A Wireless Network for a 4-Story Apt. Building? 578
zzzreyes asks: "I live in a 4 storey building, and pretty much everyone in this building is into gaming and computers. I have just received, through the death of a great aunt, about $7,000. I want to know how and what I should buy, to provide wireless access through out the whole building, so we can all share one connection. There are 6 double-room apartments on each side, and we only have four floors. I'll hopefully have access to the elevator shaft, in case I need it. Will $7,000 be enough?" How cheaply could you do something like this, assuming you had access to much of the building? What would be the best way to set up the access points to guarantee the best coverage for the whole building?
I'll do it! (Score:3, Funny)
ahem
all for one one for all (Score:5, Insightful)
Roomie (Score:3, Funny)
Do you, ummmm... or someone in the building, maybe, needs a roomie?
I dont' even need the elevator. I will take the staris. Promise.
1 802.11g AP (Score:2, Informative)
Re:1 802.11g AP (Score:5, Interesting)
$7000 should be more than plenty for this. In fact, you could probably do this for under $1000 without too much trouble, then take the remaining $6000 and do something useful with it. For example, take a trip overseas and spend a few weeks somewhere you've never been. London is a great place to start. Foreign, but not too foreign.
For under a thousand you can get round trip airfare for two to London, leaving you with $5000 to blow while you are there. So, let's say two weeks in a decent hotel (say $200/night). That's $2800, leaving you with $2200 for meals, etc. Or hell, just do a one week venture and live really high on the hog.
Re:1 802.11g AP (Score:5, Interesting)
In the US, at least, it's generally recognized their are two types of apartment building: "pre-war" and "post-war" (from the submitter's spelling of "storey" I'm guessing he's a Brit or other Anglophone).
The war referred to is the Second World War; the difference in the buildings is in the materials (and to a lesser extent, the quality) of construction. Basically, post-war building don't have "real" walls: they have plasterboard or Sheetrock (it's a capitalized because it's a trademark, like Kleenex, I think), thin pieces of crap that stop nothing but physical access and light. Radio, and more annoyingly, sound, goes right through.
That's why if you're shopping for an apartment, and you even intend to immerse yourself in your opera music, rock out to your heavy metal, or kill kittens to your porno collection, you want pre-war construction. Even if you don't have any loud habits, odds are your neighbors will, so you still want pre-war construction.
The down-side of pre-war construction is that real walls absorb radio waves too. With my admittedly underprepared USB WiFi transmitter, I can see a noticeable weakening of the signal even one room and 10 feet away. I can get a very poor signal (3%-10) up to about 40 feet away, at the elevator, and nothing once I'm in the elevator.
But I can get a half-way decent signal (30-40% signal) from twice that distance if I'm in line of sight of one of my apartment's windows.
Ethernet (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ethernet (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ethernet (Score:2, Informative)
In addition, it sounds like the questioner has permission of the building owner to use the elevator shaft. He probably doesn't have permission to drill holes in the walls/ceilings/floors and install conduit which he would ne
Equipment cheap. Labor NOT (Score:5, Informative)
You will need access hardware from/for your ISP (e.g. cable modem, DSL modem, etc. Usually Most likely you will need at least one wireless AP for each floor. Depending on the thickness of walls and size of the building, multiple APs might be necessary. Budget around $100 (rough number) per AP for consumer grade equipment, which is all you probably need. Don't forget to put each AP on a different wireless channel - and stagger the channels to minimize frequency overlap (e.g. Floor 1: Channel 1, Floor 2: Channel 9, Floor 3: Channel 4, Floor 4: Channel 11).
You probably need a NAT since you will have many people needing IP addresses, unless you want to get a subnet prefix from your ISP (at $7k that isn't likely). So at least one NAT box is needed.
If you are comfortable with Linux networking, take a look at a Linksys WR54G as described here [broadbandreports.com] - one of these on each floor would allow you to have a cheap AP + detailed control of banwidth (i.e. make sure that no one guy hogs all your Internet connection).
