Looking for a wifi solution for a small campus

[thecompu-doctor]

Hi everyone, I've got a client that has a small campus (5 homes) at the end of a street, kind of like a cul-de-sac. At one end they have their ISP source, Verizon FIOS. They have a CAT5e line going from that house to the next, where they have an old linksys home router setup as an AP only. Then a CAT5e line going from there to the next house where there is an OLD Engenius wireless G antenna AP. Finally there is a CAT5e line going on from there to the final home where a dead Engenius AP use to be. At each junction of the line, there is a small 5 port gig switch.

They're looking for a solution that will deliver wifi to the inside of these moderate homes (2 story ~ 2000 sq ft, 1940/50's built, so thicker building materials), and then to the court yard that these homes surround. It would be nice if one AP in each home/junction along the way can do both internal and external wifi. However, if need be, we can do an internal AP and then a PoE outdoor AP attached to the home's chimney or something like that. A new home run CAT line going back to the source verizon router is NOT an option as the current runs go underground in a tube of some kind. I have tested and had to reterminate several of the connections on the existing CAT5e lines and they are working fine. Most of the runs between buildings are under 100', but one is just about 100'.

So, I'm looking for a unified solution (same SSID for as seamless of a solution as possible) that I can deploy for them to get them good coverage. AC and 5ghz are not needed.
I'm aware of the unifi solution by ubiquity, but have not had any experience with it. Is the 2.4, UA-LR-AP a good choice for this project? This is a small non-profit church group/school and thus there isn't a huge budget, but they do want to do it right, so if there is a more appropriate solution, I'm open to it. Also, we are thinking about trying out the AP's in homes first, but near a window to see if that gives us good enough outdoor saturation. If not, we can add outdoor PoE AP's later.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I'd be willing to bet 3x Pico stations would do it, if not two of them on the two opposite homes (thus in between the outer most homes and the middle home). Mounted outdoors on the houses, in a location with good blanket abilities to the other homes.

 

[thecompu-doctor]

Thanks cat, you're always super helpful.

I've asked the same question on ubiquiti's site just to see what they have to say.
https://community.ubnt.com/t5/Getti...all-campus/m-p/1199763/highlight/false#M45465

They asked for a land map or something, so I put this together from a google street view pic:

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Put some notes in that thread...a little more spread out than I envisioned....but still quite do-able.

 

[keeperofthecode]

I would use open-mesh access points. They have a cloud portal where you can control all devices as well as host multiple networks if you want to have a secondary guest network and then a main network with shared resources the guest network does not have access to.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

We've done a few Open-Mesh setups a few years ago. Their "horsepower" is much weaker than Ubiquiti's...or almost anything in our experience. They're 60 dollar access points and feel like 60 dollar ones. I've actually got a few left on our shelf that I won't install....maybe as a freebie donation to someone, but never going to sell one again.
You can do cloud controller with Ubiquiti...we manage all of our various clients Ubiquitis through ours. And the UBNT APs do "mesh"...but you don't want do to a lot of "mesh"..no more than hop 1x AP as a repeater. And they have much more robust SSID, VLAN'ing, and client isolation options.

 

[SAG]

I've used OpenMesh in the past (when needed) and even brought it up on the board here once or twice. Nice product for the cost, especially if you believe someone else is going to have to come along after you and support it, or the clients wants full control after being setup.
But I'd look for a different solution here.
I'm with the Geriatric Kitty on this one, stick with UBNT. I've done some great outdoor low-cost (comparatively) magic with their Unifi line.

 

[keeperofthecode]

I've never used the $55 value model so I can't speak for it but the OM2P-HS $95 model is solid from my experience. I have them deployed at multiple clients and have never had one complaint. I did receive a dead access point once but they quickly cross shipped me a replacement. Either product is good though.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Wasn't the "value model" as you so smugly tried to put it...was the standard model prior to the new "HS" model which is recently out (still advertised with "New" on the green stripe on the box). But I didn't get ripped off at that price either.

 

[keeperofthecode]

Not sure who's the one being smug but if that's how you feel more power to you. You win, go pat yourself on the back.

Bottom line from my experience their both good products depending on the budget and specific need of the project.

 

[frederick]

I recently did something similar, but with Mikrotiks.

