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Wireless Networking Hardware

Building an Non-Wired Network for Pueblos? 60

Posted by Cliff from the wireless-networks-in-non-urban-settings dept.
wsxian asks: "We recently received a large grant to install a wireless high speed Internet system for our entire Pueblo here in the State of NM. This would encompass about 150 homes and the range from a central point would be no more than 6 miles, but there are hills, valleys and trees so line of sight is not an option unless we decide to drop homes. I welcome any suggestions for technology to look at, what to avoid, security concerns- and most important for us what companies to avoid. If any of you have had real life experience with doing such a scaled project like this, please give your input!"
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Building an Non-Wired Network for Pueblos? More

Building an Non-Wired Network for Pueblos?

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  • First thing to test: can a signal get through a three-foot-thick wall made of compacted and hardened mud?

    • Amazing fact: Housing in NM are often made with stuff like 2x4's, sheetrock, and plywood, somewhat like houses throughout the US!
      • Key word is OFTEN. Not always. I'm still curious to know if an adobe house blocks signals.
        • So tell me, do you also assume that all people in the Arctic live in igloos?
          • Some do.

            Dude, as I said before, the keyword is OFTEN. I've been to New Mexico. Hell, I conceived a BABY in New Mexico. And, it was in a fricking Adobe house! I know there's at least a few of them around there.

            • Igloo is simply the Eskimo word for "house." So, technically, most eskimos DO live in igloos, as they define them, but not as most people think of them.

              And you know very well what I mean anyway. Don't try to skate around it.

              • I know what you mean, and I didn't skate around it. As I said twice before, some houses in the arctic are made of ice, and some are not. Some houses in New Mexico are adobe, and some are not. That is precisely correct.

                Now, if Saeed al-Sahaf wants to inform the world of the TRUTH, I'm sure that he can get an audience down at the local comedy club.
      • Housing in NM are often made with stuff like 2x4's, sheetrock, and plywood

        And the author doesn't live in this type of house.

        We recently received a large grant to install a wireless high speed Internet system for our entire Pueblo
        • Pueblo means town or village. It does not mean that they are made from adobe. They might be but just because they use the word Pueblo does not mean they have to be. I would bet good money that most homes in Pueblo Colorado are not.
          • Pueblo means town or village. It does not mean that they are made from adobe. They might be but just because they use the word Pueblo does not mean they have to be.

            True, and he probably meant it that way too, considering he said that it was 150 homes within a range of 6 miles.

    • We currently run a Motorola Canopy system for our Admin buildings and the antennas are located on the roofs or by a window for line of sight reception and no problems. I suspect the same will hapen with homes - rooftop antenns with feeds to below. I do have an adobe home with chicken wire embedded in the stucco and it does affect radio station reception. But if there was ever an EMP (we live about 12 miles from Los Alamos Nation Labs) I think the home appliance would be ok (Faraday cage).
  • Take a look at the mesh networking stuff. Do not think about having one central access point. Every home should have it's own node on the mesh.

  • No Non-Line-of-Sight (Score:5, Informative)

    by Neon Spiral Injector ( 21234 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @03:37PM (#11978511)
    No matter what anyone tells you, or tries to sell you: wireless is line-of-sight. Microwaves are electromagnetic radation. They do penetrate a bit better than the visible wavelenghts, but a building or a hill, heck even trees, will put a real cramp on your transmissions.

    If all buildings don't have a clear, unobstructed view of a central point; the only way to make this work is to connect the buildings that can see eachother until you reach one that can see your point of origin.

