Custom Wireless Solution
I saw this question posed on on the forums at AnandTech.com and would love to see if it is plausible. "Ok, here is the deal. I have a freind that lives about 5.7 miles away from me and almost has a line of sight. He would probably have to put an antenae on his house to get a line of sight to mine. At my house, I have no options for high speed internet access, at all, but at his house, he can get cable. I got to thinking, and I came up with an idea. What if I could get ahold of some wireless networking equipment that I could use to network to his house, then he could get cable, we could split the monthly bill, and I would have cable access at my house. Here is my question: What equipment could I use to do this? I found some stuff on cisco's site, but it costs about $8000. The speed does not have to be supper fast, but I would like to have something at least the speed of ISDN. I want to know what other people have to say abhout this, so shoot. " Is this plausible. Is there any technology out there that uses public spectrum over a 6 mile distance ?
last time i looked, cisco didn't sell 802.11 wireless cards for $4K each . . . 2 x 802.11 cards + antenna should be able to do it. take good care in getting an appropriate antenna with suitable gain. the cisco website has a spreadsheet that allows you to calculate the required gain. if you don't want 2 x PC's with 802.11 cards in it, then 2 x wireless access-points or 2 x wireless bridges would work. still nowhere near $8K . . . cheers, lincoln. NB. line-of-sight is required. At 09:39 PM 22/04/2001 -0400, Wojtek Zlobicki wrote:
I saw this question posed on on the forums at AnandTech.com and would love to see if it is plausible.
"Ok, here is the deal. I have a freind that lives about 5.7 miles away from me and almost has a line of sight. He would probably have to put an antenae on his house to get a line of sight to mine. At my house, I have no options for high speed internet access, at all, but at his house, he can get cable. I got to thinking, and I came up with an idea. What if I could get ahold of some wireless networking equipment that I could use to network to his house, then he could get cable, we could split the monthly bill, and I would have cable access at my house.
Here is my question: What equipment could I use to do this? I found some stuff on cisco's site, but it costs about $8000. The speed does not have to be supper fast, but I would like to have something at least the speed of ISDN.
I want to know what other people have to say abhout this, so shoot. "
Is this plausible. Is there any technology out there that uses public spectrum over a 6 mile distance ?
While we're on the subject. Anyone willing to post their experiences with these products or competitors over distances that we see here. ----- Original Message ----- From: Lincoln Dale To: Wojtek Zlobicki Cc: nanog@merit.edu Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2001 9:55 PM Subject: Re: Custom Wireless Solution last time i looked, cisco didn't sell 802.11 wireless cards for $4K each . . . 2 x 802.11 cards + antenna should be able to do it. take good care in getting an appropriate antenna with suitable gain. the cisco website has a spreadsheet that allows you to calculate the required gain. if you don't want 2 x PC's with 802.11 cards in it, then 2 x wireless access-points or 2 x wireless bridges would work. still nowhere near $8K . . . cheers, lincoln. NB. line-of-sight is required. At 09:39 PM 22/04/2001 -0400, Wojtek Zlobicki wrote: I saw this question posed on on the forums at AnandTech.com and would love to see if it is plausible. "Ok, here is the deal. I have a freind that lives about 5.7 miles away from me and almost has a line of sight. He would probably have to put an antenae on his house to get a line of sight to mine. At my house, I have no options for high speed internet access, at all, but at his house, he can get cable. I got to thinking, and I came up with an idea. What if I could get ahold of some wireless networking equipment that I could use to network to his house, then he could get cable, we could split the monthly bill, and I would have cable access at my house. Here is my question: What equipment could I use to do this? I found some stuff on cisco's site, but it costs about $8000. The speed does not have to be supper fast, but I would like to have something at least the speed of ISDN. I want to know what other people have to say abhout this, so shoot. " Is this plausible. Is there any technology out there that uses public spectrum over a 6 mile distance ?
On Sun, 22 Apr 2001, Wojtek Zlobicki wrote:
I saw this question posed on on the forums at AnandTech.com and would love to see if it is plausible.
Oh, quite.
