Hello!

I will be building a small network and would like some ideas from you regarding hardware and ideas how to achieve what I want.

Network diagram: So this is my network. I have a central location where my main line comes in. From here I will send it to the highgroud location and then from there to the clients... Highground(tallest building with clear line of sight) is 5-10m higher than clients locations...

Hardware: what to pick? I was thinking the following things:
Uplink location:
1x RB1100AHx2
1x SXT Lite 5

Highground:
1x RB433AH (in case I decide to cover some grounds around the building with 2.4GHz )
1x R52HN miniPCI
1x Omni antenna

Clients:
Have no idea:) Everything will be mounted outdoor on around 5-10m height. I need to connect to Highground 5GHz link and cover the clients area(cca 50x50m) with 2.4GHz link. APs are located at the end of the area and need to cover MAX 180°. What would you recommend?

I was thinking SXT for uplink and something for covering the area, but I have no idea what.

Any ideas on other parts?

As far as network goes, I would like to have at least 2 VLAN's, one for management and one for clients. There might be a need for more VLANs in the future. As far as I can see, SXT doesn't allow VirtualAPs.
Is it possible to transmit VLANs without that function? How?

Thanks, Matej

Re-think the omni antenna for main ap. In case you insist on omni, use omnitk as main ap. For its uplink use 2x sxt lite 5 as bridge to your main router. For cpe another sxt lite5 is good. In case you need 2.4g omni, use groove with L4. If you modify omnitik a bit, you can use one power supply and power also sxt and groove from omnitik. The aim is to make it as easy as it can be. And you can buy sixpack of sxt lite with free omnitik.

What do you recommend instead of omni for the main AP and why do you think omni is a poor choice?
In case I go with Omnitik for main AP, I can then use Groove for all aditional 2.4g links around the 'highpoint'. I think that might be cheaper then 433 with addon cards.
Why would I need to modify the Omnitik to power the Groove? Doesn't Omnitik have POE outs on ports 2-5? Manuals says it can power 500mA per port and Groove only consume 190mA, so we should be good?
Now that I checked specs for a bundle, the Omnitik that comes with the bundle doesn't have POE outputs:( Was that the modification you talked about?

So I pick a sixpack of SXT's with Omnitik and I get a nice backbone bundle. Now what to use for 2.4G to cover client's areas... Grooves with omni/sector.
Since Grooves with omni would be mounted 5-10m above the ground, won't the coverage be poor with omni? Vertical pattern is a lot narrower compared to horizontal, right?

How about VLAN's over backbone network. Is it possible, even though SXT's only have L3 license?
What's the procedure?

Matej

I found some sites describing modification for non-POE Omnitik's, so I know what you meant:) It has it's down points, like no monitoring or powering off in case of short circuit, but my lines will be short, so it's not likely for that to happen.

On client's locations I'm thinking of using SXT for connection to backbone and Groove for onsite coverage. What would be the simplest option to power that? Is there a "double sided" POE injector, which can inject power to both UTP connectors, so I can power the SXT and Groove?

For the main router I was looking at RB1100AHx2, but now I'm thinking that might be a bit of an overkill... My uplink to my ISP is 10/5MBit and there usually won't be many users on the network. I estimate 10-15 at any time, but could spike up to 50-100 in case of an event. But those will be just connected users(mobile phones) with little to no traffic(mostly idling, maybe sending some pictures/fb/,...). Would RB2011UIAS-RM be enough?

How many users can a single Groove AP take? 20? 30? 50?
How much active users can it take?

Matej

Locations that I need to cover look like this:

- location 1: AP is located under the roof of the building, which is located 5m from the area I have to cover - location 2: AP is located under the roof, 4-5m above ground For there locations I wanted to use GrooveA with 2.4G omni antenna.

I also got another offer from a local supplier to cover those area with RF element Sector 2-120 antennas. Given the locations of my AP, I think omni antenna would be a better choice. I don't think it's worth putting powerful sector antennas there, when you have phones(90%) and laptops with poor transmit power on the other end. What do you think?

Hi,
sorry for delay, I would go thru your questions one-by-one:

What do you recommend instead of omni for the main AP and why do you think omni is a poor choice?