At the access point you will need to put that NAT mentioned above, plus a switch for between floors. The Linksys could act as both and is a cheap solution. If Linux isn't your bag, then a decent low end (SOHO router) such as a D-Link DFL-300 would be a good thing (with built-in firewall to boot, which would help).
In terms of wiring, get at least CAT 5 cable run ("CAT 6" is even better) to every floor. A separate wire to every floor, all culminating in the basement (or wherever your Internet access is) gives a measure of reliability in case of a wire fault or router fault on one floor. A patch panel at the termination point of all the wires is a good idea.
Expect to spend a large amount of the money on the labor for getting the wiring done. Professional cable pullers can charge high 2 digits to 3 digits/hour. If you hire a professional company to do the whole thing including picking equipment, setting it up, etc., then $7k isn't near enough.
Re:Equipment cheap. Labor NOT (Score:5, Insightful)
All in all I agree with the other posters. Save your $$ and let your neighbors buy their own access!
Re:Equipment cheap. Labor NOT (Score:5, Insightful)
Speakeasy [speakeasy.net] will allow you to share your bandwidth. However, you remain responsible for it.
Save your $$ and let your neighbors buy their own access!
Or you can become an administrator in Speakeasy's NetShare [speakeasy.net] program. Everyone pays the price you specify to Speakeasy (minimum $20/month), Speakeasy provides email and newsgroup access, and credits half of their monthly fee to your account.
You can now get 3.0 Mbit downstream, 768 Kbit upstream with 4 static IPs from Speakeasy for $110/month. At $20/participant, it will only require 11-12 additional subscribers to reduce your net cost to zero (after taxes).
ISP that lets you share bandwidth.. (Score:5, Informative)
They let you share bandwidth. You sign yourself as accountable so you might want to create a legal entity to hide behind (corporation or nonprofit).
They'll even take care of the "billing" for you. You could charge everyone actual-cost, with a higher bill for the guy who consistently "forgets" to turn off P2P filesharing to/from the outside..
Re:Equipment cheap. Labor NOT (Score:5, Informative)
While I'm sure you're well intentioned and really trying to help (and the rest of your suggestions were good), this is a perfect example of why NOT to ask
A 4-story building most likely would cause significant issues (especially from the 4th floor to a basement) with ground potential differnces. That's why professionals use fiber for risers now. The old school way would still require STP for a run like that.
Failure to determine if this type of thing is a problem can result in: poor connections, no connection whatsoever, blown ethernet ports, etc. etc.
From firsthand experience on this, I was diagnosing an issue on an 8-floor STP run where some cable monkey moron (probably an electrician claiming to be a data cabling specialist) grounded both sides of the run. Being an idiot myself, I accidentally brushed the back of my hand on the shield after clipping it off on one side. It almost knocked me on my ass. And the connection ran without fault after that.
Bottom line....anything more than 2 floors is not a job for an amateur. Actually, anything on different floors/potentially different electrical services should be carefully considered.
Re:Equipment cheap. Labor NOT (Score:3, Funny)
Not really. For example: Am I right, or am I full of shit? How far do you have to dig to figure out who know what they're taking about (because just about everyone asserts their opinions as facts here).
Re:Equipment cheap. Labor NOT (Score:3, Funny)
[...]
Second question... sheilded twisted pair? No one with a brain uses shielded cable for networks. That defeats every reason for twisting the pairs. It just picks up currents from everything around it.
Since your knowledge is out of a book, rather than practice, it's going to be difficult to explain. But it comes down to some things like never installing riser runs without surge suppression, much of which is specifically designed for a grounded
Re:Equipment cheap. Labor NOT (Score:3, Funny)
One word of warning ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I applaud your noble effort. However, I must warn you. Once you take responsibility for setting up this network, everytime something goes wrong, you will be the first person the tenants come to for help. Even though it sounds like your neighbours are computer oriented, I guarantee you will be swamped with more problems than you bargained for.
Good luck.
Re:One word of warning ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cost of Ownership (Score:5, Informative)
I laughed out loud when this guy asked if $7000 was enough to network a three story building. I helped build a wired network in a similar building, and we didn't even spend $200 -- which included an expensive crimping tool that's nice to have anyway. Of course it would have added about $500 to do it wireless (assuming you need three WEPs) and maybe another $1,000 if we'd had to buy wireless NICs for everybody (all of the comptuers in the building, most of which were Macs, already had wired NICs) but that's still a long way from $7000.