Here is my question: What equipment could I use to do this? I found some stuff on cisco's site, but it costs about $8000. The speed does not have to be supper fast, but I would like to have something at least the speed of ISDN.
Cisco BR340's - they're $900/each, and work well in bridge mode. As someone already stated, make sure you get some good high-gain (and narrow-beam directional - we use 10 degree yagi) antenna's.
Is this plausible. Is there any technology out there that uses public spectrum over a 6 mile distance ?
With line of sight, they claim they can go 9+ miles. Of course, weather does affect it - one of our spans tends to go down when there's just the right kind of heavy rain. Theoretic speed is 11Mbit/sec - effective (real) speed is about 6Mbit/sec. (YMMV, that's on a 1/2 mile span) -- Dominic J. Eidson "Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu!" - Gimli ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.the-infinite.org/ http://www.the-infinite.org/~dominic/
How secure is this connection? Does 802.11 provide security implicitly? Thanks. --- "Dominic J. Eidson" <sauron@the-infinite.org> wrote:
On Sun, 22 Apr 2001, Wojtek Zlobicki wrote:
I saw this question posed on on the forums at AnandTech.com and would love to see if it is plausible.
Oh, quite.
Here is my question: What equipment could I use to do this? I found some stuff on cisco's site, but it costs about $8000. The speed does not have to be supper fast, but I would like to have something at least the speed of ISDN.
Cisco BR340's - they're $900/each, and work well in bridge mode. As someone already stated, make sure you get some good high-gain (and narrow-beam directional - we use 10 degree yagi) antenna's.
Is this plausible. Is there any technology out there that uses public spectrum over a 6 mile distance ?
With line of sight, they claim they can go 9+ miles. Of course, weather does affect it - one of our spans tends to go down when there's just the right kind of heavy rain.
Theoretic speed is 11Mbit/sec - effective (real) speed is about 6Mbit/sec. (YMMV, that's on a 1/2 mile span)
-- Dominic J. Eidson "Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu!" - Gimli
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.the-infinite.org/ http://www.the-infinite.org/~dominic/
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How secure is this connection? Does 802.11 provide security implicitly?
802.11 provides basic authentication with SSID's, and encryption with WEP (Wireless Encryption Protocol). Neither is particularly hard to crack, but it does protect you from casual intrusion. Simon -- Simon Lockhart | Tel: +44 (0)1737 839676 Internet Engineering Manager | Fax: +44 (0)1737 839516 BBC Internet Services | Email: Simon.Lockhart@bbc.co.uk Kingswood Warren,Tadworth,Surrey,UK | URL: http://support.bbc.co.uk/
please pardon the late follow-up. Small bit of information here guys/gals, 802.11 uses frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) technology, and is rated at 3 mbit (2mbit real) using the 2.4 to 2.483 ghz ISM band, due to the frequency hopping, and low data rate, it is possible to squeeze more clients, and access points, into the same air space, 802.11b uses direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) and is rated at 11mbit (6mbit real), implements WEP, but only allows 3 access points per airspace (each access point will use up 1/3 of the band) with a usable maximum of about 16 clients (YMMV). I ran an ISP deploying 802.11 wireless internet to the clients, using 802.11b along with some proprietary 45mbit 5.2/5.8ghz radios for the backbone. Yes, you run into problems with schools/college dorms/mom & pop/microwave ovens/cordless phones/etc, no, it doesn't work well for that sort of thing (wasn't my idea =) As a side note, we did manage to get a 21 mile link working with 150 feet of elevation on both ends, dual 24dbi grid antennas (directional, small beamwidth) on both ends, and 4 watts EIRP (on both ends). Matthew S. Hallacy
At 11:57 PM 22/04/2001 -0700, Mohan Sundar wrote:
How secure is this connection? Does 802.11 provide security implicitly?