It depends. I am not strictly against omni antennas. In case you have only few clients all around (let say for sure 15-20, even it could handle more, you should expect some problems everytime), not so far (max 1km) and in approximatelly the same height, than omni antenna in clear environment would work fine. So I would vote for omnitik. In case you have more clients then it is better to use sectors. Now the RBSXTG-5HPnD-SAr2 looks good for this. It is 90degree sector. In case you have clients too far, have a look at RBSXTG-5HPnD-HGr2.
Omni is poor choice because it accepts interference from all around. And you transmitt to everywhere. So you ineffectively consume the band even it otherwise could be used for other links. By you or the others. So it means that you create the interference. Does not matter if you are alone all around, but when also others transmit on the same channel, you have problems. An them also. Using well shielded sectors prevents this situation. Other reasons are derived from this. Using sectors means better thoughput for clients, lower pings and generaly better service. Of course, there have to be enough clients to pay for this "luxury".

In case I go with Omnitik for main AP, I can then use Groove for all aditional 2.4g links around the 'highpoint'. I think that might be cheaper then 433 with addon cards.

For sure it will be cheaper and you got something that you can place directly on mast with no hassle with pigtails and antennas.

Why would I need to modify the Omnitik to power the Groove? Doesn't Omnitik have POE outs on ports 2-5? Manuals says it can power 500mA per port and Groove only consume 190mA, so we should be good?

In case you use the UPA version, it has the poe out. But you should read some threads here to have a picture how it works. I do not have own experience with omnitik UPA, I use only non-poe-out omnitiks with small modification to be able to power other devices thru it.
When you power such devices, you have always to calculate with more amps than you just read from specifications. You will have loss on wires and connectors and for power supply it is not safe to work at maximum rated values. Therefore it is better to use much bigger power supply even it seems it is not necessary.

Now that I checked specs for a bundle, the Omnitik that comes with the bundle doesn't have POE outputs:( Was that the modification you talked about?

Check this my way how I am doing it: http://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php ... er#p408110 There are also other ways, more "elegant", but for the current, the shortest way is the best way I guess.

How about VLAN's over backbone network. Is it possible, even though SXT's only have L3 license?
What's the procedure?

Not problem at all, check this: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Li ... nse_Levels

I found some sites describing modification for non-POE Omnitik's, so I know what you meant:) It has it's down points, like no monitoring or powering off in case of short circuit, but my lines will be short, so it's not likely for that to happen.

Yes. Everything has its pros and cons. You have to decide. Well, why not to use OmnitikUPA and if any problem occurs with poe, you can just solder it. It will work reliably but you loose control and monitoring function. You can try. My modification has the ability to use whatever port to power in and all others to power out. It could be big advantage sometimes. For example, if one port become damaged - you can just use other in the same way with correction of configuration only.

On client's locations I'm thinking of using SXT for connection to backbone and Groove for onsite coverage. What would be the simplest option to power that? Is there a "double sided" POE injector, which can inject power to both UTP connectors, so I can power the SXT and Groove?

Well, on client side I would expect that the coverage for his devices should be mainly indoor. And some devices will be connected by wires (as the do not move - big computers, TVs and so..). Only notebooks and mobiles would be connected by wifi. Therefore I would use some "home" wifi device, e.g. RB951Ui-2HnD. And you can power the SXT client directly from it by POE.

For the main router I was looking at RB1100AHx2, but now I'm thinking that might be a bit of an overkill... My uplink to my ISP is 10/5MBit and there usually won't be many users on the network. I estimate 10-15 at any time, but could spike up to 50-100 in case of an event. But those will be just connected users(mobile phones) with little to no traffic(mostly idling, maybe sending some pictures/fb/,...). Would RB2011UIAS-RM be enough?