But a system, any system, needs to be maintained! I got involved in this project because a non-techie friend asked me to help out. My first advice to him was not to try to sign up everybody in the building right off the bat. Instead, they should start with the two households minimum (my friend didn't live in the same apartment as the DSL connection) and then expand it slowly. In the event, I think he decided that it wasn't worth the hastle to have that many more people involved.
Re:One word of warning ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe you'll be shrewd enough to figure out that he's started advertising the wireless, and that's why he's charging more for rents. So you'll threaten to dismantle the whole system. At that point, BOOM! He'll slap you with a lawsuit, seeking both:
Test signals.. encrypt.. mac restrict (Score:5, Informative)
1 - take a laptop around and see how signal strength is..
2 - block all outside access via mac address restrictions and encryption.
3 - expect some boob to start dling kiddy porn and get you in trouble with your isp and have your connection cut off... ( remember most AUP's prohibit this with out a business account )
4 - good luck not getting sued.
Re:Test signals.. encrypt.. mac restrict (Score:5, Funny)
DOH (Score:2)
Time for bed i think....
Try the Avaya Solution (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Try the Avaya Solution (Score:2)
If you buy from Avaya, you will be subject to vendor lock-in, and you will need a support contract. It's probably $5,000 for the (grossly overpriced) equipment and another $3,000/year for support dur
Wireless Bridging & Repeating (Score:4, Informative)
With WDS you could implement a wireless "backbone" with 4+ access points, one (or more) per floor. Then one access point would connect to a router box which would in turn be connected to your broadband link.
Re:Wireless Bridging & Repeating (Score:2)
Re:Wireless Bridging & Repeating (Score:5, Informative)
Why the wireless obsession? (Score:5, Insightful)
My estimate (Score:4, Funny)
yo.
It's none of my business, but I'd love to know... (Score:5, Insightful)
If all the people in your building want to get wireless, they should chip in, shouldn't they?
On the techical part, I don't know, but I think $7000 should be MORE than enough to get the whole thing running in all the building.
Again, it's none of my business, but it is my personal suggestion not to be so eager in spending so much money like that. Unless you REALLy want to play with those guys. Who's going to pay for the fixed internet connection fees later?
Re:It's none of my business, but I'd love to know. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's none of my business, but I'd love to know. (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that you had to ask the question, I'd guess that you could probably use some help.
If you'
Re:It's none of my business, but I'd love to know. (Score:3, Insightful)
You may want to seed the first couple of month's worth of usage just to get your neighbours 'hooked' on the idea, but sooner or later you'll need to have them pitching in on the ongoing charges.
For anybody doing any amount of gaming
Where is this place? (Score:2)
Is there a vacancy? I want to live there!
Ethernet with multiple access points (Score:3, Informative)
I know this part doesn't answer your question, but I'd agree with others. Invest the money, buy a house, pay off debt or do something you wouldn't otherwise get a chance to do.
wire it (Score:2)
A good start (Score:3, Funny)
$7000...? (Score:4, Informative)
Now what I'd really suggest would be to have it wired. This may be something to discuss with the landlord and it wouldn't even be that tough to do, in some cases. You could possibly even run wired connections through the same lines the cable goes.
But if wireless is truly the only option you want, and you can get access to the elevator shaft my suggestion would be to run a 100Mbit line into the shaft to a switch, then drop a potent WAP at each floor level on seperate channels and names, that way you're not sharing all the bandwidth for all the floors. Linksys WAP11's would be good for this as you can hack them to get a little more power.
well... (Score:2, Informative)
Owning or renting? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, if it's a condo, check the D-Link DWL-900AP+ access points out, they will run in repeater mode so you could share probably get away with doing it with 2-4 units spread around the top floors.
The big question will be your gateway, with a dozen apartments you could all share a T1 line easy enough but there are monthly costs and likely be the same or more than cable/dsl alternatives and really that's only if all apartments sign up and keep paying.