802.11b has some degree of inherent security. one can apply WEP (Wireless Equivalency Protocol) to encryption the data, but even that has been shown to be vulnerable (http://www.isaac.cs.berkeley.edu/isaac/wep-faq.html) there are a few alternatives that can be used to make it more secure: [1] deploy a setup whereby one has per-user dynamically-changing WEP keys. details on how one vendor can do this are at: http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/witc/ao350ap/prodlit/1281_pp.htm details on how to actually configure it is at: http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/wireless/airo_350/accsspts/a... [2] don't trust the link layer, and encrypt everything you send. this could be as simplistic as adding MAC-address filters to your access-points and building a tunnel of some kind (eg. IPsec, or even as simplistic as SSH port-forwarding). if one is prone to be paranoia, using both [1] and [2] probably makes sense. cheers, lincoln.
A company I used to work for used Breezecom equipment (http://www.breezecom.com) for their wireless solutions. The overall package for each radio was about $500 for the basic equipment, but you can get the Antenna and radio (per site) for about $1500. The equipment itself is pretty reliable, but some of it also depends upon who you have behind the console. The transmission itself is pretty secure (2.4 Ghz if memory serves me) The equipment from what I have been told was originally designed for use by the Israeli army, and then was turned public. If you have line of sight, it shouldn't be that bad, but at 6 miles, you shouldn't even need an amp for the signal. (keyword:shouldn't) Good luck. -Eric On Sun, 22 Apr 2001, Dominic J. Eidson wrote:
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 21:19:12 -0500 (CDT) From: Dominic J. Eidson <sauron@the-infinite.org> To: Wojtek Zlobicki <wojtekz@idirect.com> Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Custom Wireless Solution
On Sun, 22 Apr 2001, Wojtek Zlobicki wrote:
I saw this question posed on on the forums at AnandTech.com and would love to see if it is plausible.
Oh, quite.
Here is my question: What equipment could I use to do this? I found some stuff on cisco's site, but it costs about $8000. The speed does not have to be supper fast, but I would like to have something at least the speed of ISDN.
Cisco BR340's - they're $900/each, and work well in bridge mode. As someone already stated, make sure you get some good high-gain (and narrow-beam directional - we use 10 degree yagi) antenna's.
Is this plausible. Is there any technology out there that uses public spectrum over a 6 mile distance ?
With line of sight, they claim they can go 9+ miles. Of course, weather does affect it - one of our spans tends to go down when there's just the right kind of heavy rain.
Theoretic speed is 11Mbit/sec - effective (real) speed is about 6Mbit/sec. (YMMV, that's on a 1/2 mile span)
On Sun, 22 Apr 2001, Wojtek Zlobicki wrote:
Is this plausible. Is there any technology out there that uses public spectrum over a 6 mile distance ?
Dave Hughes did a study of wireless options for rural applications, funded by NSF I believe. Some fairly current results, including vendors lists and such, are at http://wireless.oldcolo.com/ ************************************************************************** The Center for Civic Networking PO Box 600618 Miles R. Fidelman, President & Newtonville, MA 02460-0006 Director, Municipal Telecommunications Strategies Program 617-558-3698 fax: 617-630-8946 mfidelman@civicnet.org http://civic.net/ccn.html Information Infrastructure: Public Spaces for the 21st Century Let's Start With: Internet Wall-Plugs Everywhere Say It Often, Say It Loud: "I Want My Internet!" **************************************************************************
On Mon, 23 Apr 2001, Miles Fidelman wrote:
On Sun, 22 Apr 2001, Wojtek Zlobicki wrote:
Is this plausible. Is there any technology out there that uses public spectrum over a 6 mile distance ?
Dave Hughes did a study of wireless options for rural applications, funded by NSF I believe. Some fairly current results, including vendors lists and such, are at http://wireless.oldcolo.com/
Be sure to pay attention to the "Fresnel Zone" references in this document. While not particularly accurate, it does refer to the problem of Fresnel Zone intrusion that can cause problems with your path. In other words, an optical line-of-sight path is not necessarily a good RF path, so don't bother installing it if you're not going to engineer it. Chuck
participants (9)
-
Charles Scott -
Dominic J. Eidson -
Eric Whitehill -
Lincoln Dale -
Miles Fidelman -
Mohan Sundar -
poptix -
Simon Lockhart -
Wojtek Zlobicki