This is really hard to say. Generally, the overkill for sure is better that underestimate. Maybe it could be overkill today, but tomorrow you will be glad that you do not have to change the main router due to performance problems. Generally the sizing depends on many factors - number of clients and the way how you handle them, how complicated rules you use in the routing and firewall and how many are they. If you do it in easy way, with no radius, no hotspot, no queues, no traffic shaping, no QOS, just by the connect-and-surf approach and you allow to all clients to use whatever bandwidth they want, then RB2011 is enough. But you should expect than if two clients will run torrents with many connections, than others will not be able to even surf main page of google. But you can implement rules against, and rules for traffic shaping, and rules for prioritization, and rules, and rules... So it depends on quality of service you would like to provide to your clients.

How many users can a single Groove AP take? 20? 30? 50?
How much active users can it take?

It depends on actual wireless situation. If you count with perfectly aligned and regulated antennas, than 30 for sure. If you count with mobile phones, well, it is impossible to say. Imagine that you have connected five mobiles, three have good connection, one worse and the last is almost on the level of noise. It will still connect and disconnect so it will disturb your network. When the worse one will start to exchange data with ap, it will communicate on very low speed with need of many retransmitions (low CCQ). This will also affect the others, because they need to wait. Simple solution for this is to disallow poor connections and force to disconnect poor clients. But they will try again, as your ap shows to them the best signal. Then you have to place more APs around to make also other connection possibilities for such clients - as they move. Search the forum, I saw some discussions with this topic here... If you do some actions against the poor clients, you can have 15-20 simultanously connected clients. If they will not use torrent clients or such things, it could perform good.

The question is, what area you would like to cover for mobiles. If it is something like concert hall, or open space office or outdoor place it deserves its own approach. Maybe again the sector APs should take place instead of omni.

Try to describe your situation more precisely.

Locations that I need to cover look like this:

- location 1: AP is located under the roof of the building, which is located 5m from the area I have to cover

lokacija1-st.jpg

- location 2: AP is located under the roof, 4-5m above ground

lokacija1-bs.jpg

For there locations I wanted to use GrooveA with 2.4G omni antenna.

I also got another offer from a local supplier to cover those area with RF element Sector 2-120 antennas. Given the locations of my AP, I think omni antenna would be a better choice. I don't think it's worth putting powerful sector antennas there, when you have phones(90%) and laptops with poor transmit power on the other end. What do you think?

You have added pictures meanwhile. Good. I would use sectors, especially due to low transmit power of clients. Maybe two sectors with different frequency per each place - depends on number of devices you would like to serve there...

WOW! Now that's a reply:) Thank you sooo much for all the infos!

First let me describe my project a bit, just to be more clear on what I want to achieve... I live in a small town which we want to cover with free hotspot wifi. Not the whole town, just a few important spots where tourists and people spent most of their time. Currently, we need to cover 3 areas like the one on the pictures above. So we have our main building where WAN link comes in, "high ground" building which will host Omnitik and to which all other locations will connect. It's the only option to have a clear line of sight. Currently, I need to cover cca 180° radius from "high ground" building to see all clients. They also aren't all in the same height. Main backbone link is in the same height, 500m away. Clients are 5-10m lower and 80-200m away.

Given the small number of clients, silent area(I think I only catch 1-2 5GHz links on high-point location, both from indoor routers) and relatively wide area to cover, do you think OmniTIK would still work for me? It's also cheaper than buying Sector+RB+mPCI wifi card. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind going sector way if it's worth it.

I saw your way of modifying Omnitik to have POE out and it doesn't look hard to do:) I know I lose some options compared to UPA version, but then again, in case I need to reset another device connected on OmniTIK, I can just restart Omnitik, since it's power adapter is on an easily reached place.

How about VLAN's over backbone network. Is it possible, even though SXT's only have L3 license?
What's the procedure?

Not problem at all, check this: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Li ... nse_Levels

Can you tell me what you thought there? What should I look at here? I'm new to VLAN's over WLAN networks...

On client's locations I'm thinking of using SXT for connection to backbone and Groove for onsite coverage. What would be the simplest option to power that? Is there a "double sided" POE injector, which can inject power to both UTP connectors, so I can power the SXT and Groove?

Well, on client side I would expect that the coverage for his devices should be mainly indoor. And some devices will be connected by wires (as the do not move - big computers, TVs and so..). Only notebooks and mobiles would be connected by wifi. Therefore I would use some "home" wifi device, e.g. RB951Ui-2HnD. And you can power the SXT client directly from it by POE.

