Need a better WIFI solution for RV park

[drvnbysound]

I just wanted to add a quick note regarding capping the bandwidth for each user. I travel quite a bit with my job, and I haven't found a hotel yet where the Internet connection (wired or wireless) that isn't capped at 50Mbps (DL), so if you end up doing it, I would say that may be a decent baseline starting number. I have no idea what ISP any of the hotels have, and in your case it may even need to be lower, but at least knowing that is somewhat of a starting point.

 

[fwd03]

For 2.4GHz AP, the short antenna comes out from linksys generating a ball shape energy field. If you can use a higher gain antenna, you could actually cover the the whole park with the linksys. DD-WRT firmware can actually allow adjusting the output power. However, for most AP or WIFI router with single antenna, higher output power will feed back to the input channel, not help much at all.

There are 14 DB gain directional antenna out there. If you could find a WIFI AP that has dual antennas, you could modify to have one for transmit and one for receive. That plus high gain antenna will have coverage about 2 miles distance. Or you can have one high gain antenna to point to far side the park, have a lower gain entenna on a seprate router to cover areas near the clubhouse.

 

[gatchel]

For 2.4GHz AP, the short antenna comes out from linksys generating a ball shape energy field. If you can use a higher gain antenna, you could actually cover the the whole park with the linksys. DD-WRT firmware can actually allow adjusting the output power. However, for most AP or WIFI router with single antenna, higher output power will feed back to the input channel, not help much at all.

There are 14 DB gain directional antenna out there. If you could find a WIFI AP that has dual antennas, you could modify to have one for transmit and one for receive. That plus high gain antenna will have coverage about 2 miles distance. Or you can have one high gain antenna to point to far side the park, have a lower gain entenna on a seprate router to cover areas near the clubhouse.

All within FCC maximum radiated power regulations? Curious...

 

[tmbrown97]

This is a bit older of a thread, but John - if you're still working on this drop me a line or catch me in the chat. I've been doing a lot of wireless projects lately and have been through the whole crash course with ruckus, openmesh, ubiquiti, etc (including a 2300 acre property); - I'd be happy to help any way I can.

 

[drvnbysound]

I just wanted to add a quick note regarding capping the bandwidth for each user. I travel quite a bit with my job, and I haven't found a hotel yet where the Internet connection (wired or wireless) that isn't capped at 50Mbps (DL), so if you end up doing it, I would say that may be a decent baseline starting number. I have no idea what ISP any of the hotels have, and in your case it may even need to be lower, but at least knowing that is somewhat of a starting point.

Hah, I just read back through this, and realized that I completely entered the wrong number for the capped BW above, and the forum gave me no option to edit it, so I wanted to re-post.

That is supposed to be 0.5Mbps, not 50

 

[tmbrown97]

Hah, I just read back through this, and realized that I completely entered the wrong number for the capped BW above, and the forum gave me no option to edit it, so I wanted to re-post.

That is supposed to be 0.5Mbps, not 50

I remember reading that and wondering what hotels you were staying at!

 

[fwd03]

I think hotel guests are different from mobile home park residences. Hardly many hotel guests sit in front of their computers to punch through the wifi. But people living in mobile park will probably do that, fight for the bandwidth.

 

[whatuusay1]

drvnbysound - hit me up as well, I'm a cisco engineer and would be happy to assist If i can - sounds like a fun project. It sounds like you have a fairly basic network that suffers from a lot of the typical saturation and design issues that occur with poorly designed (or thrown together) systems.

If you can provide a network diagram of what you have today that would be helpful hit me up here or via email at Andrew @ kcexec.com

Thanks!