If you are renting, let the landlord build this type of "service" rather than wasting your own money, put it to better use, just buy 1 AP and whomever can see it can link up.
As A Former Landlord, I Say Don't... (Score:5, Insightful)
From that point of view, DON'T DO IT!
Consider:
1) You have to get permission to do any wiring and you'll be running wires of some type (power or CAT5) through the building, which will require the owner's permission.
2) You can spend all that and have a great time, but the landlord can decide to sell the building at any time, and you may suddenly find out you have to leave either at the end of your lease term or with as little as 30 or 60 days notice.
3) How do you know, after doing all that work, that you'll get to take the equipment with you when you leave?
4) Why are you investing in a building you are only renting? (You have no way of knowing that, right or wrong, you'll be able to take the equipment with you when you leave!)
Basically, you don't know how much longer you'll be living there and a number of things could result in an early termination of the lease, or other problem. While the equipment is yours, there are a number of ways the owner can keep you from taking it. Hell, the owner could even sue you for putting it in.
As a property manager, my job was 1) Protect the property owner from any harm or damage (not just physical) (that includes the property itself), and AFTER THAT, 2) Protect the tenant from harm (also not only physical), but this comes under #1 because anything that hurts the tenant could result in a suit or other harm to the owner, including inappropriate or illegal actions of the owner that hurt the tenant.
In such a role, I can tell you that I, and almost every property owner I have either known through networking, or worked with, would not want a tenant, no matter what they know about computers, crawling through a building and installing equipment the OWNER doesn't fully understand. And if an owner allowed it, you have no way to be sure they'll let you keep it later, or even allow it to continue to operate.
The owner also has to consider what could happen if a building inspector came through and you had violated a law you weren't aware of.
Maybe your landlord allows this. That doesn't mean you'll stay there long enough to make it worth while, or that you can keep the equipment later. It's like digging for gold in someone else's mine when, at any minute, they can walk in and say, "I've changed my mind. You can't keep the gold. It's all mine." Would you do that? Most likely not. Doing this is the same thing.
Be wise. Invest in something you'll have for a long time or that is yours, like a car, or a house downpayment, or even a cruise to an exotic location.
Oh, and I live in the US, so I don't know laws in other countries, but you've still got to face the fact that what you do may benefit you for only a short term and could benefit the owner for years.
(Oh, your lease is solid, you say? Check. I saw buildings bought and sold all the time -- sometimes tenants had till the end of the lease to move out, sometimes only 60 days. There are too many variables to be sure you will stay for years in an apartment.)
wha? (Score:2)
He said he wanted wireless...aside from the wiring needed for the cable/dsl momdem which is normally already there anyway, he shouldn't have to run any extra cabling anywhere.
Re:wha? (Score:2)
Wireless may still involve running power cables to odd places where routers won't be disturbed.
I don't know if you can relay from one wireless router to another, but I've found that when you're installing ANYTHING, especially doing anything with plumbing or power in a building, you will ALWAYS run into unpredictable problems. He may end up doing much m
Re:As A Former Landlord, I Say Don't... (Score:5, Insightful)
Beyond that, you have way too much money to throw away. I would find more intelligent uses for it. Consider the parent post. Unless you own the building, and want to provide something nice for all your tennants, I wouldn't invest in much outside of your appartment. Encourage others to join you in going wireless to play together, but don't run wires all over a building that you don't own.
measure twice, buy once (Score:3, Interesting)
You might also want to try connecting a server to the WAP via one of the ethernet ports (assuming the WAP has some) and do some file transmission and pinging as you walk around, to make sure your connection is clean. Or maybe do some test gaming against a machine connected to the WAP.
If you can reach it from everywhere, good!
Otherwise try different locations and try to minimize the number of positions required to cover every location likely to have a PC. Then you just need to get an 802.11g card for every PC.
It must be a slow news day, when something like this gets posted to
And a slower work day when I respond.
Make $15 million dollars with your $7000 (Score:5, Funny)
Don't blow your money.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I would suggest putting that $7k towards your retirement. Invest it in a solid fund or IRA. This would be much wiser than blowing it on a technology that will be outdated in a couple of years.