As I described earlier, my "clients" will actually be public outdoor locations in town. Equipment will be mounted on certain houses where I will have access to electricity. That is why I need a "both-side" POE injector.

About RB2011UIAS-RM vs. RB1100AHx2. Since this will be a public wifi, I will try to do my best to cancel all torrent traffic. We will probably start with very little limited traffic control and go on from there, depending on usage. We will definitely set up some queues for some QoS(web, voip, mail and such before other non-important traffic). But better to be safe then sorry, so why not start with a RB1100 and just be safe for the foreseeable future:)

As far as 2.4G coverage goes. You now have some idea of what I want to achieve on locations. When you say there can be 20 mobile clients connected to one AP, does it matter if clients make any traffic or if they idle? I mean, can there be 50 idling clients connected and 20 actually using wifi or is the limit the number of connections on it self(with or without traffic)? I can see mobile devices trying to connect on it own, even when users wont be using wifi. I so plan to set some rules to disconnect clients when their signal is too poor.

Why would you recommend sectors instead of omni's for poor signal devices? Because beams are more focused and devices move from one antenna to another more quickly? But don't we have another problem here then, since sectors have longer range and can pick up noise from further away?

MAtej

Hi again.
Thank you for your appreciation. You can hit karma + button if you would like. It is just for info, I hate the karma begging posts, but it is here so you can use it. .

Take my comments as some kind of hints or topics for your own thinking about. Finaly, you will build and operate the network.

I would like to dedicate few lines to finance first. Especially, when you write that the connectivity will be free for everyone, there must be some financial model that will pay such "free public service". Maybe you should also shortly describe it. I am asking for that because you also have to think on the way how to cover the cost and build the network topology that would support this as much as possible. Even maybe public authority would donate you (for some time - nothing is forever), there will be some criteria that should be met. And your network should be able to meet the criteria. And, what is worse, you have to be prepaired for the moment when money pipe will be closed.

This is also linked to the black passangers problems. Did you think about what to do with locals that connect to your acesspoints with powerfull radios and overscream the mobiles? Once you provide such public wifi, I personally would be one of the firsts that will connect to your accesspoints and try to suck as much connectivity as possible.

Currently, we need to cover 3 areas like the one on the pictures above. So we have our main building where WAN link comes in, "high ground" building which will host Omnitik and to which all other locations will connect. It's the only option to have a clear line of sight. Currently, I need to cover cca 180° radius from "high ground" building to see all clients. They also aren't all in the same height. Main backbone link is in the same height, 500m away. Clients are 5-10m lower and 80-200m away.

Given the small number of clients, silent area(I think I only catch 1-2 5GHz links on high-point location, both from indoor routers) and relatively wide area to cover, do you think OmniTIK would still work for me? It's also cheaper than buying Sector+RB+mPCI wifi card. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind going sector way if it's worth it.

Well. At described situation the omnitik can work good. At least for the beginning. Maybe later, if there will be more 5GHz fixed clients, you could expand/add some panel/sector antenna to serve the most utilized sector and off-load the omnitik which still can keep other all-around widely spread clients. This is the main point for connectivity distribution, as I understood. Anyway, the final speed of traffic is really small - you wrote about 10/5MBit/s. Therefore there is no need for high throughput. I would suggest to use as narrow band as possible and as far from used frequecies as possible. You will prevent interference and keep other channels for your other connections.

I saw your way of modifying Omnitik to have POE out and it doesn't look hard to do:) I know I lose some options compared to UPA version, but then again, in case I need to reset another device connected on OmniTIK, I can just restart Omnitik, since it's power adapter is on an easily reached place.

For the first look it looks a bit easier than it is. But everyone has to try it on his own. . Main problem is not to put too much solder on the wires but you have to boil it well. Test every contact by trying to tear it off. Of course, you do not have to solder all ports. There are also other options how to modify the poe out of omnitik, you should consider them also.