I had the main structure using the MikroTik cAP2's, utilizing Cat6 connections to them for both the connection to the main router (CCR1036). For the main structure, which is all concrete (inside walls and outer), going with the Ethernet connections was the best way cause of what they had to go through. Close one of the heavy doors and you could take out a whole hallway and adjacent rooms. The court had a single light pole in the middle, where I had to affix 2x GrooveA 52HPn's. The other structure, about 8 offices, same building material, and another 2 cAP's. All the AP's had to be wired, and yet still provide seamless roaming. Talk about 4 days of agonizing pain of testing and reconfiguring before it all worked smoothly.

I think for you, the inside AP's can be a cAP2 (about $30), and the outside a GrooveA 52HPn. Set them all to AP repeaters, and if you need to, you can tie them to Ethernet to ensure they always have a connection. Same bridge is always important.

 

[CLC]

The open mesh work fine but you need to use the ones with the external antennas or they are worthless.

 

[thecompu-doctor]

Just pulled up Bing maps just to see how it looked, and WOW much better quality than Google's

Hopefully this will give you a better idea:

 

[thecompu-doctor]

Ok, so they were able to dig up a map with some distances

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Wow OK so that's more of a long leg, I was picturing a curved end of a cul-de-sac with the buildings more in a 1/2 circle around a central building.

OK...so I' scratch the Pico for this...and move to Nanos.....I'd put a Unifi if the first building where the Fiber is...direct into the gateway there to handle that first building.
For the second building..where the CAT runs to...hopefully a switch in there, and I'd put a Unifi in there to cover that building, and also a Nano facing the other buildings...to shoot the beam over towards them.
The third building is easy, Unifi there to catch and spread to blanket that building.
Fourth building...likely still fine to put a Unifi there to catch and spread.
Now that fifth building...may take some experimenting...but for budget purposes I'd plan a Nano there on the outside of the building facing the Nano on the second building...to be a "catchers mitt"...a bridge...and run ethernet to a Unifi or possible two Unifi's in that larger house...and have them run standard AP mode like normal.
I would not use LR model Unifi's....you have some density here, don't want too much overlap...plus I still find the LR models a little twitchy.

Build a cloud controller to manage these.

 

[thecompu-doctor]

What about the outside courtyard? I was thinking about on the outside of the "linksys ap" building and the "nothing" building putting an outside AP to broadcast to the courtyard. I assume that these can also hook up to the cloud of AP's speckled throughout? Or do they need a hard line connection?

Can a nano broadcast and the unifi's AP act as a catchers mitt (and then at the same time transmitter for computers to jump on wifi)?

 

[thecompu-doctor]

Just thought I'd update this for anyone in the future who is looking for a similar solution:

We did roll out a ubiquiti solution for this customer. Nice and simple, 4 access points at each hardline hop along the way. All of course set to the same SSID on different manually set channels. It is working quite well for them.

 

[NETWizz]

Aruba is my current favorite. I use it at work with mostly the older 105 APs... Basically, you setup one (1) "Instant" AP and configure it.

What I do is set the virtual controller's IP address and that AP's address different...

Say you do AP's at 192.168.1.10... you might make that the virtual controller then .11, .12, .13 etc the other APs.


Regardless when you add a second, third, fourth, etc. They automatically configure themselves to 100% operational... They will boot, find the virtual controller, match their firmware (i.e. possibly upgrade). Download the current configuration and come up all on their own!

The only thing you might do is via the virtual controller select the AP and change its IP and possibly rename it. If you want to add a second SSID you can no problem! You can even set WIP policies (Wireless Intrusion Protection - think IPS.) Any alerts from any of them will show up in a unified place etc. There is even an option for GRE tunnels under Layer-3 Mobility! Hence, if you put each AP on a different subnet, you could have them still host the same SSID and when a client roams and has the wrong subnet (i.e. non-matching gateway/IP) it will tunnel that traffic back to the proper AP!

I would NOT do this though because if you make different subnets they will not automatically see each other.

You could do bandwidth throttling and possibly lock it down for Internet only such as ports 80, 443, dns, and DHCP for guests... Then another SSID for something else. Here is a friend's setup at a Middle-School.




If you are going to use RADIUS to authenticate i.e. via PEAP/MS-Chap-V2... Active Directory, etc.

You can set "Dynamic RADIUS proxy is enabled" and the virtual controller will authenticate for ALL the other access points.

Hence, you need only one (1) RADIUS client and Shared Secret on Microsoft NPS or the old IAS.


Once you setup one (1) if the cabling is ready, you could do 19 more in 19 minutes!