Re:Don't blow your money.. (Score:3, Funny)
Couple of years?? This shit will be old-hat in a few months. The guy with the $7k is obviously too stupid for his own good so his best bet is to flush the cash directly down the nearest hi-flo toilet bowl.
Re:Don't blow your money.. (Score:3, Interesting)
'wiser than blowing it? yes
wise thing to do? not a chance.
401K and other "retirement" funds are the biggest scam america has going by these banks..
Getting a paltry few precent per year on your money while paying 14 to 28% interest on your debt.
it is pure stupidity to save money when you are bleeding it.
Pay off bills absolutely number one. Then learn about debt and how to use it. Credit cards are NOT NEEDED and the only debt
like everyone else says (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep in mind that wireless is x mbps SHARED, like the old ethernet hubs were, as compared to standard switched ethernet, which gives each port (and user) dedicated bandwidth.
two thoughts: (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Why would you spend that much money on setting up wireless in your appartment building for everyone? Unless you've already got a surplus of income, you own the appartment building, or you're into some sort of odd techno-charity urge addiction, I'd suggest you don't waste your money on something so frivilous: buy a house or pay off your debt, FFS! Hell, invest the money, if you don't have debt and don't want to buy a house.
2) If in fact you are crazy or do own the appartment building, by all means, set things up to share internet access - at a (minor) to your tenants (either enough to cover costs, or to make a profit, you decide how nice you want to be). Personally, if it were me, I'd wire the place for ethernet (myself), provided the building wasn't too old (1970's). If the building was old and crappy, I probably wouldn't bother, and try and sell it off - though it would certainly still be feasable.
You can choke wireless networks up pretty quickly, and they introduce needless security issues. For the cost of an 8-port (or 16, or whatever, depending on how many ports per appartment you put in) 100BT (or go GigE, the cost difference is negligible now) and a couple hundred hards of cat5, you can get hundreds the bandwidth/signal quality and many times the security of wifi. The cost would be similar, and could possibly be under $500, provided you didn't splurge and get a nice managed router to bridge stuff to the outside world.
To be honest, though: I don't see why you even bothered asking this question. Are you not a geek? For me, the most fun of any project is the planning and getting things set up. You've got the resources of hundreds of thousands of knowledgeable people, after all: the Internet via search engine (WTF are you doing with an "Ask Slashdot", anyway? DAMN). The payoff of your work (ie, the planning and research) is the implimentation - to see how well you planned your project. What's the payoff if you have someone else do the research/thinking for you?
Be careful about your own liability (Score:3, Insightful)
be sure you understand your liability.
Like if a neighbor downloads too much,
or uploads to Kazaa, or hosts a game server,
does your service provider cut you off?
Good luck... sounds like a useful project!
Cheers, Joel
Experimental approach (Score:2, Informative)
What you need to do is choose between 802.11B and 802.11G (I'd probably go B for what you have in mind). Purchase the following:
an access point (not a router, an access point)
a pcmcia or usb 802.11b adapter
an omni-directional, high gain antenna for the AP
Why AP per floor? (Score:2)
All in all, I think it's a waste of money and this guy's feelings are going to get hurt later on. Unless they're family or very close life long friends, why go to this expense and effort for them?
Re:Why AP per floor? (Score:2)
Here's what you should buy (Score:2)
An index fund invests in all or most of the stocks in the entire stock market, which has averaged a 17% annual gain since 1920.
Instead of playing philanthropist to your gaming buddies, take care of yourself. Most of them are going to forget you exist in a few years. I'm going to turn 50 this summer, and if somebody had given me this ad
Wired "last mile", wired backbone... (Score:3, Informative)
We don't want the wireless access points speaking to each other by wireless... that's simply going to be too much use of the limited RF space, and we have to assume that people are going to want to use 2.4 GHz phones so we won't have all that RF to ourselves...
My best bet would be a wireless access point on each of the four floors as close to the center of the building as you can place it, and then have those four access points have a wire all leading to a central 100mps switch that's placed wherever you can put it.
