Large area wifi access

[Jodwahh]

Hi all, I'm about to buy a house and need to cover a large area with Wi-Fi. By large I mean a 3 story house and a 38 acre park next to it. Could anyone point to any recommendations at all? I have seen recently that they is a home Wi-fi antenna that has a theoretical range on 5 miles or so, which while being a touch overkill would be kick-ass.

So something that will cover at least a 3 storey house with the main router on the 2nd floor, or something that will cover the entire parkland. All ideas no matter how ridiculous would be awesome.

Also I'm in the U.K if that has any bearing on availability.

[Niya]

Hm... Depending on how large the floors are, i'd say 1+ access point per floor, and connect those via gigabit cable to a central switch or the router. In theory you can probably also cover the whole building just with APs/repeaters, but every repeater step halves the possible data transfer. So a part-wired setup is the better choice.
Just set all the APs to the same SSID and password, but different channels. Let's say 1 AP is enough for each floor, set one to channel 1, the second to C6 and the third to C11. When you need more, make sure that no WLAN cells with the same channel overlap. That way WLAN clients can roam through the building without problems, but the APs don't disturb each other.

For the park, there are special outdoor APs/antennas that are waterproof and can cover quite a big area. But... wait a second... 38 acres? oO 154km²?!? You'll have a really hard time covering that with WLAN... There might be antennas with enough send power to do that, but you'll have to think about national regulations and laws then, and also, living close to such strong senders isn't really healthy...

[Jefe]

Wat? No, you're stuck w/ standard protocols: a, b, g, n. What you can do is use a network repeater (you can use a router or gateway, but the latter suffers from latency issues) to extend the range a bit more. Just keep in mind the more hopping around data does - passing from repeater to another repeater, router, gateway, router, etc. - the more the integrity of the signal degrades.

[SephYuyX]

Uh... 38 acres is a pretty large distance.. Is this permanent?
Theres many ways to do this.. but it depends on your quality vs quantity ($).


38 acres = 1,655,280 ft2.. the average run of the mill wireless router is ~300ft and they need to overlap a good 50 feet or so atleast, half of that needs to lapse for best results..

So if you were going that route, you would need at minimum of 30,443,910 wireless routers (1655280/300=5517.6, and then ^2 it), and for best results.. (150ft of lapse) 121,775,640.

This also assumes a crap ton of data loss depending on where the motherbrain is, so you could reduce this by running it via coaxil or fiber.
lol, totally possible.


So thats one way.
Another way would be to have designated areas where you could get wifi. And this can be accomplished numerous ways.

Or probably your best solution..
Start making friends at Cisco and work with them to find your best solution.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/...b.shtml#topic1

[SephYuyX]

More fun reading.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solu.../ch8_MESH.html

Seems Cisco recommends 1/3 the amount of lap, but w/e.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/i/200001-...000/222216.jpg

[Ratatapa]

Also with that much distance Imagine the guy at the far far end. Even with a repeater his signal will be slow (Strong due to router but packet can take a while especially if he's stuck on 54mbps)

And More more chance to get Sniffed that way then cabled

[Cantih]

All ideas no matter how ridiculous would be awesome.

Well it depends on the park, both the environment (hilly? trees? weather?) and who it belongs to (yours? someone else? the town?).
Also WHY you need the place to have access and WHAT you plan on doing with it.

But in absence of all that, if you have line of sight to the roof of your house from all points in the park, and you don't mind hauling around & powering a transceiver, here's a crazy idea you might look into.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-sp..._communication

38 acres = 1,655,280 ft2.. the average run of the mill wireless router is ~300ft and they need to overlap a good 50 feet or so atleast, half of that needs to lapse for best results..

So if you were going that route, you would need at minimum of 30,443,910 wireless routers (1655280/300=5517.6, and then ^2 it), and for best results.. (150ft of lapse) 121,775,640.

Wait wait, are you sure?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acre
Look at the picture, an acre fills a straight line distance of 90 yards of a football field, or, 270 feet.
Are you sure you aren't using the wifi's diameter/radius as the square footage covered? Because the picture you posted is implying a 600ft (200 yard) RADIUS of coverage, which means a 1.1 million square foot coverage area.