Wireless Networking sharing internet across buildings

I just bought a vacation condo in Costa Rica, and will maybe spend 6
weeks a year down there.  Inclding friends and friends of friends, we
have about 12 units among us.  We're thinking about having one condo
have fast internet access and everyone else connect to him through
wireless.  Using a LinkSys  WRT54G, and accessing with my Snoy VIAO,  I
can go one floor above, below, and across the hall and get a pretty
good signal.  Two floors away and it gets iffy.  The complex consists
of 8 6-story buildings in a circle each separated by about 100 feet.
All of the condos in question have line-of-sight or are in the same
building as the "master condo".

After a couple days perusal on the web, I've discerned (perhaps
incorrectly):

1)  802.11a has less interference with phones, microwaves, etc so
perhaps should be considered
2)  I can spend $1000 for an "access point", which is different
(better?) that a wireless router
3)  I can buy antennas to attach to wireless routers to increase the
range to over 500 meters
4)  I can attach antennas to the receiving end as well

I'm headed back down to Costa Rica in April, and I hope to bring all
the equipment I need with me to set this up.  Any advice you guys can
give me will be greatly appreciated.  I think now I'm leaning towards
Netgear 802.11g routers with antennas on both ends, but that's based on
admittedly not enough information.

Regards,

Thomas

tpmeyer@gmail.com wrote:

When everyone is there at the same time you'll notice some congestion,
but this ought to be do-able.


What's the construction of these buildings?  Concrete & rebar, wood &
drywall?


802.11a doesn't go thru walls at all, it's really meant for office
environments (conference rooms) where you don't want coverage outside
the room.


Or you can spend $50 for an AP.  Dunno what you'd get in a $1K AP that
would make it 20X as good as a $50 AP...


Extra antennas will cost as much as an additional AP, though they can
have some uses.


I'd go with a single Linksys BEFSR41 router and a number of Linksys
WAP54G APs in some mix of multiple-APs, repeaters, and clients
depending on the details of the layout, available computers, and other
such, but that's because I have a lot of experience with Linksys
hardware and I'm pretty happy with it.

It kinda depends on what your requirements are, and how technical
(and/or demanding) your users are going to be, and how isolated from
each other they want/need to be.  What's the ISP, and what do they
charge monthly for broadband?  You might want to have more than one
broadband link, and more than one co-op group...

The preN routers have about 8x the range of a good G router.  Belkin and
Linksys are excellent.  If range is the issue, be sure to go preN or MIMO.

On Sat, 4 Feb 2006 16:22:35 -0500, "Alan White"


What is compatible with Pre-N Mimo for extending the signal beyond the
range of the router?

tpmeyer@gmail.com wrote:


I'd advise using the Buffalo High Power Ethernet converters
("http://tinyurl.com/8rwco" ) on each computer, and a Buffalo high power
router ("http://tinyurl.com/a3cvf" ) in the condo unit with the internet
access.

Three reasons:

First, it makes a big difference in signal strength because of the
higher power. I can attest to this personally. In my city they just
began offering free wireless, and the access point is on a pole about
100' away. With the a regular 802.11g card or adapter, I got a "very
low" or "low" signal, with the high power card I get a "very good" or
"excellent" signal. So I hooked the high-power Ethernet converter to my
Netgear wireless router (different channels) and I get free wireless for
the whole house, with the machines inside the house only needing the
less expensive non-high-power components.

Second, it has an external antenna jack, just in case you want to use a
better antenna (though be sure to use the shortest antenna cable
possible--the signal strength gain from antennas is often very marginal
because of the losses in the cable from the router or adapter to the
antenna)

Third, because the adapter connects via Ethernet, you can run a long
cable from the computer to the Ethernet converter so you can place it
for best reception (or you can place just the converter for best
reception, and then create a wireless network in the condo using cheaper
non-high power 802.11g components). Similarly, you can run a long
Ethernet cable from the cable modem or DSL modem to the high power
router, so you can position the router for optimal signal. This router
also can be used as an access point, so you could buy several of them if
needed, and connect them all to the router.

I wouldn't advise buying the Buffalo high power CardBus card for
notebooks. Even though it has an antenna jack, there are big losses in
attaching a long antenna cable to the card, and it could be inconvenient
to have to position the notebook for best signal strength.

There are some other vendors of high power equipment