The access points should be configured to not to speak directly to each other over RF, that's what the wires are for. Therefore, all the RF bandwidth is reserved for users, and hopefully they'll be running on the lowest power settings possible to speak to the AP on their floor and therefore with the lowest RF noise...
Volunteer to be tech support for your building? (Score:2, Informative)
$7,000?! (Score:3, Informative)
Geez, I just hope we're not too late -- questions like this tend to get answered by shysters with "well, that's cutting it close, but I'll see what we can do."
I have an 802.11g (Apple Airport Extreme if anyone cares) access point in my basement, in an electrical closet. I'm up on the second floor, on the other side of the house, and get excellent signal strength.
Now, that's only three floors, and my house isn't huge. If your four-story building is large, you should still be fine dropping a single access point in the middle of the second or third floor, assuming you have a cable drop at that location.
Worst case, you need two access points, and with the Airport, they can daisy chain one to the other -- one access point can use another access point for...access. I don't know about other brands.
No good deed goes unpunished (Score:2)
wow... (Score:2)
I had no idea
I don't buy it (Score:2)
Why settle for Wifi-g? Go gigabit! (Score:3, Funny)
Tony's Construction
123 Fake Street.
Spring Field, MA, 18332
And we'll come out and install it for you. Don't forget to tell us where you live!
An Actual Answer (Score:3, Informative)
Blueprint... (Score:3, Informative)
Since you failed to include any information like apartment building footage, a map/blueprint with your location marked, etc., this will be a general approach that assumes you don't want to leave anything behind when you move out eventually.
1) Buy a WiFi card and an access point (AP) from your favorite company, but make sure it is at least 802.11g (D-Link comes to mind, since they claim near "wirespeed" encryption.
2) Setup your AP (with WEP, largest key available!) in your room (which hopefully is near the middle of the building), and then walk around and see what your signal looks like. Make a rough map of signal strength and note any shadows. While you are at it, you might see if anyone else has their own WiFi already. (You might be able to enlist them in your endeavor!)
3) Decide if you think you need to upgrade the AP's antenna to a larger "omnidirectional" antenna (6db or so. Anything larger than about 8db probably is a directional antenna) so you can reach the furthest recesses of the building.
4) Build a Linix box that firewalls your ISP line, any wire-based Lan you might have, and the wireless AP! You need to protect yourself, or one of you new "friends" will hack you.
4b) (optional) Setup an open source RADIUS server on the box and point the AP to it for authentication that is harder to break than MAC filtering + WEP.
5) Decide which services you will let go through the wireless. Traffic shape (QOS) anything that might get abused but you still want to let through anyway. Make sure to include any game ports you plan to use.
6) Decide how much of your ISP bandwith you want to let the wireless people have, and traffic-shape the interface card.
7) invite a select few of your neighbors to try out the system (give them the shared WEP key or a Radius login)
8) After you get their feedback and see how your network handles the load, decide if you still want to go through with telling everybody.
Costs:
~$300 AP + couple of nicks from D-Link
~$100 New antenna for AP to boost range
~$400 linux box + 3 NICs
$??? Your labor cost to set this all up
If you find that the above single AP setup is not sufficient, I respectfully suggest you give up as a more complex setup is beyond a simple slashdot post. Hire a professional.
- D
Roth IRA (Score:3, Insightful)
Invest in a Roth IRA. Investing $7,000 for 45 years at 10% interest (the average return rate, it takes ~7.2 for your money to double). Investing so, and not adding a single penny more, will accumulate to $510,233, a pretty hefty sum.
Don't believe me? Go to this Roth IRA calculator [moneychimp.com], enter in 7,000 for the current IRA balance, 10% for the interest rate, and years until retirement as 45 years. Don't worry about the tax bracket as that doesn't involve Roth IRA's.
Let your money work for you, not the other way around.
-Vic
Seen this before (Score:4, Funny)
Recently, due to a family death, I have come into posession of a large sum of money. For reasons that I can not explain I am unable to hold onto this money and that is where I need your assistance. My plan is to purchase wireless network equipment which I will use to improve the quality of life for my people (the other tenants in my building). Upon advisement from you, I will transfer the money to a computer supplier of your choice in return for the goods we decide on. You will receive nothing from this as it is not several million dollars and I am not an African Prince.
