> I think that Rob Cleminson & I are asking essentially the > same questions. > > What would be sB recommended way of supporting 1000 (or > more) users that may within range of an WAP ? > > I was originally considering just using narrower & narrower > focused antennas (ie. omni -> 120' -> 60' -> 30') as the > numbers of subscribers increased. But as someone reminded > me, there is the limit of 3 non-overlapping channels. > > I was also planning on component upgrades once conditions > warranted (ie. replace 802.11b Bridge connection back to > NOC with an 802.11a, or whatever's available then) in order > to upgrade the bandwidth capabilities. > > To tell me that there's a limit of 128 concurrent clients, > while understandable, is not heart-warming - I'd rather see > a limit of 256, or even higher (ie. 512, 1024). If you > need to boost your units CPU & RAM & a 100MB
Someone needs to chime in and correct me on this, but it's not a manufacturer issue, it's a WiFi issue. That is, any manufacturer that uses WiFi will result in the same CPE load. If you need more users, I think you need to look at wireless solutions that use Karlnet or some other technology to put more users on an ap. Expect the price to go up considerably. IIRC, someone on this list just mentioned having 1,000 customers on a tower by turning down the RTS number to 0. I'd love to hear more about this approach. As for the number of antennas per tower, there was a thread on ISP-Wireless some time ago that said you can get away with 4 channels: 1,4,9,11 ..or some other combination like that. Each channel you select uses neighboring channels to communicate. I think it's 5 channels wide. So if you pick channel 6, your radio's actually using channels 4-8 .something like that. That's why the non-overlapping channels are 1, 6, 11. But by spreading it out just a tad, they can overlap and still function. I'm sure there's a performance hit for this kind of approach, but apparently it's sustainable. People smarter than me were endorsing it, so there must be something to it. Your tower is maxed out when the following occurs: -Your 360* coverage uses all available non-overlapping channels -You use both polarizations This means you can have 6 aps: 3 vertical set to 1,6,11 and 3 horiz (also set to channels 1,6,11). Make sure your horiz and vert APs don't cover the same geography and channel simultaneously. EG: 6 horiz covers the same geography that your vertical 1 covers. But here's my question: why not just use tight sectorerd antennas (60*) and use 8 aps to cover 1 tower? 0- 60 degrees would be channel 1v 60-120 degrees would be channel 6v 120-180 degrees would be channel 11v 180-240 degrees would be channel 1v (note: this is 180* opposite from the first channel 1v) 240-300 degrees would be channel 6v (also 180* opposite from 1st 6v 300-360 degrees would be channel 11v (dittos) Technically, they're non-overlapping both in spectrum and geography. Shouldn't this work, especially if the antennas have excellent fb ratio? At this rate, you could have upwards of 240 customers (40 per ap) before needing to go horiz. Thoughts?? Tim Foster www.AledoBroadBand.com Aledo's only high-speed ISP The PART-15.ORG smartBridges Discussion List To Join: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (in the body type subscribe smartBridges <yournickname> To Remove: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (in the body type unsubscribe smartBridges) Archives: http://archives.part-15.org
