Currently have a Linksys router WRK54G that I bought 3 yrs ago. I have created a home network, consisting of 2 different wireless laptops and a wireless printer. I have an internet cable modem connected to the router and the network works just fine.
In the future, my large community will have wireless internet connectivity, so I will no longer need the internet cable service, which I will cancel. The company that manages the community wireless internet connnectivity will get each computers MAC address so each can access their network to get on the internet.
My objective is to have each computer able to print to the wireless printer, as well on get on the internet. I have been told I will need to purchase a wireless router, to take the place of my current router. Is this true? If so, why is that necessary?
Why would you want to abandon your cable modem internet for a wireless equivalent? Has the pitch line included any alleged benefits? I assure you that speed and reliability of wireless will be much less.
If you're going for the wireless solution, you have two choices. You can buy a new wired router, since the WAN port of your unspecified model cable router is probably inaccessible and therefore cannot be used. In addition to the new router, you also might need a new "wireless client ethernet bridge" which may or may not be supplied by the wireless ISP.
The other option is to connect directly to the wireless network using the two laptops and wireless printer. If the ISP has client isolation enabled (highly likely), you will NOT be able to transfer files between laptops and printers.
Methinks you had better talk to the wireless ISP to see what they recommend.
I tend to agree with Jeff's sentiments on wired vs. wireless. If you choose to go the wireless route - I had to set something up similar as a fix while being on-site for a client in LA. The place I was staying only had wireless access points but I had multiple systems and VOIP to get functioning. My hack was to use cheap Buffalo router (WHR-G125) and upgrade the firmware to that of DD-WRT. Using it you can setup the router to act as both a router and a bridge so it will receive signals from the AP but also act as a router for all your devices. Take a look at
formatting link
My main hitch was that I had to relogon the on-site AP every day b/c their DHCP leases renews at 2AM every AM and I could not get DD-WRT to renew automatically (it has some provisions for it). It was not great but it functioned and I ran VOIP, Cisco VPN's through it without issues.
Hope this helps
Jerry Henzel Precipice Development Intl precipice.development can be contacted at gmail.com
Stick with cable and forget the new system. You already have a superior setup.
There are some ASUS G routers for a good price that have USB ports for printers. The Apple Airports also have USB printer ports. The older ones should be getting cheaper as N comes out.
Suggestion: Don't disconnect your cable service until after you've checked your unspecified WISP service speeds. I don't have a clue as to what technology you're using but the claims cable modem performance is rather suspicious. If it's Wi-Max based, you have a chance.
Wanna disclose the service and equipment vendors? It might help to do a sanity check before you jump.
It would also be interesting to ask the speed of the backhaul to the internet. That's a shared pipe where everyone in the community gets to fight over. Figure on 10:1 max overloading. So if you're expecting 5Mbits/sec speeds, and you have 100 customers, you'll need: 5Mbit/sec * 100 customers / 10 = 50Mbits/sec backhaul speed. That's an OC-3 at about $10,000 to 30,000/month from most telcos.
Incidentally, there are various companies selling ethernet over CATV coax solutions. If you have coax, and the community owns the coax, you don't need wireless.
The company we have contracted with is EPIC Wireless, out of West PAlm Beach, FL. Their home office is in New Jersey. They indicate a speed of 6 Mbps at our 15/mo cost and can also go to 12 Mbps at a higher cost. We have seen the network in action at a nearby community and it is much faster than the speed I currently get with Comcast cable. If we are not satisfied, we can just cancel and revert back to cable or DSL, so there seems to be no risk. There is no moneys up front. I have no idea on what technology they will be using.
The first thing that caught my eye was their use of WEP encryption. That means they're using Wi-Fi and possibly older hardware that only supports WEP. WEP has been cracked in literally seconds, is generally deemed insecure, and has been replaced by WPA and WPA2. Something is fishy here. Hopefully, it's just an out of date web site.
I can only find a few numbers from which I can make a determination if their promises are realistic. However, I can make a bad guess. If they're using 5.7GHz (802.11a), then to get a thruput of 6Mbits/sec, they will need to maintain at least a 12Mbit/sec connection. If there are (for example) 10 active users in the same airspace, each interfering with each other, you will need about 10 * 12Mbits/sec = 120Mbits/sec connection speed, which is impossible with 802.11a hardware. If the mesh network is going through more than one hop to get to a wired node, the maximum thruput will suffer. Therefore, to get 6Mbits/sec thruput through 3 hops, you need at least an 18Mbits/sec wireless connection. That's possible with strong signals.
The system apparently uses a mesh network.
So there's no misunderstanding, I consider most single channel mesh networks to be an abomination and an engineering nightmare. See:
and especially:
Note that the packet loss was 50% or more and that average thruput was about 0.5Mbits/sec. Admittedly, this is with older hardware and there has been some progress, but 802.11 and its problems haven't changed. Details on request.
They have other systems installed. Has anyone bothered to call any of their existing customers to confirm these claims? I would be really interested and impressed if they can do it. Most municipal mesh networks promise perhaps 0.5Mbits/sec. The few I've played with barely can do that.
Looking at:
They currently show "220 users downloaded 6.41 GB in the last day". Doing the math, that's 6.4Gbytes * 8 bits/byte / 220 users = 232 Mbits per user per day 232 Mbits per user per day / 86400 seconds/day = 2.7Kbits/sec avg. Seems kinda low for that number of users. It's unfortunately a distorted calculation as there's really not enough numbers on the web page to show performance.
You might want to ask if the graph is in kbits/sec or kBytes/sec.
Ok, there's hope. I would really like to be proven wrong about my opinion of mesh networks. Did you actually see it demonstrated with a paying user, or with a demo computer? It's easy enough to tweak the system to give priority to a specific MAC address and thus produce spectacular performance results.
Sounds good to me. I had a customer try that with the local cable operator (Comcast). Not only was he reconnected without penalty, but they gave him some promotional rate for a month or two for coming back.
I can guess a few things from the web pile, but if it's a mesh system, it's no better than any of the municipal networks proposed by various politicians. However, if you have a working system nearby, with a collection of satisfied customers, and no risk of losing your cable connection, by all means, try it and see what happens.
Incidentally, reading the FAQ, it implies that you are expected to connect directly to the system from your two laptops. That will be a problem if you want to transfer files between laptops or talk to the wireless printer. It can be handled with a wired router and wireless client bridge adapter, but you'll probably need to discuss this with Epic Wireless before purchasing anything new. The FAQ recommends a "wireless router" which is kinda odd since most such devices do NOT have a client mode. One thing for sure, your cable modem will be useless because of lack of access to the connection between the modem and router sections.
Glad you took time to look up their web site. Since they suggested we look at it, I don't think it is out of date. They also check for MAC address of the computer. We will have to ask them why they use WEP, and not WPA
We checked out another community where their network was operational by going to the community and talking to a few residents, especially the President of the Board and the resident who led the committee's effort. They were were happy with the service. I took my laptop there and logged into the network at the clubhouse. I was able to connect immediately, and was able to get faster internet response than I can get using my current internet provider, Comcast.
That is exactly what we will do. There are several communities with
600-1000 homes and it seems like WIFI in communities is a thing of the future. The advantage is cost, not the fact that it is WIFI. Again, since if the new system does not perform and / or is not maintained as promised, we have the option of cancelling and either getting a new company or going back to a cable or DSL company.
We were told that if we want to continue to have more than 1 computer networked, along with a network printer, we will need a special wireless router, which would cost about $50. At this time, I don't know about what kind of router that is, but my existent Linksys router model WRK54G will not be useable.
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