If you just restart the omnitik, it will not have influence on other devices. Only power cycling by unplugging the power supply will power cycle all connected devices at once. This is why you should also overlarge the power supply, because device booting can take much power than "normal" operation.

Can you tell me what you thought there? What should I look at here? I'm new to VLAN's over WLAN networks...

Sure. The link to wiki should show you that there is no problem with VLANs when using L3 licenced devices. Do you see? (Unlimited VLAN interfaces starting L3)

As I described earlier, my "clients" will actually be public outdoor locations in town. Equipment will be mounted on certain houses where I will have access to electricity. That is why I need a "both-side" POE injector.

Yes. This was written meanwhile or I udrestood it later. There are multiported POE injectors, you can use them. Or you can solder additional connectors to the adapter and use standard individual POE injectors included with devices. Also you can use the multiconnector fork (one female, many male connectors) instead of soldering. Anyway, you will maybe need to connect the devices together by switch (if more than two on site). Therefore it would be smart to put directly some switch there and power everything from it. I would suggest to use RB750UP for this purpose or to RB750 and solder it in the same way like omnitik. They are cheap (10-20 USD second hand) and work well. Of course, you have to put according power supply. I use old notebook supplies for this purpose. They are rated at 18-22V normally and with 3-5A output. And rock solid, with typical consumption of such place around 1-1,5A they do not heat and hold for ages.

About RB2011UIAS-RM vs. RB1100AHx2. Since this will be a public wifi, I will try to do my best to cancel all torrent traffic. We will probably start with very little limited traffic control and go on from there, depending on usage. We will definitely set up some queues for some QoS(web, voip, mail and such before other non-important traffic). But better to be safe then sorry, so why not start with a RB1100 and just be safe for the foreseeable future:)

Exactly. This will not have major influence on the budget. And as I understand your situation more and more, you will need tons of firewall rules, queues and other stuff that will slow the traffic processing. The RB1100AHx2 seems to be approximately 5times more powerfull than RB2011. RB2011 is really good for small office or home network where all clients are under control but not for such exposed public network.

As far as 2.4G coverage goes. You now have some idea of what I want to achieve on locations. When you say there can be 20 mobile clients connected to one AP, does it matter if clients make any traffic or if they idle? I mean, can there be 50 idling clients connected and 20 actually using wifi or is the limit the number of connections on it self(with or without traffic)? I can see mobile devices trying to connect on it own, even when users wont be using wifi. I so plan to set some rules to disconnect clients when their signal is too poor.

Yes, it does matter. You can see some posts here on the forum that people complain about poor wifi throughput and finally the reason is one client that makes the AP to transmit slowly and what is worse, to retransmit again and again. As I wrote before, such client has to be disconnected in order to keep others to communicate well. There is also another problem linked with this. Even the client seems to transmitt at good power, he can have problems with reception. This is something that you do not see on signal level. I have tried to solve similar situation (reverse, client had poor power, but heared well, both could happen). First I implemented the script that disconnected weakly transmitting clients. This client immediatelly tried to reconnect. As sript runs regularly, it can catch accidentally also other clients that just do not transmit with enough power because they do not need it (e.g. WMM influence, I guess or other power saving feature implanted in smartphones). So therefore I was not happy with such behaviour and I needed to serve the worse client also. So I added additional ap closer to it. Therefore I think that you should have more sectors on covered areas to allow connections of more clients if necessary and to provide them enough time for communication. And to lower the risk of problems with weak clients. Maybe also forced disconnections at certain signal level could help you in case you will have such problems (and I bet you will).

None will tell you how much mobiles will your APs hanlde. You will just try and see. But be prepaired to put additional sectors in case it will be needed.

Why would you recommend sectors instead of omni's for poor signal devices? Because beams are more focused and devices move from one antenna to another more quickly? But don't we have another problem here then, since sectors have longer range and can pick up noise from further away?

It is always a trade off. Advantage of sectors is that they do not catch interference from side or backwards. This is really huge advantage against omnis. Next, they can produce more clear signal for the clients within their range.