Thank you
NAT administration is going to be heavy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, we're on the same page, I was including the cost of a handful of access cards for the PCs being used in the price.
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Fascist moderators prove their hypocracy AGAIN! (Score:2)
Re:Fascist moderators prove their hypocracy AGAIN! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have moderated several times and concider myself proof that you don't need great carma to get to moderate. just keep it at neutral or higher, and actually read slashdot and you'll probbly get to moderate a few times a year.
just know that when you complain about "the moderators" that you are talking about nearley every slashdot reader.
as for the wireless project it should be easy to do for about 300-400$ if you need great coverage.
my wap saturates about half of my building witch is about twice the size of your's.
Just pick out points for your wap's then run wire there, hook em all together and plug them into your cable modem. 2 acess points should do it just fine, and a hundred feet or so of cat 5 and there you go. if your coverage isin't as good as you'd like just add another point.
I woulden't even screw around with high gain antennas, most that I've seen that work well are directional, and the omni's that I've seen are way to expensive for one's that work.
if you're really serious about wireless you should get your fcc technition class lisence, it allows you to run your way at up to 1500 watts, or something rediclus, way better than screwing around with fancy antennas for just a hundred miliwatts or so.
Re:Fascist moderators prove their hypocracy AGAIN! (Score:5, Funny)
it allows you to run your way at up to 1500 watts
Good God.. warn me so I can get to the Minimum Safe Distance before you turn that thing on...
Re:Pay off debt or buy a house (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pay off debt or buy a house (Score:3, Insightful)
Or just let him spend his money... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing wrong with setting up a WAPnet for the neighbours (so long as it doesn't interfere with other people's WAP's etc). There's nothing wrong with doing with one's one money what one sees fit.
You know, if I came across and extra $7000 and wanted to spend it buying a few computers for a school etc, I would much rather have advice on that topic for slashdot than a bunch of "WTF - giving money away - invest it!" BS comments. In this case, the guy is donating to his apartment community instead of a school etc, but it's the same concept.
Oh, and p.s., $7000 is tons for WAP. Why not come down and check out my apartment building when you're done yours </joking>
Re:Pay off debt or buy a house (Score:3, Interesting)
I just had to respond to say, amen brother. People have such a hard time understanding that paying mortgage interest, taxes, maintenance, and so on is also "throwing your money away". That's not to say that owning your own home isn't rewarding and can't be a good investment, because for most people it is both. But live in an apartment, take the money you pay less each month and invest it in the stock mar
Re:Pay off debt or buy a house (Score:3)
Re:Pay off debt or buy a house (Score:3, Informative)
That's not exactly true. A mortgage just covers the cost of the property. You rent a property that someone else owns outright (not likely if it's an apartment), or they are paying a mortgage. So your rent is covering their mortgage + building insurance (and flood insurance near the coast) + property taxes + landscaping (frequently).
So for a given piece of property, it's a pretty safe assumption that strictly speaking, t
Re:Pay off debt or buy a house (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pay off debt or buy a house (Score:4, Insightful)
The reply here obviously is "yes, but don't waste your money." How is that offtopic...?
These people are not going to pay your bills for you. Don't offer to pay theirs. They want broadband, they need to shell out their cash.
Just because a great aunt was kind enough to bestow money on you doesn't mean that you are expected to share.
Life can be harsh, don't make it harder in the long run by giving away money now.
Re:Pay off debt or buy a house (Score:5, Insightful)
"These people are not going to pay your bills for you. Don't offer to pay theirs. They want broadband, they need to shell out their cash."
I don't believe it was stated in the question that he was making this up-to-$7K investment out of pure kindness and that he was asking for nothing in return. Somebody, please correct me if I'm wrong.
By my math, there are up to 48 tenants in the apartment building. If he charges each $20 a month for access to his wireless network, that's $11.5K, or a return of about 150%, in the first year alone.
Unless he's lucky, buying property is unlikely to have that rate of return.
