Setting up a bridge

I'm thinking about setting up a point to point bridge so that I can get internet access to another building.

What additional hardware do I need to plug into the remote bridge, and how is it connected? I'm thinking I need to plug an access point into the remote bridge using an ethernet cable. Is this correct?

Would it be possible for the remote bride to also be an access point, eliminating the need for the AP at the remote end?

Thanks.

Reply to
Jim
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"Jim" hath wroth:

What's the distance and how fast (thruput) were you expecting? Do you have line of sight? Can you install high gain antennas? Any potential for 2.4GHz interference along the line of sight? Got a price limit? Need roof access, building permits, landlords permission, etc?

Nothing but power and ethernet. What I think you're describing is a "transparent bridge" which will pass more than one MAC address. Wi-Fi is all bridging so IP addresses and routeing are not involved. Some of the bottom of the line bridges limit the number of MAC addresses that can be bridged so count your boxes.

I'll assume that you want to redistribute the connection in the remote building with wireless. This can be done if the added access point is on a different channel (to avoid mutual inteference). A cross-over ethernet cable and you're done.

Yes. Google for WDS (Wireless Distribution Service) which allows an access point or wireless router to simultanously allow client connections and also act as a transparent bridge. The WDS feature is not very well standardized so you'll need to have the same hardware on both ends of the link. WDS also cuts the maximum throughput in half for the wireless connections, so there may be a performance issue.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

On Wed, 19 Jul 2006 08:10:44 -0700 Jeff Liebermann wrote: | Yes. Google for WDS (Wireless Distribution Service) which allows an | access point or wireless router to simultanously allow client | connections and also act as a transparent bridge. The WDS feature is | not very well standardized so you'll need to have the same hardware on | both ends of the link. WDS also cuts the maximum throughput in half | for the wireless connections, so there may be a performance issue.

Is that because it would be receiving, then retransmitting, taking twice the bandwidth*time for each bit/packet?

In my case (already described better in another thread) it seems what I need is something that can _be_ a client to talk to the wireless router that connects to the DSL, and also talk _to_ a client (wireless printer) but not actually interconnect those two. So there would not need to be any retransmitting. That's why it seems WDS is overkill for me. But if it's the only way to get one box that can talk _as_ a client in some cases and talk _to_ a client in other cases, then I guess that's what I need.

If I have an office with staff working with laptops, each with a wireless card, can those wireless cards talk _directly_ to each other? If not, then does that mean everything is going in, and then back out, through an access point, thus doubling the air time and being the same issue as the WDS?

Reply to
phil-news-nospam

snipped-for-privacy@ipal.net hath wroth:

Bingo. That's the problem. Only one transmitter can be on the air at a time in a given airspace. So, everything gets sent over and over again for each hop. That's why I really hate mesh networks. They're very inefficient of scarce airtime.

However, it's not a horrible as it sounds. Let's say you have a

1.5Mbit/sec DSL connection. The wireless typically will connect at perhaps 24Mbits/sec. That will yield about 12Mbit/sec thruput. If the WDS repeater is stuffed in between, the maximum thruput drops from 12Mbits/sec to perhaps 6Mbits/sec (usually less). However, 6Mbits/sec is still faster than 1.5Mbits/sec which is what limits the speed of the connection.
Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Look at it this way. I can pull off a miracle and make an access point or wireless router simultaneously act as an access point and bridge. Unless you wanna deal with two seperate boxes at each end, it can't be done without WDS.

Yes. It's called ad-hoc or peer to peer mode. No access point required. Topology is where every client is directly connected to every other client. The Microsoft incantation is limited to 9 devices.

The catch is that you cannot simultaneously run ad-hoc and infrastructure (access point) mode unless you run experimental software on each client.

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Yes if you're moving data from laptop to laptop. Unless you're running a game network, that's an unusual situation. More common is to put the servers, printers, and internet connections on an ethernet port connected to the access point. Going to/from a laptop to/from one of these is only one hop.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

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