Large Wifi Network

Hello All.

First of i would like to welcome myself to youur forum as a new member and hope you can help me like i would like to help others.

I have been asked to design a large wifi network to cover a building with 30 odd rooms on a approx size of 30m by 20m over two floors.

the specification is to wifi the whole building to see 1 network name connected to the internet.

So they would be able to work around the whole building and only have to connect to 1 network name.

is this possible? and also which is the best brand of routers/ switch to use.

Regards

Jon

If you can get ethernet cabling to sufficient locations, then just a case of giving access points the same SSID and security keys and off you go. Devices should then switch between the best one

Welcome!

The clue is in the Forum information

Also it sounds like you are doing this commercially (without the necessary technical knowledge) and we don't get paid

Perfectly possible, do consider a professional solution such as Meraki. This isn't really a job ideally left to consumer grade kit.

I think in this case you need to look at enterprise level systems.

Do research and get in contact with all the companies.

AeroHive, Juniper, Meru, Trapeze, Ruckus, Cisco, Colubris...

You need to decide on various things such as

-Does existing cabling not permit APs going back to a controller
--Can they only go back to your layer 2 switching infrastructure
-Power over ethernet
-Redundancy considerations
-Management considerations

etc etc

Bare in mind that with some enterprise systems the standard rules of wireless networks do not apply (i.e., different channels on APs), some work in more complicated ways so you really need to get some professional insight into which ever solution you choose.

Depending where you are in the country I might be able to point you in direction of some suppliers that are useful to talk to.

Edited by Pipexer (Mon 20-Aug-12 23:08:08)

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Welcome!

The clue is in the Forum information

Also it sounds like you are doing this commercially (without the necessary technical knowledge) and we don't get paid

He is only asking for advice, not for us to do the work for him. So, personally, I don't have a problem helping.

After initially acting in support of open-source development of software on Meraki Mini units, in early 2008 the company introduced a more restrictive EULA covering sales of new equipment requiring that, "Meraki Hardware may only be used with Meraki Software" and prohibiting reverse engineering, adding, removing or otherwise altering the software on the device. The previous license agreements contained no restrictions on replacing the software on the device. Shortly after the new EULA was imposed, Meraki sent an unsolicited firmware update to their units in the field which disabled future firmware updates by customers. This has dismayed mesh network enthusiasts, some of whom have questioned the legality of such restrictions being imposed involuntarily and without advance notice. In 2008 Open-Mesh began offering similar software with fewer licensing restrictions

In reply to a post by jonwisbey:

Hello All.

First of i would like to welcome myself to youur forum as a new member and hope you can help me like i would like to help others.

I have been asked to design a large wifi network to cover a building with 30 odd rooms on a approx size of 30m by 20m over two floors.

the specification is to wifi the whole building to see 1 network name connected to the internet.

So they would be able to work around the whole building and only have to connect to 1 network name.

is this possible? and also which is the best brand of routers/ switch to use.

Regards

Jon

If literally loads of people are gonna be using the connection get business grade equipment.

If just a few people then a few NETGEAR WNR2000s all linked with ethernet would do the trick. Could do it for around £100 - £300 if it's only for a few people e.g a family

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 20-Aug-12 23:06:29)

Yes?

I wouldn't trust that shower.

Agree with those pointing out we aren't going to do your job for you (assuming you will get paid for our free advice)

That said ...

Something I see alot is people thinking a wireless network can be instead of a wired network when rather, for jobs of this scale it has to be built on top of a good wired network. I.e. "We want to do wireless - why do we need to buy switches and cabling?".

So

(1) explain there is a pre-requisite to run structured cabling to all the locations where you want each access point, as opposed to assuming they can just extend the network by repeating it wirelessly (technically you can for occasional awkward areas but it impacts throughput so should not be the basis for a whole network)

(2) find out what they want to do on the network - will there be alot of LAN traffic or is it mainly to provide internet access or both.