Re:Pay off debt or buy a house (Score:3, Insightful)
Most ISP AUPs don't allow you to resell internet access -- you can share it for free (most of the time), but when you start reselling their services, they'll want a cut, and if you don't give it to them, they'll have quite a nicely sized legal lever to pry it out of you.
Add to that the fact that 48 tenants times twenty dollars per month per tenant equals about the cost of a T1, and you're not looking at much of a profit. One to three hund
Re:Pay off debt or buy a house (Score:3, Insightful)
The the RIAA (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, yes, WAP for 7K is easy. Buy a bunch of US Robotics, 1 for every 2 floors, and a bunch of wireless cards. Run Cat5 up and down the inside of the fireescape (drill) a
Re:Pay off debt or buy a house (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pay off debt or buy a house (Score:5, Informative)
The expensive part is going to be getting the building on the internet. You're going to need something like a 1.5Mbit business SDSL or T-1 with 64 or so IPs and a SLA. This is probably going to wind up being around $600-$800/mo depending on your provider.
If you really want to honor her memory, why not donate the money to a school (college or private HS). Then you can have a nice plaque with her name on it put up in the computer lab. That's a lot better way to honor someone's memory than throwing a year-long LAN party for your neighbors. Networking your building, while a fun geek project, probably isn't the best way to honor her memory. If you want to do that, get your neighbors to pitch in (labor, $, or equipment) and make it a community project.
YES IT IS (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure. I try to use actual cable for security purposes (still paranoid of the wardrivers) BUT in your case wireless is the perfect way to go. Not like you can go drilling holes and laying cable. From observations I've had, One wireless router (get the switched type so you can WIRE your cables in at the router and put yourself in a different domain to protect your computers), and probably 2 AP's at most. If some need arises, you can put some into different IP blocks and filter only thier content. Setups like that are nearly endless. You're on the right track. Just look up the prices for some common affordable routers like the Linksys models. I've had one of thier non-wireless routers for years and it works great. They now have a 802.11G version of the same router available today. Choose AP's in a similar fashion. If you'd like to test the waters, I'd suggest getting something off ebay at a low cost to get any bugs out and THEN drop the phat cash on some topshelf equipment when you know you won't be dissappointed. Worst thing to do is to drop a load of cash on some equip and then find out it sucks & or doesn't work like you'd planned. Good execution here is key. You wouldn't want to make a memorial that was broken.
Where in gods name!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Where in gods name!!! (Score:2)
Plus, Their are alot of first time home buyers programs that will offer a low intrist $0.00 down payment loan for your first house.
In that case your $7000 will go far into buying startup appliances and stuff.
Re:Where in gods name!!! (Score:2)
And since this is Canadian dollars, his $7,000 should buy up half the town!
A similar thing happened a few years back in Newfoundland, waterfront homes were going for like $6,000 and then the Americans discovered this and bought them up as summer homes.
Then again, I'm not sure what you'd do with a house in Saskatchewan in summer or winter, winter just sucks more cause it's absolute zero outside. In the summer you can watch your dog run, for miles and miles or som
Re:Where in gods name!!! (Score:2)
Re:Pay off debt or buy a house (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Pay off debt or buy a house (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy is embracing the spirit of nerdom by doing something that non-nerds would consider a waste of time and money.
Today his apartment complex, tommorrow his city!
A lot of great people in the tech world get their education and ideas from what may have started as seemingly wasteful iconoclastic exploits.
Slow down a little! (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with paying off dept. If you have any, get rid of it as best you can. Then don't take on any more.
However buying a house may or may not be a good idea. Studies have shown that you end off about the same if you buy a house, or invest your money. Sure rent always goes up, but you have home repairs otherwise. In fact, I can't rent an apartment as big as my tiny house, and one that I could rent for the same money would be just a 1 bedroom. However dont' forget to account for the other bills
Re:Who Cares and Why is this on Slashdot? (Score:3, Informative)
I'd recommend a cruller.
Re:Don't be a bloody idiot (Score:2)
Throwing a party for your building: $500
Equipping it for game-playing, with hardware that will be okay for maybe a year and a half and then seem so slow it sucks: $7000
Telling other people how to spend money when you don't have any: PRICELESS