Multiple Access Points

Phill · #1 (**permalink**) 12-12-2007, 12:51 AM

I want to be able to make our school wireless. What I was thinking was purchasing several 3COM 3CRWE776075 Access Points placed throughout the campus, small campus - building very close together.

My goal is the students will have the ability to travel from one building to another freely.

So, to keep things secured and easy. I was planning on giving all the access points the same SSID, different static IP's, Disable SSID Broadcasting, and use a WPA2 encryption.

Will this work?

The 3COM I'm looking at is this one:
Newegg.com - 3com 3CRWE776075 Wireless 7760 11a/b/g PoE Access Point - Retail

Zolmat · #2 (**permalink**) 12-15-2007, 11:03 PM

That's a very expensive solution.

3com is more than good. I would suggest a cheaper product.

FredZ · #3 (**permalink**) 12-16-2007, 03:30 AM

If you use WPA then you will have to give the WPA key to every student you want to have access to the wireless network, now we all know what students are like, so I give it about a week and everyone who has a laptop will have the WPA key.

An alternate solution would be to just leave the APs in AP mode with no security and to install a captive portal for Authentication. Something like Chillispot would be nice but it no longer exists. Coovachilla has replaced it.

The other thing to conciser is that your 3COM APs must support WDS for your installation to work. If they don't as your students move round the various APs their connection will terminate and have to be reestablished. Somewhat annoying but not the end of the world.

The trusty old Linksys WRT54G has plenty of firmware available for it to turn them into a MESH device. This may be something you may want to consider as it is far cheaper than your 3COM solution. Yes they are Routers but they don't need to be connected to a LAN or WAN to function as part of the MESH. Only the device connected the the WAN will act as a gateway.

Regards

Fred