(2b) you mention a single network name - setting a matching SSID and security settings across all APs is the easy part, but do they want to offer guest access also? That will mean a second SSID, VLAN capable switch(es) (smart / managed) and a better router.

(3) find out what proportion of devices in use can use 5GHz (you can have more capacity / less interference with a mix of 2.4GHz and 5GHz)

(4) don't trust a vendor whose sales pitch sounds like the access points have the properties of magic fairy dust - in particular some claim massive performance improvements from proprietary extensions to wireless standards. Client devices work according to the wireless standards of their chips / firmware / drivers and the access points can't make them do things significantly differently

(5) watch out for vendors whose access points depend on expensive controllers which then lock you in to only using their brand of access point, or require further payments for more seats on the controller, or for software upgrades - the ongoing costs can be significant on this

(5b) on the other hand don't try to run this on consumer APs and routers

(6) look for vendors who have customer forums that allow you to ask questions around suitability of kit for this purpose.

(7) if you have to pay more than £300 per access point you are paying over the odds unless (you are obliged to buy a particular brand due to some contractual or systems integration obligation)

Out of interest is it 30m x 20m per room x 30 rooms or was that the total area per floor- big difference in assessing the coverage needed

Consider a range of solutions but in terms of what you can do on a given budget, have a look at this:
http://www.ubnt.com/unifi
http://wiki.ubnt.com/UniFi_FAQ

and forums here
http://forum.ubnt.com/forumdisplay.php?f=48 (read up beforehand to avoid asking questions that are already answered!)

Short answer if I were doing this I would use Unifi APs with pfSense as a router on hardware with minimum 2x (3 is better) Intel / Broadcom network cards (not Realtek as hardware offloading can be buggy) and the Cisco Small Business switches (SG 300 series) based on experience but YMMV

For a router, good network cards for I/O and memory for caching (squid) can make a difference, processor speed then less important.

Edited by prlzx (Mon 20-Aug-12 23:19:00)

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

I wouldn't trust that shower.

What do you know about them beyond that article?

I mentioned Meraki because their solution is very simple to implement and OP doesn't strike me as a wireless enthusiast.

Given you're calling them a shower I presume you've experience with the company and its products sir?

Edited by deleted (Mon 20-Aug-12 23:20:56)

In reply to a post by prlzx:

(2b) you mention a single network name - setting a matching SSID and security settings across all APs is the easy part, but do they want to offer guest access also? That will mean a second SSID, VLAN capable switch(es) (smart / managed) and a better router.

Guest access can be accomplished without using a specialist router, some wireless APs allow layer 3 access control, which is nice.

Thank you to all for the quick response.

Yes it is a commercial job. I�m doing it more as a favour for a care home as installed and maintain their TV and CCTV systems (which I am qualified to do).

I have done basic networking before e.g. setting up routers and wiring data cable.

They are on a small budget. The system is mainly so a few of the resident�s relatives can use internet while they visit. I would estimate a peak Wi-Fi load of around 20 people at any one time but more realistically maybe 5-10.

I was thinking of wiring up half 4-8 routers throughout the premises and giving them all the same id and password but wasn�t sure if there would be conflicts when changing zones.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by prlzx:

(2b) you mention a single network name - setting a matching SSID and security settings across all APs is the easy part, but do they want to offer guest access also? That will mean a second SSID, VLAN capable switch(es) (smart / managed) and a better router.

Guest access can be accomplished without using a specialist router, some wireless APs allow layer 3 access control, which is nice.

Indeed but pfSense is a free OS (FreeBSD) so you can run it on any suitable PC (upgrading the hardware as you go along to expand capacity in future).

And you'll have graphs and reports for each of the network interfaces (private LAN, guest LAN and WAN). You can do it with 2 network cards (VLANs for LANs) or 1 network card (but that is relying on your switch to separate LAN and WAN which I avoid wherever possible).

You start it from a CD (download and burn an ISO) or from USB. It can be run as a live CD to test hardware compatibility with settings saved to USB, CD also allows to install the OS to a hard drive.