    Start by finding the best location that is the most visible, and most central to the most buildings. This is were you will install six radios each with a 60 degree sector antenna on a tower (less if you don't need a full 360 coverage, but don't go any wider then 60 degrees for each sector, or you'll be spreading your power too thin). Then survey each of the other locations to see which have perfect views of this tower. These locations will get an uplink radio with a unidirectional antenna focused on the tower. Plus a second radio operating in a different frequency range with an omnidirectional antenna. Try to use a lower frequency for the omni radios. These secondary radios will operate as a mesh network to pick up the other buildings that don't have line-of-sight to the central point. Finally the non-line-of-sight meshed-in locations can operate on their own omnidirectional antenna if they are close enough so they can pick up tertiary meshes. You really don't want to go any deeper than three into the mesh, speed starts to suffer too much. If the buildings are more than a couple hundred feet from each other the powerloss from transmitting in all directions will be too much and you'll have to go to directionalized antanna at one or both locations to direct the RF in a more focused pattern.

    • Re:No Non-Line-of-Sight (Score:5, Informative)

      by VeriTea ( 795384 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:25PM (#11979072) Journal
      I design wirless networks for a living, so I'd like to add a few words...

      Get a good set of topo maps for the entire area you want to cover. Don't let anybody fool you, real paper maps and a good distance calculator like "Topo Companion" are the best way to do wireless design. Next, go to the FCC and download their Antenna Registration Database. You will need the "EN" and "CO" and one other table. Join the tables (useing MS Access would be easiest) using the unique site id and then query out the sites that have coordinates within the boundaries of Pueblo (latitude > y1 and latitude x1 and longitue Now use your "Topo" companion to mark existing towers on the map. Look for ones that are on hills or mountains near the desired coverage area. Some simple trig will tell you if you have line-of-site (LOS). Add the average tree height to your ground elevation when doing calcuations, 802.11x is very low power and high frequency, so you can't afford any pathloss burning through vegetation.

      Unlike the parent, I would strongly recommend 30 degree panels for this kind of system, since you are likely to encounter capacity issues, and even log-periodic 60 degree panels have enough overlap between sectors to guarentee a huge interference problem if you use more then one transmitter. Find the equipment you are going to use and use your gains and losses to calculate the ERP / EIRP from your transmit antennas at each site. Now go ahead and use the free-space pathloss equation to figure out the signal strenght at you target locations. If you have adequate signal to meet the needs of the subscriber equipment you plan on using then great (Note: if you plan on supplying subscriber equipment then you can guarentee a minimum quality. If not, your design will need to be especially robust to accomodate low-quality receivers). If not, keep tweeking the design until it will work. Develop a plan for directing the different channels away from each other. Make sure you calculate your expected interference from other sites using the same channel. If you several mountaintop sites this will be a killer.

      Once you have it built on paper, the rest is fairly straightforward. Have fun!

      • Re:No Non-Line-of-Sight (Score:4, Informative)

        by Neon Spiral Injector ( 21234 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:37PM (#11979201)
        About the 60 degree sectors. You are correct about the possiblity of interference. The radio equipment that the company for which I work uses each tie into a central control unit that provides a timing signal to each unit to stagger transmissions and prevent problems.
      • Just wondering if you could get GIS data from the County or Feds and use that when planing your system.
        • It depends on the state. In New York, Cornell university offers DEM (digital elevation model) files for the entire state at 10-meter resolution (that's very good). The NY State GIS office offers aerial photography of the entire state at 1 foot resolution (that is phenomenal). In Pennsylvania, Penn State offers 10-meter DEM files for the entire state, and in New Hampshire, the State GIS office offers aerial photography of the entire state.

          Doing a search online could reveal some good data sources, but it

    • Agree.

      I set up a similar project here in Nova Scotia to get internet to a group of people that were too far away to get ground lines. I used a string of directional antennas about 1km apart up the slope of the hill, then to a central station that radiated the internet signal to the houses.

      The big problem is speed and bandwidth... but, aslong as your clients are not all slashdot addicts who spend loads of time online, you should be fine. Make sure the company you go with knows their graph theory when it co

    • Re:No Non-Line-of-Sight (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Jjeff1 ( 636051 )
      I'm currently looking at doing just what the poster is, however in my case my coverage will be just a few locations within a few blocks of each other.

      I'm wondering if anyone has experience with the newer 802.16 WiMax stuff that's just starting to roll around.

