Re: Need HELP setting up Wifi for small Town!!

JasonB <JasonB.34qgid@no-mx.wirelessforums.org> hath wroth:

>I am posting here to get some of your ideas on what type of equipment I
>should use and placement.

Maybe a little light reading would be helpful before you ask us to
engineer your municipal wireless network. You may want to talk to
other towns that have already done this (hopefully successfully):
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_broadband>
<http://www.muniwireless.com> <-----this one!!
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network>
<http://www.news.com/Municipal-broadband-and-wireless-projects-map/2009-1034_3-5690287.html>
<http://www.part-15.org/maps/WISPLocate.asp?ID=FL>
<http://isp-lists.isp-planet.com/isp-wireless/>

Also, the number of users per T1 backhaul is easy to calculate. It
can handle:
100 light web and email users
10 business users
1 file sharing user

Although the selection of equipment is important, it's really a very
small part of the puzzle and expenses. The one's that usually cause
problems are the cost of the backhaul, bandwidth management,
administration, abuse management, vandalism, equipment failure,
maintenance, monitoring, user support, and local politics (zoning,
permits, and kickbacks to the city). Siteing (location) is also a
problem as many building owners consider their rooftops as a profit
center.

Assuming you can get it all together and working, capacity limitations
rapidly become a serious problem. Wi-Fi is a shared medium that
rapidly saturates as the number of users in a geographic area
increases. Almost anything can be made to work with a small number of
users. However, larger systems require very different topologies. For
example, for a small number of users, in a large geographic area, it
would be possible to server everyone with a single high location on
top of the nearest mountain or tall building. However, as the number
of users increases, they will rapidly saturate the capacity of the
single access point and start to interfere with each other. That
means more access points, but at street level locations, each with
expensive backhauls, or messy mesh networks.

Gotta run...
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:31:08 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com>
wrote:

>Gotta run...

I hate days like this. 2 fire drills before lunch, one afterwards,
and now, nothing. Might was well continue...

You don't need wireless as the trailers do not need to move.

If this really is one big 45 acre trailer park, it must have conduit
and underground services to each trailer. Phone and power are
obvious, but if there's coax cable for CATV, you can run internet over
the existing coax using cable modems, or piggy back with dedicated
hardware. See:
<http://www.multilet.com>
<http://www.entropic.com/pages/tech_cLINKBroadbandAccess.html>
<http://www.mocalliance.org/en/index.asp>
Unfortunately, much of this is new technology. Verizon has deployed
MoCA technology on their fiber optic network:
<http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-6048162.html>

My guess(tm) is deploying coax or laying fiber will probably have a
substantially higher initial cost as compared to wireless. However,
since you have a non-moving customer base, that is not addicted to
portability and laptops, I see no reason why you must use wireless.
Any of the wired technologies (including DSL) will work to your
non-moving trailers. The real advantage will be after initial
deployment, the operating and maintenance costs will be much less. For
example, what the cost of receiving a few hundred irate support phone
calls because the wireless has gone down thanks to someone firing up a
leaky microwave oven? While you're thinking about that, who is going
to handle the support calls? India? Wired infrastructure (coax,
fiber, copper) is MUCH more reliable than wireless.

Ok, now... lets do the math.

How many trailers fit in 45 acres? How many computahs per trailer? 45
acres is about 2 million square feet. Permanent trailer lots are
about 50 x 120ft = 600 sq ft. So my guess is about 2500 trailers,
leaving space for common areas and roadways. If you guarantee about
300Kbits/sec minimum bandwidth, at 10:1 utilization, that's:
2500 / 10 * 300 kbit/sec = 75Mbits/sec
backhaul bandwidth required. That's probably a bit high, but not
unreasonable considering the number of users. Plan on negotiating a
very expensive contract with your local bulk bandwidth provider, plus
a very expensive fiber connection to the nearest telco central office.

2. How are you going to pay for this? Charge the users, I presume
Flat rate pre month? Metered rate by the megabloat? What are you
going to do about the file sharing bandwidth hogs? I have a sneaky
suspicion that the reason everyone is in favor of this project is that
they're assuming the wireless is free.

Gotta run....(again).

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
# http://802.11junk.com jeffl@cruzio.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

<snip>
>Ok, now... lets do the math.
>
>How many trailers fit in 45 acres? How many computahs per trailer? 45
>acres is about 2 million square feet. Permanent trailer lots are
>about 50 x 120ft = 600 sq ft.

or 6000 sq ft :)

& lets not forget about the 125mph winds to be expected 1-3x per year.

>So my guess is about 2500 trailers,
>leaving space for common areas and roadways. If you guarantee about
>300Kbits/sec minimum bandwidth, at 10:1 utilization, that's:
> 2500 / 10 * 300 kbit/sec = 75Mbits/sec
>backhaul bandwidth required. That's probably a bit high, but not
>unreasonable considering the number of users. Plan on negotiating a
>very expensive contract with your local bulk bandwidth provider, plus
>a very expensive fiber connection to the nearest telco central office.
>
>2. How are you going to pay for this? Charge the users, I presume
>Flat rate pre month? Metered rate by the megabloat? What are you
>going to do about the file sharing bandwidth hogs? I have a sneaky
>suspicion that the reason everyone is in favor of this project is that
>they're assuming the wireless is free.
>
>Gotta run....(again).

Kim Clay <kimclay@myrealbox.com> hath wroth:

><snip>
>>Ok, now... lets do the math.
>>
>>How many trailers fit in 45 acres? How many computahs per trailer? 45
>>acres is about 2 million square feet. Permanent trailer lots are
>>about 50 x 120ft = 600 sq ft.
>
>or 6000 sq ft :)

Oops. I just hate it when I screw up like that. Ok, that's about 300
trailers in 45 acres.

>& lets not forget about the 125mph winds to be expected 1-3x per year.

>>So my guess is about 2500 trailers,
>>leaving space for common areas and roadways. If you guarantee about
>>300Kbits/sec minimum bandwidth, at 10:1 utilization, that's:
>> 2500 / 10 * 300 kbit/sec = 75Mbits/sec
>>backhaul bandwidth required.

Argh. 300 trailers with 10:1 utilization is:
300 /10 * 300 kbits/sec = 9 Mbits/sec
which a bit more reasonable. However, it's still more than 6 times
the bandwidth of a T1.

>>That's probably a bit high, but not
>>unreasonable considering the number of users. Plan on negotiating a
>>very expensive contract with your local bulk bandwidth provider, plus
>>a very expensive fiber connection to the nearest telco central office.
>>
>>2. How are you going to pay for this? Charge the users, I presume
>>Flat rate pre month? Metered rate by the megabloat? What are you
>>going to do about the file sharing bandwidth hogs? I have a sneaky
>>suspicion that the reason everyone is in favor of this project is that
>>they're assuming the wireless is free.
>>
>>Gotta run....(again).

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558