Just make a test. Take some AP, put it on the window of the house (similar place like you would like to use), attach an omni antena, take few mobiles (yours, friends, 3-5 will be enough) connect them to AP, run bandwidth test within 3m distance simultaneously. Then go 30m away from the window and run bandwidth test again. Maybe even 30m will be too much. Than connect some panel antena to AP and do the same. It is cheap test, maybe it will not cost you a penny, but will give you an experience. You should test more scenarios (involve 2 friends, one at 3m distance, at 10m distance and at 20m distance and test simultaneously). Looking at clients CCQ and signal quality and rates will be interresting. After that imagine that you wanted to serve dozens of mobiles within 50m range by omni! Maybe youtube would be good - but everytime run different video on all mobiles.

Now the noise of sectors. Well, you can again fight against the noise a bit. Have you seen the sector antennas of mobile operators? Have you thought about why they are tilted upwards even the clients are on the ground? In case you will have problems with noise of other APs and frequency change will not help, try to tilt the sector antenna up a bit. It will reduce the signal strenght of all devices a bit, but it will also lower the noise. May not help everytime, but could be usefull to know and try it. This cannot be done with omni.

Other thing. If you use groove, it has only one chain. Many mobiles have two chains today and of course they are never perfectly aligned towards your antena, so using dual polarity 2x2 mimo AP will be also very beneficial. Therefoe SXT G-2HnD or QRT-2 could be your candidates. But they have gigabit ethernet, and I am in dobts if they would accept 100mbit POE from RB750... Also basebox would be an option, but it needs a pigtail and an antenna and has gigabit also. Maybe the 100mbit POE extractor and gigabit POE injector could be the solution for gigabit devices powered from RB750, or multiPOE or so. Just an idea, I have not made it yet.


I have one desire. Woud it be possible that you can share with me (personally or publicly here on the forum, if you do not mind) how you proceed with network building, including the problem descriptions and their solutions you will face? And pictures, of course?

Karma it is:) I'm not used to forums having karma buttons, so I forget:)

As far as financing goes, our town will be paying for the hardware and there will be a contract for maintaining the system and keeping it up and working. They want to stay modern and offer a free wifi to tourists and other users and with the help of a hotspot portal, promote local offerings and such. There are ideas to further upgrade the whole thing with virtual tourist guide, where wifi access will be needed. We also already have QR codes on all important tourists points were users can scan it and they are forwarded to a web page describing the point. Local users can use 3G connectivity, but tourist would preffer wifi, since roamings are expensive. So I guess financing is not my main concern. So I guess I/we want a good solution, but at the same time I need to keep in mind that we are a small town that doesn't have unlimited budget. That is why we want to make it as good as possible for our needs, but not spend a fortune on it.

Now that you mentioned black passengers, I'm thinking about it:) On the other hand, broadband and fast internet speeds are not uncommon here. Everybody have access to internet here with far greater speeds than what they can get over our free wifi and with no cap limits. We can get up to 100MBit lines for 30e here, so I'm not THAT concerned with black passengers. On the other hands, I plan on doing some monitoring for persistant clients and ban them in case I need to. One option would be limiting connection time based on MAC or something, but that is not something I want to do, since it's hard to say how much internet is enough. One can only need wifi for 1h, but someone else want to connect in the morning and use wifi in the evening as well when he goes for coffee. I will first try to implement some queues and FW rules to get rid of leechers and then I will search of other solutions. I want to make it as easy as possible for endusers to connect and use our network and at the same time, keeping network stable.

I also think OmniTIK will be a great solution for the moment. I don't think I will see a lot of fixed 5GHz clients on my location since as I said earlier, we have really good broadband connections here and there is no need for WISPs. I think we only have 1-2 operating and even they are from the the old time, when ADSL was still new and didn't reach a lot of users.

As far as soldering goes, I'm an electrician so I have enough experience with soldering. I'm positive that won't be a problem:) As with restarting clients I was thinking of unpluging omnitik from power and with that, all POE clients gets unplugged as well.

As far as VLAN goes, I saw the unlimited VLAN tagging support on the license page, but I'm not sure how VLANs are transmited over WLAN. Do you set up multiple VirtualAPs, each for it's own VLAN? Does the client have to connect to all VirtualAPs then? Can it do that? I need to do some more reading about that.