      The specs sound great.
      Several Mile Range
      Hi Speed
      and Non-LOS, apparently the hardware can handle multi-pathing issues.

      But I'm wondering if it actually works.

  • locally to me... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by zogger ( 617870 )
    ...the first serious effort to install wireless (not counting the expensive and limited cellphone guys) is being done using motorola canopy tech. Last I talked to them they were putting it up two weeks ago so I don't know the status yet. I have no other information on it other than the guys doing it decided after a lot of looking that it would work the best for the long distance and hills and trees around here. They were running 802.11 at a truckstop, but the range was extremely limited, basically the parki
    • 802.11xx just don't cut the mustard without quite a few access points.

      Well, then use quite a few access points!!! AP's are dirt cheap - much much less expensive than proprietary alternatives. The last thing you want is some bizzare proprietary client hardware required at each house.
      • You have to put one on top of every single hill between you and the next signal. It's line of sight, remember? then what, cut down a million trees in the way as well? And those hills, where's the power coming from? And who owns all those hills and would you have to cut them a check for access? I run solar, I know exactly what it costs, your talking another grand minimum per access point, and you would need hundreds of them to blanket just a piece of a rural county if there's a lot of hills and trees in the
        • We are talking about a 6 mile zone - not an entire state. It's very practical.
          • ....and I was talking about what I was aware of local to me, check my original reply title. These guys have and operate an 802.11b service roughly 4 miles as the crow flies from me, yet I can't get it here. Wonder why that is? It's inside this theoretical 6 mile area. Oh hills and trees, what I mentioned. I would need to slap a 300 foot tower over there to get it, or install a dozen APs on hilltops at other folks properties and figure out the power to run them. I call that impractical. All I was doing was t

  • The process works! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It is good to know that you had a full plan enumerating feasability, options considered, and implementation plan prior to receiving this grant. Thank goodness our grant administration is on the ball!

  • Cellular? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by klausner ( 92204 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:31PM (#11979147)
    If there is existing cellular coverage in the area, consider using that as an alternative to creating a new infrastructure. It may be possible to exploit the existing network with fewer additions than starting from scratch will require.

    • Re:Cellular? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by gstoddart ( 321705 )
      If there is existing cellular coverage in the area, consider using that as an alternative to creating a new infrastructure. It may be possible to exploit the existing network with fewer additions than starting from scratch will require.

      You really think the cell provider is going to let you re-use their towers?

      Those kind of groups don't care what your needs are outside of the services they can sell you.
        1. Ever hear of a cellular modem [google.com]?
        2. The towers are probably on Pueblo land. Therefore, they are there by permission of the Pueblo. Therefore, there is leverage if they wanted to add antennas for a new network
        3. Read the original comment. I suggested the possibility of using the existing coverage, not adding antennas or other new infrastructure.

        • Read the original comment. I suggested the possibility of using the existing coverage, not adding antennas or other new infrastructure.

          I did, and I was asking for clarification since telco's don't often play nice.
          The towers are probably on Pueblo land. Therefore, they are there by permission of the Pueblo. Therefore, there is leverage if they wanted to add antennas for a new network
          Not living in the vicinity of anything that gets called a Pueblo, I had no idea there were ownership issues involved.

          Not ever

      • Maybe. Depends on a lot of details.

        First of all, most cell providers do not own the towers, they lease space on them from a tower company. (When I checked into this 5 years ago they were paying $1000/month for the highest places on some towers!) There often (though not a majority) more than one provider on the same tower. The short of this is you can lease space from the tower people too.

        Cell providers are looking at generation 3 cells which in theory allow broadband. This might be fast enough, a

  • Less Networks (Score:4, Interesting)

    by guroove ( 231050 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:34PM (#11979175) Homepage
    These guys created a free wireless network in Austin in less than 6 months, and they recycle old PCs in many of their installations. Definitely worth checking out!

    http://www.lessnetworks.com/

  • Vivato outdoor wireless (Score:5, Informative)

    by GlL ( 618007 ) <gil AT net-venture DOT com> on Friday March 18, 2005 @04:57PM (#11979420)
    Check out http://www.vivato.com/ [vivato.com]. I have been installing their products, and recently did a baseball stadium. The signal penetrated the concrete construction into the team offices behind the dugout. Good stuff.
  • 802.16 (maybe even 802.11b) & a small blimp, like the ones used by car dealerships. Use strategically-placed ground nodes to connect homes via UTP.

