Need help setting up a roaming wireless network

Hello, this is my first time posting to these groups ... so please be gentle. =) Anyways, here's my situation: (I apologize if this is long winded, I just don't want to leave anything out)

I have a project to setup a roaming wireless network in our main office building which is only 2 floors, each of which is about the area of half of a football field, maybe a little larger. I will have one dedicated DSL line which will be completely separate from the rest of our network; we decided on this for security reasons because this wireless infrastructure will be primarily used by guests in the conference rooms. The DSL line will be available through one jack in the wall at the location of my choosing for the router to connect, but this can be changed if need be.

I have read other threads and it looks like I will need one router and multiple access points in order to obtain smooth roaming without connection loss/session interruption. These should be set on non-conflicting channels with the same SSID, subnet and WEP (which I will change frequently for minimal security, although this is separate from the network as stated above). Is this correct, or are there easier/better ways of going about this? Ideally, I would like to only give the users/guests a SSID and WEP in order to connect, then they could walk all over the office without losing connection.

My major questions are these (please try to be as specific as possible in the answers as it will help greatly):

(1) How in the heck will I connect all this stuff in order to get the true 'roaming' effect? I have seen posts stating that all the AP's must be hard wired into the one router, but that seems like ALOT of wiring and extra work just to obtain smooth roaming WiFi in the office. Let alone it would seem to defeat the purpose of 'wireless.' There has to be a way for all this to connect without having to run tons of new cable in the ceilings and walls. (2) Will I be able to disable the SSID broadcast and still obtain the roaming effect? I would like to keep the possibility of eavesdropping as minimal as possible. (3) Can you offer any advice on configuring the devices, or was I correct above? (4) With all these AP's running through one router I would think the load would be pretty heavy at times and I don't want this to crash or freeze during peak traffic, so what suggestions can you provide on hardware? A nice solid router and some decent AP's as suggestions would be great, unless I'm wrong about the required hardware, then please feel free to suggest otherwise. (We have approx 80 users in the office) I just want to avoid spending some our department's budget on equipment that I will not use, or even worse, on equipment that sucks.

All in all, I would really like this project to be a 'home-run' as it will be my first with this company. If the approach I am taking is wrong and there's a better method, then please inform me otherwise, as I would be happy to learn. Thanks in advance!

Reply to
derrick.williams
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I've made this work with Linksys WAP54g APs and a random router (twice), though not every client may do the same kind of 'seamless' roaming. I know you don't have any control over your guest clients, but I've had good luck with Intel 2200BG cards.

I'd use WPA, as it's easier to {set,change,publish} passphrases, and it's much more secure. If someone shows up with a laptop that doesn't have a WPA supplicant, too bad for them.

I'd only do it that way. It's possible to almost get something similar to mostly work properly most of the time using APs and repeaters, but it's going to be slow and buggy, and you mention that you want this to work flawlessly.

SSID broadcast doesn't increase security, and will cause problems roaming. Instead of seeing a better AP, the clients will wait till they've completely lost the far AP before searching for another one.

Linksys is nice, I've had trouble with every SOHO router hanging with too much traffic (OSLT), but that was with Aezurus running on a FIOS line, and I don't suspect you'll have many guests running file-sharing programs...

Stay far from DLink products. Far, far away. Run screaming when anyone mentions them, or you'll be doing way more of

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you want to. 8*)

Consider powering the APs with Power-Over-Ethernet solutions, so you can power cycle them all from a single location, you can have everything run off a single UPS, and you won't have to run/find power in the ceilings for the APs. Linksys POE solution isn't 802.3af compliant (thought they claim it is), but it's a lot cheaper than most other POE products, and as long as you keep it away from other non-POE hardware you should be safe.

Reply to
William P.N. Smith

Thanks for all the helpful information William! I think WPA may be a more secure and viable solution for me to use in this situation. By the way I really did LOL at that picture, even in the middle of the office. =) I do have a question about one portion though, since it seems I am having the most trouble finding a solution for connecting all the components.

This poses a small problem for me because I don't think I will be able to run CAT-5e cable all over our building in order to connect all the AP's to the router. Basically, it will be a random router plugged into the wall by a conference room and all the AP's will be spread around the building. The one jack the router uses will be a dedicated DSL line. Is there a way to get all of these devices connected without running ethernet cable everywhere? Perhaps any reliable wireless solutions of connecting the AP's to the router, or would that basically be a repeater? I have a bad feeling that these may be the only two options, unless there's some other way.

You mentioned that you have done this twice before ... did you manually run the cable from the router to the AP's? Was this a long distance? I am curious as to how others have tackled this task of connecting all the devices. I have heard that some offices have even had roaming between buildings, so how could they get it like that without running cable from the router in one building to the AP in another building? If it comes down to it though I will either make a bunch of cables myself and run them all over the place, or just forfeit the roaming and place routers at random jacks in the building. The roaming would be an impressive and convenient feature though. =)

Again, I really appreciate all the help you have provided!

Reply to
derrick.williams

Thanks for all the helpful information William! I think WPA may be a more secure and viable solution for me to use in this situation. By the way I really did LOL at that picture, even in the middle of the office. =) I do have a question about one portion though, since it seems I am having the most trouble finding a solution for connecting all the components.

This poses a small problem for me because I don't think I will be able to run CAT-5e cable all over our building in order to connect all the AP's to the router. Basically, it will be a random router plugged into the wall by a conference room and all the AP's will be spread around the building. The one jack the router uses will be a dedicated DSL line. Is there a way to get all of these devices connected without running ethernet cable everywhere? Perhaps any reliable wireless solutions of connecting the AP's to the router, or would that basically be a repeater? I have a bad feeling that these may be the only two options, unless there's some other way.

You mentioned that you have done this twice before ... did you manually run the cable from the router to the AP's? Was this a long distance? I am curious as to how others have tackled this task of connecting all the devices. I have heard that some offices have even had roaming between buildings, so how could they get it like that without running cable from the router in one building to the AP in another building? If it comes down to it though I will either make a bunch of cables myself and run them all over the place, or just forfeit the roaming and place routers at random jacks in the building. The roaming would be an impressive and convenient feature though. =)

Again, I really appreciate all the help you have provided!

Reply to
derrick.williams

[I wrote]

You don't need to run cables all over the building, you call an electrician or a data cabling company and tell them you want Cat5 drops all over the building in conference room ceilings and the like, and they should all terminate in this wiring closet where the DSL modem, the router, the PoE boxes, and lots of other things terminate. They run the wires, you just do the endpoints and connectors.

You really don't want to do this with wireless repeaters. It's going to be slow and problem-prone, everyone's going to hate it, and the guy who gets the job after you've run screaming is going to have to run wires everywhere. Just bite the bullet, put in the work order, and get the wires run.

If you want you can start slow, put the router and DSL modem in the wiring closet, and a single AP in the ceiling of the most important conference room. When it works and they like it, see how far it goes, and add another AP in another appropriate place. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Remember to give each AP a unique IP address, and that changing the WPA passphrase is going to involve changing it in each of your APs...

Too bad you are in SF, I could bid on it for you. 8*) Isn't Jeff in your area?

Reply to
William P.N. Smith

Awesome, thank you William. This was just the information I was looking for. I'll ask around and see who we have to come in and do the wiring for me. I'll also check with others in my department and see if I can't just get a few patch cables switched around for the jacks already in place ... maybe I can use existing wiring, rather than run a bunch of new stuff but I have to convince one of the network admins first.

Thanks again!

Reply to
derrick.williams

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