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WLANmall Wireless FAQ
- I live in a remote area and want to share my internet connection with my neighbors. What products do you recommend for that?
- I want to create a cost effective WIFI hotspot at a remote location. Can I just use a wireless repeater?
- I have two locations that I want to connect together to share internet and network resources. How far can each wireless bridges point to point set up?
- What is a Fresnel zone and how do I calculate it?
- What is the difference between Line of Sight, Near Line of Sight and NON Line of sight?
- I don’t have line of sight but I would like to create a point to point wireless link with a remote location. What do you carry that will allow me to do this?
A: A low cost solution can be created using the following and depending on the environment and the clients you will probably get a pretty solid signal at about .25 miles. Ingredients:
1 x Inscape Data AB54E access point
1 x Omni directional antenna
1 x 3 – 6 foot LMR-400 Patch Cable
1 x Polyphaser AL-LSXM-ME lightning arrestor
1 x POE lightning arrestor to protect your internal network
Here is what the set up should look like...
In this case I am showing a omni antenna for a point to multi-point application but that can easily be turned into a directional antenna and duplicated on a remote side to make a point to point link. The radio can also be interchanged with any radio that requires an external antenna.
Q: I want to create a cost effective WIFI hotspot at a remote location. Can I just use a wireless repeater?
A: We do not recommend using repeaters because we have found them to be a little less than reliable so we recommend a couple of different configurations.
Use a point to point bridge in between your locations and then set up your wireless access point to share the internet. This will require a small switch at the remote location to connect the point to point bridge link with the access point. You can also use a cross over cable instead of a switch but some access points don’t like that so we would use a switch just to be safe.
Ingredients:
Inscape Data – Low cost, easily configured, rugged enclosure, susceptible to interference and noise
2 x AB54 : 2.4 GHz wireless bridge for the point to point link
1 x AB54E : Access point for sharing the internet
1 x 2.4 GHz omni directional antenna
1 x 3 – 6 foot LMR-400 Patch Cable
1 x Polyphaser AL-LSXM-ME lightning arrestor
3 x POE lightning arrestor to protect your internal network
Proxim Wireless - Enterprise Reliability, Speed, Security, Range with MESH technology.
The Proxim wireless AP-4000M outdoor radio is a high power access point and mesh node with two wireless radios, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, built right in. This product is easy to manage and install because it allows you to achieve the same logical topology as the Inscape Data configuration but with only two physical access points instead of four. The integrated 5GHz radio would be used to speak with other neighboring APs and the 2.4GHz radio to broadcast to your neighbors, clients, users so they can access the internet or network resources. The Proxim wireless AP-4000M also has Proxim’s Wireless Mesh Creation Protocol, which means that you can add access points as you grow your network and they will all automatically associate to the network and create paths to each end point.
Here’s how you can set up a simple two node networks:
2 x 8670-MR-LR-US - Dual Radio Wireless Meshing Access Points
2 x 5 GHZ Omni Antenna or 5 GHz Panel or 5 GHz Parabolic
2 x 2.4 GHz Omni Antenna
4 x 3 – 6 foot LMR-400 Patch Cable
4 x Polyphaser AL-LSXM-ME lightning arrestor
2 x POE lightning arrestor to protect your internal network
Q: I have two locations that I want to connect together to share internet and network resources. How far can I go with your point to point bridge kits?
A: The performance of a WiFi bridge is variable by nature. You need to take in to consideration line of sight (LOS), surrounding radio frequency interference, curvature of the earth, the bridging protocol used, sensitivity of the radio, the data rate used, etc... However if you would like an estimate of link viability we have a link budget calculator that can help!
Step 1: Find the bridge you want to use
Step 2: Enter the radio power in dbm, the antenna gain in dbi, the receive sensitivity and the length and loss of the cable used between the antenna and the bridge
Step 3: Hit the calculate button!
This will spit out a table that will show you the estimated link reliability based on an ideal scenario. Your goal is to get the “Five 9’s”, 99.999% reliability.
Take an Airaya AI108-4958-KIT wireless bridge kit for example…
Radio Power: 21 dbm
Antenna Gain: 23 dbi
Cable Length: 25 feet
Cable Loss: .068 db loss / foot (LMR-400)
Receive Sensitivity: -73 to -91 dbm = 108 Mbps to 1 Mbps
The results under this ideal scenario shows that the above set up will reach up to 4.5 miles at a data rate of 108Mbps, which translates in to something closer to 35Mbps of usable throughput. Easy enough right?! Give it a shot with any radio.
Q What is a Fresnel zone and how do I calculate it?
A: In radio wave propagation there is something called a Fresnel zone. The simplest way to define the Fresnel zone is to say that it is the area that radio waves use as they travel through the air between two points. The Fresnel zone depends on the distance between two locations. We have a Fresnel Zone calculator that will allow you to calculate the Fresnel zone for you application here.
d is the distance between your two locations and r is the Fresnel clearance needed to have clear line of sight
Q: What is the difference between Line of Sight, Near Line of Sight and NON Line of sight?
LOS: So in order to have clear line of sight (LOS) you not only need to be able to see the other side but the Fresnel zone needs to be clear of any obstructions.
nLOS: If there are some minor obstructions penetrating the Fresnel zone this would be considered as a near line of sight (nLOS) application. Most bridges these days will perform rather well in nLOS scenarios but you will see some performance degradation depending on the number of obstacles and how deep they penetrate the Fresnel zone.
NLOS: If you can not see the other side then this is considered non line of sight (NLOS). Putting all the marketing aside it is practically impossible to achieve a solid wireless link under these conditions with regular WIFI bridges. The only bridge that has been proven under these conditions is the Motorola PTP 400 and PTP 600 series bridges.
Q: I don’t have line of sight but I would like to create a point to point wireless link with a remote location. What do you carry that will allow me to do this?
A: Before we continue with this answer you should understand what a Fresnel Zone is and what Line of Sight REALLY is. You can find your answers above or click: What is the Fresnel Zone? What is line of sight?
So now that you know how to classify your scenario here are some quick hardware recommendations for each…
LOS: Any radio will work under these conditions and you can assume the best performance possible.
nLOS: Most middle to higher end bridges will work very well under these conditions.
Proxim AP-4000M, MP.11, MP.11a
Motorola Canopy PTP 400 and PTP600
Strix Systems Wireless Mesh Access Point/Bridges
Airaya Wireless Grid
NLOS: As stated above there is no guarantee that any bridge will function well under NLOS conditions. However the Motorola (formerly Orthagon Systems) PTP 400 and PTP 600 wireless bridge kits are the only bridges that have been proven under NLOS conditions. Motorola has a very accurate path calculator/link estimator that can be used to predict the viability of your link. You can find that calculator here.
