Wireless Network for Pub?

dextor03

I've been asked by a friend of mine to look into setting up a free Wifi network for his pub. I'm a network administrator by trade and have set up a wireless network in our office. I'm sure with the larger amount of users and traffic your standard wireless access points will not be sufficient. Was wondering if anyone could recommend a bit of kit to set up a functional wifi network that could cater for a pub? Probably need 3-4 AP for good coverage. Any help is welcome and let me know if you need any additional info.

wandererz

What kind of budget?

dextor03

Willing to spend a few quid, a lot of the wireless networks at present in pubs are run off standard home routers and access points. He wants to have a strong network in place as he is looking into using handheld devices for food orders and would like to use the same network for both.

PogMoThoin

Take a look at Mikrotik and RouterOS, could be just what you need for hotspot and virtual AP's
http://www.mikrotik.com/
http://www.mikrotik.com/pdf/what_is_routeros.pdf
http://download2.mikrotik.com/Q4.pdf

They make a very decent affordable wireless router that does all sorts of routing protocols, vlans, virtual AP, hotspot etc
http://routerboard.com/RB751G-2HnD
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/MIKROTIK-Routerboard-RB751G-2HnD-WIRELESS-5xPORT-GIGABIT-ROUTER-RB-751G-2HnD-/200712003798?pt=COMP_EN_Routers&hash=item2ebb5e20d6#ht_4290wt_1037
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056718566

ronan45

How many devices (laptops, mobiles etc) can connect to your standard Home Wireless Router at the same time before it slows down? I have a UPC Thompson TWD-870.

PogMoThoin

ronan45 wrote: »

How many devices (laptops, mobiles etc) can connect to your standard Home Wireless Router at the same time before it slows down? I have a UPC Thompson TWD-870.

It's not the amount of users. One user can open enough connections (torrenting) to cripple a wireless router and not even use much bandwidth, a single torrent can have thousands of connections.

Cork24

The Last Comment is Right, it doesnt make a Difference how Strong the Signal is if one person comes into the pub and starts downloading Torrents,

and your have six other people Watching youtube Videos with 720p Selected, it will Crash the Network,

So if i was looking into a Pub Wifi Acess point, i would go with UPC 150Mb.

THe whole point to a Pub Access point is to keep it within the Pub Zone.. why have a Singal that the person across the road can gain access to.

One Router will do most..

Wifi routers allow up to 25 people, i dont think you will have 25 at one point in time on it.

PogMoThoin

With a decent router like a mikrotik you can limit the amount of open tcp connections and restrict bandwidth per connected device. You do not need to be giving much bandwidth to the public, a few hundred k is plenty, it's only supposed to be used for light browsing and email. It's best setup virtual ap's (wireless vlans) for staff devices without these restrictions.

dextor03

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Take a look at Mikrotik and RouterOS, could be just what you need for hotspot and virtual AP's
http://www.mikrotik.com/
http://www.mikrotik.com/pdf/what_is_routeros.pdf
http://download2.mikrotik.com/Q4.pdf

They make a very decent affordable wireless router that does all sorts of routing protocols, vlans, virtual AP, hotspot etc
http://routerboard.com/RB751G-2HnD
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/MIKROTIK-Routerboard-RB751G-2HnD-WIRELESS-5xPORT-GIGABIT-ROUTER-RB-751G-2HnD-/200712003798?pt=COMP_EN_Routers&hash=item2ebb5e20d6#ht_4290wt_1037
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056718566

Thanks PogMoThoin, that is very helpful. Looks like I will need about 4-5 to get full coverage. Will look to then limit the amount of connections and restrict bandwidth for each user once it's in place. I think the Hotspot feature might work also.

wandererz

The other question is: are you looking for open source or something that is supportable and/or that you have comeback on ?

Hate to ask these open ended questions but thats what you should be asking with every post so as to get the best roi.

dextor03

Thanks again PogMoThoin, what you suggested worked perfectly. Have a quick question about the hotspot. Users on mobile device have to log back on to the hotspot every time they try to access the net on their mobile devices. Any way to adjust this so they only need to log on once?

dextor03

dextor03 wrote: »

Thanks again PogMoThoin, what you suggested worked perfectly. Have a quick question about the hotspot. Users on mobile device have to log back on to the hotspot every time they try to access the net on their mobile devices. Any way to adjust this so they only need to log on once?

Sorted, increased the timeout limit and it's working perfectly now.

PogMoThoin

dextor03 wrote: »

Sorted, increased the timeout limit and it's working perfectly now.

I was thinking it would be something simple like that. I have not used hotspot so was unsure

gctest50

Like something straight from the Department of Awkwardness, you'd need to allow unrestricted access to apple.com or some ipads/iphones etc will connect to the wireless and then throw a hissy fit if they can't reach the mothership.
Bit like windows if you searched your pc for something it'd be off sending packets home.

ArseBurger

gctest50 wrote: »

you'd need to allow unrestricted access to apple.com or some ipads/iphones etc will connect to the wireless and then throw a hissy fit if they can't reach the mothership.

This is exactly why you would need to restrict such traffic.

OP> If your customer wants to run handhelds etc... as part of the business you should run multiple SSIDs. Consider using 5Ghz (802.1x access control) for on-net business and 2.4Ghz for public - for example.

Capt'n Midnight

ronan45 wrote: »

How many devices (laptops, mobiles etc) can connect to your standard Home Wireless Router at the same time before it slows down? I have a UPC Thompson TWD-870.

one rule of thumb is that a home router will keel over and die horribly if there are 30 connections. Power cycle it and it'll be OK for a short while and die again.

That's just connections. That's before you consider any of them using any traffic.




If using AP's don't have more than one on auto channel select or they will fight.


Disable wireless B support. This will reduce the chances of a long range connection from more than 300m outside. One client at 1Mb will take the same slice of time transferring 1MB as a client at 54Mb transerring 54MB (not excactly but you get the idea)


Given multiple access points with the same SSID do clients connect the the strongest signal or the fastest connection or the least noisy connection or does it depend on client software ?
Depending on which is more likely you could set up access points accordingly.

Not sure if should have a separate N router on N only, lots of bandwidth.

Have one on channel 13 - not everyone can use this channel but those that can may have less congestion.

On Wireless A the channels don't overlap so less issues.

PogMoThoin

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Given multiple access points with the same SSID do clients connect the the strongest signal or the fastest connection or the least noisy connection or does it depend on client software ?
Depending on which is more likely you could set up access points accordingly.

It seems to be by signal strength. In effect it works, but with different results depending on device and OS. My experience of this in the few places I've set it up has been hit and miss. It's not a flawless transition from AP to AP.

Windows is very poor, it will sometimes connect to a very weak AP even when a stronger signal is nearby and it does not roam smoothly, ie it can take a few mins to move to the new AP if any sort of traffic is passing. My Android phone fares out much better, it detects the strongest signal and seems to roam flawlessly. Incidentally, the same laptop running Fedora copes much better than Windows.