Depends on the speed you need. If 11 Mbps is okay, consider this.. A lot of places had 802.11b and are upgrading to g.. I usually find a few b wap/routers that are being replaced with b/g's, and run a cat5 cable from one to the other.. Same ssid etc and it repeats in low signal areas
How close is the free hot spot to the basement? If fairly close, methinks just running a very long coax cable with antenna above ground will work. I did that a few years ago to get coverage to an underground garage. Nothing would penetrate the concrete ceiling. T'was about 100ft of cheezy Radio Shack RG-6/u CATV coax (all I could find) to a WAP11. The loss was something like -25dB but it was sufficient to get a useable signal. Finding a way to snake the cable through was the difficult part.
Of course, using repeaters and WDS is possible. The trick is to make sure you have a reliable path between the hot spot and the front apartment, and then between the front apartment and the basement apartment.
Since this is essentially all in one building, the basic idea would be to install a client radio on the first floor, and somehow move data between it and the basement apartment. Some alternatives (in order of increasing desperation):
A friend is in a basement apartment at the back of an apartment building. From the street in front, there is a free public WAP available. I had thought about a client radio out front, wired back to the apartment, but then I started thinking about what wireless device would be necessary in the apartment for wireless use in the apartment.
Would this be a pair of wireless bridges, wired together?
It might be possible to use a repeater in the front apartment of a friend and no second device in the target apartment, but I thought putting a second device in the back apartment would be worthwhile.
I didn't track down the actual location of the SSID "de-facto-open" on moving day, but it had a strong signal at the street, poor signal in the parking lot, implying that it was down the street the other way, and didn't appear on NetStumbler at all inside the building at the basement level.
There was a WEP-protected signal "2wire495" that would be usable in the basement. There are six "2wireNNN" in the vicinity. I assume these are SBC home networking. If I tracked "495" down, maybe they would share.
I suppose test one would be to toss a USB dongle out the window into the unused narrow alley.
Then the laptop becomes tethered in the building. While I'm at it, I'd like to free up the laptop. There might be a free shot through the storage area in front of this apartment to the front of the building. I didn't check if a cable could be run, or maybe even an easy wifi repeater shot.
Hotspot to front apartment shows 65dB in Netstumbler with just the laptop and WG511 card. If an antenna is needed there, that would be simple enough. I might take a router that I have and put it in the front apartment, and see what that does to the basement, just as a signal test, not connected to the internet at all.
If I do a repeater, I understand that would drop the feed to 50% speed, but does it harm the original hotspot speed?
Any of the connection notions are possible. The most feasible might be to put a "client radio" in the front apartment and run 10 BaseT to the basement and plug it in, whether that is a separate cable or stolen wiring. What is that "client radio" by manufacturer model? Netgear ME103?
Yep. That would be a good first effort. The signal will bounce around the alley a bit and might make it to the hot spot. It's worth a try.
Sheesh. You didn't say it was suppose to be mobile. Well, add another access point in the basement. One upstairs in client mode to connect to the hot spot. One downstairs in access point mode to deal with the laptop.
Nope. I screwed up badly when I previous claimed that it cut the DSL or cable modem bandwidth in half. It doesn't. It cuts the wireless speed in half. So, if you get an 11Mbit/sec association speed, you'll get about 5mbits/sec thruput. Cut that in half with a repeater to
2.5Mbits/sec. That's still faster than the usual 1.5Mbits/sec DSL speed. It might slow down a 3mbit/sec cable connection.Most older hot spots are 802.11b where the above numbers apply. The newer ones use 802.11g. The wireless speed is much faster, which means the 50% perfomance hit has even less effect.
The ME103 is a wireless access point with apparently (not sure) no client mode. The upstairs box will need to have a client mode to connect to the hot spot. Off the top of my head, any of the "game adapter" boxes, WAP11, WAP54G, WRT54G with alternative firmware, DWL-900AP+, and DI-2100 have a client mode.
The downstairs access point can be almost any access point or wireless router used as an access point. I kinda like the WRT54G.
Right. Cooperation is the problem. The hot spot would have to list the ME103 in it's WDS MAC address list. That's not going to happen. However, in client mode, that's not a problem.
That's the Linksys term. The idea is to connect Playstation and such boxes to an access point. They'll work as well to a hot spot. Some of them (i.e WET11) will bridge more than one MAC address allowing the connection of more than one Playstation. I don't know how they do that. In any case, they are just ethernet to wireless bridges also known as client adapters.
Most game machines are really PC's in disguise. I suggest you stick with something that can attach an external antenna such as a WAP11 or WAP54G.
Yep, something like that. I think running the CAT5 cable is going to be the major challenge. Incidentally, the WAP54G is a good choice because the power supply can be literally anything from about 4VDC to perhaps 15VDC. Losses in the CAT5 cable can (almost) be ignored. Just borrow a pair of wires from the CAT5 cable and connect it to the power connector and wall wart at each end. No fancy PoE adapter required. Can't do that with the WAP11 because it doesn't have wide range switching regulator.
You have this thing about USB. Well, it has its place but I'm always running out of overpriced cable extensions when I use USB.
Oh, neato. Transmitter hunting is so much fun. Imagine someone banging on your door, carrying a weird looking antenna array, a pile of electronics, and laptop, and then asking to "borrow" the bandwidth. I actually did something like that once and got the door slammed in my face. Leave the hardware somewhere else. People tend to think I'm either a terrorist or government agent. (20 years ago, it was either an alien or foreign agent, so I think we have some progress).
;-)
The ME103 has WDS for bridging and repeating. I thought that was the buzzword I was after. But that would require cooperation from the hotspot, if I read their docs correctly.
And why are they called "game adapter"? Netgear doesn't even mention the possibility of connecting a PC. That's left for the USB adapters. Linksys has "both" wireless-ethernet bridges and game adapters. But the game adapter doesn't mention PCs. WGA11B Game - $59, WET11 - $64.
So a game adapter, a chunk of cable and an access point is the wireless-wired-wireless re-radiator that I was thinking of initially.
I think I'm going to give up the untethered look. Step one, my usb dongle out the window into the alley. Step two, my usb dongle on active USB cable extenders to the front of the building. Step three, a gaming adapter at the front of the building.
Side possibility, locating and cooperating with the "2wire" user that provides adequate WEP signal already.
I already have the USB dongle, but you're right. If I give that one up, I'll be forced to buy another one... I use mine for adhoc at sites that only have one PC and no NIC. Three active cable for the cheap USB dongle put the kit up to the price of an ethernet bridge.
I think I'm headed for a game adapter and cat5... I think I can string it through the basement storage area. I might be able to snag power close by. I don't know about openings in the building skin. It's old, so it's probably plaster and stucco on chicken wire with wrought iron air grills.
The WAP54G data sheet doesn't mention client mode. In the users guide under "Access Point Client mode" it says "the remote access point must be a second Linksys Wireless Network Access Point". Does it connect to any access point? Are there other boxes that you know of that have the same flexibility in power input?
If I located the proper apartment, I would ask for an introduction from the building manager, who is a friend.
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