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wifiboos
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WIFI Project - WIFI on Ferries

Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:40 pm

Hi All,
I am looking at a project to provide Wifi to 3 Ferries within a zone 5 kms long and coverage area over the sea that would be contained within a 60/90 degree sector from a shore based base station. The system would be required to...

- support 3 ferries running concurrently
- support 30/40 concurrent users per boat
- support an average data rate of 1-2 megabit/s useable per client
- provide internal boat coverage in 4 separate areas with 2 large areas of up to 200 square meters each. minimum wiring.
- provide 24x7 availability and reliability
- a main router/ AP in ferry terminal connected to ISP - possible with cable uplink (rates by design) or maybe multiple feeds.
- remote network management
- possible provision of a hotspot based system with paid access - but probably a free network for ferry clients
- low maintenance
- sensible budget consistent with robust component quality and equipment for this environment

My question relates to the best MT hardware provision for this system including base station equipment including routers, cards, antennas, enclosures etc. and the per boat provision for an onboard network with minimum wiring needed and a suitable external CPE arrangement with antenna. Use of separate omni's is essential here. Possible use of Metal 5SHPn as CPE radio.

My thoughts on network layout and link protocols to use for shore based AP's. Either 3 separate PTP links for better redundancy and capacity planning in preference to just one PTMP setup. I am thinking 3 AP's on 5Ghz on different channel frequencies with 3 separate but overlapping external sector antennas mounted on same mast. But thoughts and potential problems arising most welcome.

I would like to think I can get MCS7 throughput per boat link and will need an estimate of the uplink capacity of the ISP link.

So all you clever guys out there what designs and equipments would you suggest.
 
praeses
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Re: WIFI Project - WIFI on Ferries

Fri Oct 25, 2013 2:13 am

Can you describe (map would be best) the route that the ferries take?
Once again, but for the available land/buildings to but base stations/APs on?
Weather? (constant rain, etc)
Frequencies (licensed/unlicensed, bandwidth, etc)
24/7 availability is fine, but what about planned up time? 99%?

Just as an example, if you're putting it at a terminal and the ferry goes only straight away from it and back towards it, it's a lot different than a ferry that weaves through islands and whatnot. Depending on what they use for navigational/safety/etc equipment, the frequency you choose (or have chosen) might be different than we would expect.
 
wifiboos
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Re: WIFI Project - WIFI on Ferries

Fri Oct 25, 2013 3:33 pm

Hi and Thanks for your reply.

There are two groups of radio frequencies allocated by international standards for use by civil marine radar systems. The first group lies in the X- band which corresponds to a wavelength of 3 cm. and has a frequency range between 9300 and 9500 MHz. The second group lies in the S-band with a wavelength of 10 cm. and has a frequency range of 2900 to 3100 MHz.

It is estimated that the ship mounting height for the CPE antenna will be from 13 - 18 meters above sea level. It is possible to mount AP antennas on the shore at this height also. The general climate is Mediterranean and apart from occasional storm fronts the weather is pretty stable. Wave heights are nominally less than 1 meter. Atmospheric ducting may be present in the summer months but their effects would more likely occur for greater antenna mounting heights. It is expected to use the unlicensed 5Ghz band.

The ferry would be normally tracking back and forth as shown in attached image. The are no permanent obstacles in the signal path apart maybe by the occasional presence of other vessels crossing the ferries path.

It is expected up time will be in the high 90's %. The multi-path issues with sea reflections may be more of an issue regarding signal strength along the ferries travel path in terms of fluctuating nodes of receive power.

Hope this helps. Any other helpful info most welcome along with equipment suggestions

Thanks
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praeses
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Re: WIFI Project - WIFI on Ferries

Sat Oct 26, 2013 4:24 am

VHF, and EPIRB are also worth noting but probably not going to be a significant concern to either interfere with them or be interfered by them. We do have 3.65ghz available for WISPs here, I don't know if you would classify as a WISP or not and what you have for local regulations but it may be more suitable than 5ghz for shooting over water in that environment. Here there are stricter regulations on the power output/DFS in different bands depending on how close we are to radar systems/flight paths, I imagine you have something similar as well.

Regarding the wave height, hull design, etc, do you know how the maximum pitch/roll/yaw you will be working with when you're trying to maintain a strong signal? The path looks like it should be fairly workable. Would you be mounting radios at one terminal or both? (I am assuming you won't have access to the island mid-way).

I would wager you are looking at lower gain antenna's at both your terminals and on the ferries to deal with the potential differences in the path due to obstacles/weather/drift and more importantly due to the pitch/roll/yaw. I would guess you are looking at having a pair of access points at each terminal: one for when they are maneuvering and approaching the berth, the second higher gain for when they are mid transit. Then I would connect both sides with a separate wireless backhaul (unless you have another line you can use) then you can join them together and act as one big happy wireless network and start vlan'ing/etc off for your management/whatnot. Whether you want to use mesh/HWMP+ or rely on the clients to roam on their own will depend on how you want to configure things and what throughput you're looking for in the end. The ships will need to know about the expected wind loading for not only the devices you're adding but also the masts/etc and that may affect the style of antenna and/or radomes.

That setup wouldn't really have much in the way of redundancy without relying on a much weaker signal, and there wouldn't be any redundancy on the ferries but that can be added. You may need some decent power filtering/backup on the ferries too, one issue that may go overlooked is when they switch from the on board generators to shore power.

I haven't dealt with situation specifically so I am not going to provide any suggestions for specific radios/enclosures/antennas but I would suggest being extra diligent to read through the regulations that apply to you considering it will be operating not only over maritime waters but with passenger ships and maintain strong communication with those that may be affected. It sounds like a fun project though.

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