As soon as you complete the first run on the console which really just asks you to confirm which network card is plugged to WAN / LAN, you have a web-based UI for any further config changes.

Because it's a proper OS you can have an arbitrary number of network interfaces, VLANs, LAGGs, gateways, multi-WAN, VPN support - very flexible general purpose router and very well established.

Edited by prlzx (Tue 21-Aug-12 00:28:06)

The way I see it you need to purchase access points (and/or) controller switches from someone. You also need to purchase the cabling and additional switching infrastructure.

You are entitled to speak to companies that specialise in wireless and pick their brains at the same time, they should be eager to sell a solution to you and hence you should be able to get some of their technical input for free.

Remember if you go for a conventional unmanaged system you need to plan out the APs sufficiently so that you do not have more than 3 in one area with overlapping/same channels, but you also need to ensure you don't create not-spots which will result in costly modifications later.

With your requirements in mind you probably don't need a full enterprise grade system in the respect that it all goes back to a dedicated contoller but some intelligent APs that talk to another may be a good idea.

If you do go ahead with your proposed suggestion you just need to make sure there is no massive channel overlapping going on. Setting the channel selection to "Auto" might seem clever but you can end up with a ripple effect on some APs.

If you want to do it really on the cheap then you can always source older 802.11g kit off eBay etc as a job lot - your biggest cost will then be cabling.

Edited by Pipexer (Mon 20-Aug-12 23:32:50)

While technically you can do it with unmanged APs (or routers) it becomes a royal pain to administer or troubleshoot if you have to login to each one individually to see what is going on.

Either approach has the same factors regarding channel planning to reduce interference.

When using the same SSID the network you connect to needs to be literally the same LAN for roaming to work reliably. In other words you should not attempt to use 8 routers where the wireless is on the LAN side and you only connect all the WANs together, because then you are relying on the client devices to renew their lease each time they change AP (which they won't be expecting with single SSID).

In other words using home routers as access points would be messy as you have to turn of DHCP on all except one of the routers, connect all their LANs together (so still need a switch to avoid daisy-chaining).

With a managed system you setup your SSIDs and other settings and they are rolled out to the APs by the controller (hardware or software). If an AP ever fails you can see which it is and swap out and adopt the replacement. You can also see where the client device go (not for snooping) but to see if there are APs overloaded / not doing anything or areas where signal to all connected clients is weak (poor placement).

Again speaking from direct experience installing a managed system looks like it costs more up front but you save masses of time in installation and it's feasible for non-technical staff to have an overview of how the network is running compared with separate bits. As a rule I would lean towards a managed system once you need more than 3 APs.

For example I used to think £75 per AP (2.4GHz) or £175 per dual band (2.4GHz + 5GHz) was expensive until I had experience of the difference it makes for ongoing support.

Edited by prlzx (Mon 20-Aug-12 23:41:16)

In reply to a post by jonwisbey:

commercial job ...
small budget. ... resident�s relatives can use internet while they visit

OK important question to ask up front is whether each resident needs to be isolated or all residents can just be on a shared network,

The latter is easier and you setup 2 LANs - one for staff / management (private) and one for residents and visitors (guest) with the SSID and password that is given out.

The guest network is also what any wired points in residents rooms or common areas connect to. The staff network is also used for wired points in staff-only areas. This can be the same network as used for CCTV or that can be a 3rd LAN if preferred.

Another advantage of pfSense is even with a single guest network you have lots of future flexibility to setup individual user accounts meaning you can do web-page login (captive portal) or per-user wireless passwords (RADIUS) without changing the hardware.

But that is normally only needed if policy requires monitoring access or accountability if you have a problem with individual users abusing the network.

Some managed systems allow you to do per-user or per-AP isolation to prevent guest from infecting each other with viruses over the network. On the other hand don't ignore that some of the residents might want to make more creative use of the network once it is installed - not just for the visitors.

Edited by prlzx (Mon 20-Aug-12 23:58:14)