I'm attempting to blanket my local town with WiFi to create a large network for two purposes. First, it would provided throttled internet access to the public (Who would be isolated from other users on the network), and second, each AP would also include a separate, hidden network where users could connect semi-anonymously to share files and communicate. Not quite sure how to handle the second one yet, but it's a work in progress.
I'm a little new to actually providing end user wireless access over a large area, so I'm not sure what I should look into. I've had good luck with airfiber for point to point applications, but I'm a little leery of how well some of their other stuff may preform. Has anyone used the rocketstation AC with a sector antenna for end user wireless over a large area? I don't doubt it can cover a large area like it says, but there will be a lot of buildings, trees, and other assorted clutter that will make it difficult to get a strong enough signal far enough. Also, I'm limited to towers no higher than 120 ft, which is roughly 60 feet higher than the tallest building in town. I've got a budget of about $60-80k (Might be able to push the limit, but it'll mean the project will take longer to raise the money), and need to cover about 6 square miles, with 12 preferred. Does /g/ have any suggestions on other devices to look into that either preform better or cost less? Or perhaps any links to tests on the strength of these units in practice?
>my local town
Tautology much?
Check out the hamwan project. They have a lot of detailed data public.
How did you get funded?
>>52526251
I'm here to talk technology, not English semantics. Nobody ever accused me of having a great grasp of language.
Also, if this goes well, I'm planning on expanding this out to the rest of the county's towns. Sadly, I don't really think this is a money-making project, however.
>>52526332
About 30% of my funding comes from local businesses and groups who thought it was a cool project. They pledged to chip in $500 here, $2k there, and are interested in the results.
The other 70% comes out of my pocket. It's a project I've been saving up to do for a while now.
>>52526188
are you going to be responsible for what poeple use the network for?
>>52526506
Probably for the public one. I've had to run a public WiFi for an RV park before and trace users back when I got C&Ds from the ISP, so I don't mind doing that. The private WiFi won't have an internet connection, it will simply be local. I don't think anyone's going to bother with it if people are just sharing movies, games, etc, though I'm still trying to find out how to handle the situation without logging everything done if illicit stuff winds up being disseminated on it.
you will need to setup a good router with f2ban, snort, squid to prevent and monitor weird shit.
if I were you I would run signal tests before setting everything up and for the hidden network you could use a raspberry with pirate box.
great project you got, bro, good luck with it. Try to do the same post here and in Reddit, you'll find some pretty solid advice.
also, check this
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/11/how-a-group-of-neighbors-created-their-own-internet-service/
>>52526188
>my local town
Redundant.
http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/19/linknyc-gigabit-wifi-hands-on/
>>52526465
I take it you have the correct licenses to do so.
>>52529117
That's an interesting read. Makes me curious what a town could do with citywide public internet access.
>>52529419
As far as I know, I'm breaking no laws to broadcast unlicensed band signal from private property. If I am, I've had to register a radio band with the FCC before at my old place of employment, so I don't think it would be too difficult, though costs would shoot way up.
>$60-80
HAHAHAHAAHAHAHA. good fucking luck, you obviously have no fucking idea what you are talking about, so save yourself the trouble and skip over the retarded /g/ kids living at their parents house, grow a brain, and reach out to vendors who can actually tell you information.
you will not figure this out on your own, and you sure as shit dont have the budget
>>52530739
You got something to contribute chummer, or are you just spouting out what you think is right? I'm not looking to build an ISP quality setup, just trying to get the public a few megabits here and there while also developing a private network for others. I've already got a relay set up to Houston, carrying a half a gigabit signal almost a hundred miles, so I'd say the hard part is done.
If you use a something like UBNT products you will get great TX (Transmit) over that area but the problem is RX (Recieve) How will users connect?
Also halo from a genuine WiSP owner.
>>52531190
That's part of what I'm curious about. I've done local APs in various places, some equipment can get a signal from pretty far, others not so much. Max range of a unit seems to be at best 500m, even if I can detect the signal from much further.
I know some of the surrounding WISP install an antenna on end users' homes that's capable of communicating effectively. According to their maps and measurements, each of their towers covers about an 8 mile cell, but I wasn't able to find what equipment they were using. I would figure they would suffer from the same issue as well, but there seems to be a constant, stable connection when using their service.
Even if end users had to be provided with antenna/radio setups to communicate, I do believe the project would be worth it.
>>52530739
Did you miss the K?
>>52530739
>>52531489
UBNT Equipment can run between a few meters to 200+ kilometers depending on your setup. I'd go for in inexpensive nanostation m5 or nanobridge m5 costing around 80 dollars. They can safely transmit and receive at 15 kilometres with Line of Sight.
Other vendors include:
MikroTik
Radwin Wireless
Proxim Wireless
Motorola
>>52530739
you were never the quick one were you
>>52531853
I've got a few nanostations set up for testing, but I haven't deployed them widescale to get an idea how they'd preform with lots of other traffic and in less than ideal locations. So far, they work very well for up to about 4 miles for PtP connections, I haven't tried them any further than that. NS M5 was actually the model I used for testing the maximum distance my laptop's WiFi was capable of getting a usable signal, with signal dropping off completely at about 1500 ft (~450m). I believe it uses an internal 30 degree sector antenna though, which would mean making a ring of 12 of them per cell. Also, no idea on their ability to penetrate trees, buildings, etc. with their signal, which might come into play depending on how things go.
I guess the biggest question is what sort of strength of wireless antenna the end users will have. Setting up units 2000 ft apart because they work fine for my equipment won't mean anything to someone using legacy equipment that has to be within 200 ft to get a usable signal.
>>52531725
of course i know there was a 'k' there you fucking retard, i am still laughing at you for thinking that would cover it.
the fact we are supposed to believe you are putting up ~$50,000 of your own money triggers the bullshit indicator right off the bat
>>52528242
So basically you're going to create a piratebox with a fucking huge range? That sounds awesome.
>>52532192
I don't see why putting up such a large amount for a large scale project is a big deal. If I wasn't blowing it on stupid shit like this, I'd be blowing it on other stupid shit I don't need. Besides, it's vaguely work related (I do networking and general IT, but we mostly run fiber lines to everything we need, WiFi for the company is nothing more than a few spots here and there.).
>>52532214
A free as in freedom box, anon, come on now! But yeah, I see it as a place to host internal websites anonymously that's both easy to navigate and use. Town based youtube, NAS drives, etc. Help/Home page to guide people to interesting places.
>>52530705
It might solve the signal crunch for one.
>>52531853
Second the Ubiquiti stuff. Cheap, durable and easy to set up.
Using a pair of Loco M2s for a LOS link.
Their site has a forum where you can talk to people who've actually done what you're proposing.
>>52526465
>>>52526332
>About 30% of my funding comes from local businesses and groups who thought it was a cool project. They pledged to chip in $500 here, $2k there, and are interested in the results.
>The other 70% comes out of my pocket. It's a project I've been saving up to do for a while now.
Dude, ask in /darknetplan, make sure you download CJDNS
>>52529117
>http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/19/linknyc-gigabit-wifi-hands-on/
And here I am with Comcast, fucking New York gets everything, from The Pokemon Center to this
Buy ubiquity gear, don't trust homemade solutions
>>52526188
Keep us updated as the project develops anon