As for powering antennas goes, I guess I will have to go with POE switch on locations with more that 2 antennas. UP model might not be a bad idea, since it gives me the chance to pull UTP cable to an easier accessed location where I can plug in with my laptop and maintenance or resolve issue in case I do something stupid and lock myself out:) It also gives me possibility to powercycle devices connected to it in case they freeze.

As far as router goes, RB1100 will do. Not my usual choice for router, but RouterOS just gives me a bunch of things/apps in one device and its price/performance is great.

Since there might be lots of problems using omni's on locations, I'm also considering going sector's way, since you point out some interesting things to think about. Looking at the specs of SXT G-2HnD, it only covers a 60° angle, so I would need 3-4 to cover each of my locations(cca 180° angle) with the 5th for uplink. That might be too expensive for serving 2-3 clients at any given time with occasional high volume of clients(beautiful weekend when people go out for coffee)... I'm also looking at RF element sector antennas which can cover 120°. In case I use 2 RF sector antennas, can they overlap? I mean, can I cover 180° with 2 120° antennas or will they disturb each other? I know I could also go with 90° antenna, but since power is worse at the border, I was thinking of doing some overlapping to get better overall coverage.

And I will share as much as I can. I like to return as much info and knowledge that I receive, specially if someone once get into the same problems as I do. It just might be a while before I start with building the network. Probably in the summer.

Matej

Hi.
I am sorry to leave this thread without my answer for longer time. The reason is that normally I read and send short replies from my mobile phone while sitting in the tram on the way to the office or back. Even the mobile phone is something so powerfull and allmighty that we could not even think about to have it as personal computer some years ago, still it is not possible to write longer texts on it.

Finance: I expected something like that you have written. In such cases (regardless it is network or something else), I normally go by following way: To get the budget the customer will to pay (not his limit, but the money he really likes to spend) and to give him the best what he can get for his money.

Black passengers: Not everyone want to pay 30e each month, especially when 100mbit is something that none can normally utilize. Maybe you will need to implement queues with some FUP approach and cut-off or squeeze the bandwidth of those who overuse the connectivity. For mobiles it will not do anything as they will not reach the limit but for the persistent clients it will effectivelly block their connections - blacklists finally would be also the way if FUP will not have such effect. Seems you are thinking in the good way.

Omnitik is really something exceptional for its price. It is great pity that it is not possible to put inside additional wifi card and real shame that mikrotik did not produce the 2.4GHz version, even it was promised originally.

Soldering - I am not underestimating your experience. I just put the emphasis on the care that such modification needs. Hope you did not take it in bad way or personally.

VLANs over wifi with SXT or Omnitiks should not be a problem. Even I do not use VLANs, reading this forum (e.g. http://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=77418) makes me to believe that VLANs work over SXTs. Maybe I will start to use VLANs soon, if I have to.

VirtualAPs: Client can connect only to one VirtualAP. It is logically independent port like other AP or WDS link or ethernet port, so you can attach it to particular VLAN. I guess you should read the corresponding articles on wiki/documentation about it to ensure yourself. I use virtualAPs and they work normally transparently for the client. The client can not recognize what is physical AP and what is VirtualAP. It connects only to one he selects. But VirtualAP does not give additional connection capacity for clients, it means, if your AP can handle 20 clients, it definitelly will not be more if you add some VirtualAPs.

Thinking again about the parking places and number of simultaneously connected phones. I guess, there will never be dozens of connected phones at the same time. Maybe one sector would be enough. In case you decide to use originally suggested two sectors, there is no problem with overlapping. What is more, it is even better. But remember, you have to use different channel (and keep some space between used channels, it will help a bit also. You can use the same SSID everywhere, even on overlapping sectors. The client will always select the AP with better signal from all with the same SSID.

If you will go by third-party antennas, than probably the GrooveA will do the work for you, even you loose MIMO possibilities. In case You Will use MIMO sectors than BaseBox2 will be the option. As it costs only 10USD more than GrooveA the BaseBox2 could be better choice. Hmmm. GrooveA includes 6dbi antenna for free... Can be interresting and what is more, it has both bands radio (52HPn) so it is more versatile than BaseBox2. It is really hard to choose. Well, still BaseBox looks for me better to your needs. You are not going to make something you will rebuild after six months.