  • BPL: Broadband over Power Line (Score:3, Informative)

    by choochus ( 55810 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @09:00PM (#11981392) Homepage
    I live in Manassas, Virginia which is the first US city to deploy BPL technology. The city has partnered with a company called COMTek, Inc. [comtechnologies.com] to supply the equipment and run their billing.

    I went to a demonstration with City officials and COMTek engineers and it was VERY impressive. Their technology will interoperate with any other TCP/IP transport (cellular radio, fiber, copper, etc.) and, in fact, Manassas uses fiber for their long haul.

    Comtek said that you can currently get 4 megabit to end users and with repeaters can push about six miles. At least, I think it was six miles, it's been a little while. Buy anyway, you can use radio to bridge long line of sight gaps, then stick a BPL inducer on a nearby transformer and light up any house within a mile of it, easily.

    One thing they did in downtown Manassas was light up a building w/ BPL and put a wifi hot-spot on the roof which gives downtown strollers high speed wireless Internet (as long as you are a subscriber :o)

    The technology is very flexible and very stable in a wide range of temperatures which is ideal for New Mexico. The BPL "modems" (for lack of a better term) cost around $200 a piece retail and the inducers can be installed on power transformers in about 30 minutes, so it is a very rapid deployment.

    Oh, and COMTek had installed some hardware that looked for amateur radio operators and dropped pieces of their spectrum so that they wouldn't interfere with them. I thought that was pretty cool of them as it does slightly lower their overall capacity, but not by much.

    Good luck!

  • solar (Score:2)

    by bluGill ( 862 )

    When you do your design (there are good posts on the subject that I won't repeat) consider power. If the weather in your area is typical for deserts (I don't know where in NM you live so this might or might not be the case) you can put up solarcells and batteries everyplace where you need power. You might even be able to get an extra grant from someone by demoing that it can be done. (Even if there are a lot of clouds you might consider it)


  • The radio named in the Subj has
    10 watts of transmitter output,
    even before antenna gain is ta-
    ken into consideration

    The repeaters should help handle
    the uneven topography.

    Next problem... ;-)

  • 900 MHz (Score:2, Informative)

    by LoaTao ( 826152 )
    I work for a WISP and would suggest that you look into 900 MHz for your system. 900 MHz is not pure line of sight and gives you about a five mile range from tower to end user modem to work with. We have WaveRider equipment deployed (www.waverider.com) and have had good results from it. Internal and external antenna installations are both options.

    One thing I would recommend is having an experienced professional do the network design. It's one thing to slap a 802.11x WAP into a building and plug it into the
  • IPSS: IP via Smoke Signals.

  • I'm a bit frustrated reading what has been posted so far. Ready to use up my last mod point, I only found this comment by Guroove [slashdot.org] (already highly rated) and few other pointers to actual wireless implementations at a city scale. At 6 miles, you're talking about that scale, even if the area isn't crammed with buildings.

    To help fill in the basic gaps, go take a look at Building Wireless Community Networks [oreilly.com], Wireless Hacks [oreilly.com], as well as the larger city and national groups Seattle Wireless [seattlewireless.com] and NYC Wireless [nycwireless.net]. G

  • You'll need to look at high gain antennas and repeaters to make a system like this work. You'll probably also need some mast-work to get signals broadcast over the hills. Wi-Fi might not be what you need to get the job done, so you'll want to look at other wireless technologies.

    It sounds like an interesting project. You'll probably want to post a web-site showing how you implemented it; It could prove useful to other groups trying to accomplish the same things in rural areas.

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