Temporary Wireless Service For An Outdoors Event? 213
SBECK writes "I've been asked to come up with an estimate of how much it would cost to provide wireless internet service for a small convention being held at a campground. That would entail renting or buying enough wireless access points to give coverage to the area and getting temporary satellite Internet service. Unfortunately, I've never done any of this, so I'm floundering. I'd love to get some pointers from anyone who has any experience setting up something like this. What ISP services provide temporary satellite service for something like this?"
Electricity (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:more info please? (Score:5, Insightful)
- in which country is this event going to be held?
- what infrastructure do you have available?
going to satellite link should only be a last resort.
Re:Line of sight? (Score:3, Insightful)
Outsourcing... (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, try to stick with as few different vendors as possible. That way, you won't introduce unnecessary incompatibilities and you won't have to deal with different setups and configurations (that may not be such a big problem as long as you stick to using SoHo equipment, as it's usually fairly standard-compliant and easily configured through a web interface).
If your conference is really out in the middle of nowhere though consider turning to the pros. I have worked with T-Mobile techs on providing Internet access at an outdoor sports event in a fairly secluded area and have nothing but good things to say about them. Since there were no landlines and no WiFi coverage available we basically had to rely on cell transmissions. So we setup a IEEE 802.11 network and they provided the cell-phone backend. We had to put in a few restrictions (bandwidth throttling, etc) to ensure that the network was reasonably secure and to keep costs in check but it did work like a charm. Of course, that might not be an option depending on your choice of locale and your budget.
Re:Line of sight? (Score:4, Insightful)
brian de kf4zwz
No They Don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No They Don't (Score:2, Insightful)
(a) having a large meeeting in an outdoor area
(b) Has some sort of need for a wireless network
(c) Plans on using computers for that wireless network
Packet Radio (Score:2, Insightful)
Transfer rates have tipically been very low, but might be Ok for email and low-bandwith use.
Re:psand have been doing this in the UK (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:slashdot cut (Score:1, Insightful)
Those who have responded with useful advice know that their help will be returned to them in kind one day by the Slashdot community. Or maybe it won't. It really doesn't matter.
Your cut of this will be proportional to the help you've given.