely different directions.

We could do a mesh, but there's no power here and a central location would be easier to deploy with solar-power. So, simple, rugged, optimized power and hopefully not costing an arm and leg.

My ideas:

1) Would prefer a single rugged router/access point (2.4 or 5GHz or both) and 3 directional antennas to cover the areas of interest. I can't find many 200mW solutions that support three ~9-14 db antennas. I've found a couple that support two. I know something like an Asus N66 or RT-ACC66 can be ramped up to 120-200 mW, which is probably enough, and there are optional 9db antennas - but not sure about putting this into an enclosure and dealing with non-directional antennas with beam forming and all that (it would be a pretty big enclosure with optional antennas). Temps are going to range from 40 to 105F.

2) From the ISP access point, we could just buy a gateway and 3 outdoor tp-link, engenius or something like this: http://routerboard.com/RBSXT-5nDr2 AP's and point them where we need them. But I'm concerned what happens when instead of having a mesh, the three APs are on the same pole. Won't I get interference?

I'm guessing option #2 would end up being cheaper. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Howdy,
Your over thinking this.
A outdoor access point with a omnidirectional antennae. OK, that part is done. What is your connection to the world? That will be interesting in what type of equipment you would need. ummmm solar, well, there are things you can coble together. You would still have solar, with batteries, and a inverter, all needs to be weather protected. It would probably be easier for a house to have all this at one of the house, and then shoot a signal out to the access point which then shoots it to the other 2 houses. A engenius ap with 2 radios, 2.4ghz for clients, with the 5ghz as the backhaul.

What are ya thinking...?

 

[PrivateJoker]

The more I think about it, the more it probably behoves you to request quotes from a couple companies to do this for you, and also get something in writing about the speed your ISP says it can provide you with & w/ what kind of uptime guarantee. There are so many variables coming into play, it makes it difficult for armchair quarterbacks like myself, even if we have a small amount of experience in this, to give you solid advice based on the 150 word description you gave and the complexity of the infrastructure you are proposing. WiFi and computer networks aren't very forgiving. . .either are the construction quality in materials used in outdoor RF equipment enclosures. Unless you have a pretty good background in outdoor long distance WiFi bridges and APs, it'd probably be a better use of your time and money to pay someone to do it and be able to guarantee you certain performance levels than to try to do it yourself.

One could also find instructions on how to port and polish the cylinder heads on their car's engine in an internet forum, but would it be in the car owner's best interests (not the least of which are time and money) to follow them? Probably not. Just my biased $0.02, I'm sure plenty of people will have contrary opinions. To each his/her own.

 

[100acres]

Thanks for the responses.

The ISP would be placing their receiver on the land (p2p), and we'd have to provide the pole and power. They might provide a whole package with AP's, don't know yet, but assume it would get expensive. Mapping it out, most of the areas of interest would fall nearer to 500' from that pole. We don't really need that much coverage to start with, but it would be preferable to have two of the areas covered immediately as they will be developed first.

There's no infrastructure here, the wifi would support weekend campers doing development and eventually regular 3 day habitation (remote working).

 

[Daybreak]

Howdy,
OK
Give some more details.
Next closest neighbor? is it rural, suburbs, city. Run a notebook scan with something like inSSIDer and scan the area for signals... open and clear country, good. What are the elevations you are working with, is it all relatively flat, are there lots of trees? is it clear pasture?

The easiest and cheapest do it yourself method would be a access point with a Omni directional antennae and see what the coverage is. Walking around with that notebook running inSSIDer to see. The coverage range is pretty good in open rural areas.

Some thoughts here Farm Wifi Setup
Here you can see some of the distances involved.