I have found one way how to use two 60 degree antenna and cover the places you want to. You will not place them at the center of one side of the parking place, but you will place them into the corners. One on left and the second on right. Regardless where you put them, keep some space between. 0,5-1m is enough. In case you need to place them closer to each other, put metal sheet between them. You will get better results if they will not make any influence to each other.

This time I was a bit busy and couldn't reply right away... Don't tell me about mobile phones. I can only use mine for reading. When it comes to writing I soon loose the motivation with it's small keyboard. Maby it would help if I had a big-ass screen:) But on a 4" it's killing me:)

So, lets go to business:)

Finance: I will try to get some estimate of how much they want to spend. That's always the problem:) Usually the answer is something like: "As little as possible!":) But at the end you have: coverage, price and quality and you have to pick 2:) Have to pack my offer real nice to convince them:)

Black passengers: the good thing here is that there is not many residential houses around the areas. They are mostly businesses and I don't think they want to risk saving 30€ and in case internet is not working, there is noone to help them:) But then again, you never know:) Anyway, queues will be implemented as will QoS with traffic prioritizing. I was wondering, is it possible to make "per user" bandwidth metering and sorting in queues? I know it's possible to use PCQ for "per connection" but is there something similar for "per user" oz "per client"?

VLANs: I guess it's possible. I have to check if I can send different and multiple VLANs over each link. Will PM some of the users in thread you linked.

VirtualAP: I understand the principal behind a virtual AP. It's a single radio giving away multiple SSIDs. Similar to VLANs in wired network. Single port can give away multiple VLAN's, but combined speed is still 1Gbps:)

So, back to equipment:
- GrooveA: I will pick this option for areas where I would like to have 360° coverage and not long range. I might put more of them and lower the power a bit, to get rid of the clients far away
- RB912+Stationbox S or BaseBox2 with RF Elements Sector antennas. They are MIMO antennas with 120° angle (V/H) and BaseBox can nicely attach to the back of antenna. It also looks nice, since I would like for the installation to look nice as well:)
- RB750UP: I will probably put one of them on every location. It will serve as a power source, locations will be ready for future expansions, just add antenna + UTP and I will have ability to power-cycle one or another RB in case it hangs.

I will probably order one of everyone and do some measuring and testing to see which one will be best for certain areas.

What do you guys use for monitoring of the networks?
The DUDE?
Zabbix? (I would love to go that way, since it monitors all my other servers/switches/routers)
Nagios + Cacti?
Observium? (I think there is no support for Mikrotik at the moment)

Matej

@levak:
As PMs are disabled now, pls contact me using my email from profile. Subject: "Financing".

Hi, seems that everything is as clear as it could be at this phase. About the monitoring system I can just tell something about Dude. Seems it is really powerfull and native for Mikrotik devices, that means it can read all data realtime. This is really big advantage against the others that have to rely on SNMP. It has also one disadvantage - at least for me. Even it should be able to run directly in Mikrotik device (mipsbe), it behaves in strange way if you use flashdisk as storage for it. It looses data sometimes, it resets itself and it leaks the memory during the runtime. You can run it on windows computer and then it runs flawlessly. Unfortunatelly it means you need to feed additional still running computer for service that could be handled by common mikrotik router. But it works. The next disadvantage is that there is no active support for it from mikrotik. Mikrotik did not move a finger for many years to do whatever with it. This is really shame on them, as otherwise there would be no other choice than Dude.

Hey!

Great! I will order a sector kit and omni kit and do some measuring, to get a better idea of what I can cover with each antenna.

Dude you say. Ok, no problem on running it on a PC, I can power up another virtual server for Dude. I will probably also use Zabbix for monitoring, since it supports triggers and alerting as well as giving me history graphs. I just have to check how good a SNMP implementation is on Mikrotik.

Thanks for all the input, I will report as I go for you to have some feedback:)

MAtej