Community discussions

MikroTik App
 
dannyboy
Member Candidate
Member Candidate
Topic Author
Posts: 195
Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2005 4:21 am
Location: Nicaragua/USA
Contact:

For Wireless Experts

Wed Mar 26, 2014 3:56 pm

Hello Guys,

I have been doing lots of research about antennas and radios. I am a MT guy and want to stick with MT but I have found some other equipment that have some claims that makes me wonder. What I am building is a City Wide Hotspot. There will be no CPE involved but the smartphones and laptops users will connect with. The NLOS is very important for me so I have been looking. I will be using 2.4ghz for clients.

I just bought three BaseBox 2.4ghz and will use 9dbi antennas from l-com to test. I want to see how that works. BUT I also found this company that claims 500m NLOS for smartphones and laptops. Can someone tell me if this is true? Cant I make an 8X8 mimo with the basebox 2.45ghz by adding more radios? Can I duplicate with basebox this? maybe not 8X8 but 4x4? Does it really make a difference from 2x2 mimo?

Here it is:

http://www.altaitechnologies.com/wp-con ... 131113.pdf

thanks

Daniel
 
User avatar
rickfrey
Trainer
Trainer
Posts: 609
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2010 11:41 pm
Location: Van, Texas
Contact:

Re: For Wireless Experts

Wed Mar 26, 2014 5:09 pm

Hi Daniel,
Most claims of extreme performance in NLOS conditions are... irresponsible to say the least. City wide hotspots are an extreme challenge anyway you look at it. Even in a small rural community, it will be an extreme challenge. In a situation like that, MikroTik would be my fist choice without question. That is simply because there is not another product that will let you fine tune as many variables as MikroTik does. A project like you are trying to bite off will need a lot of fine tuning. The way MIMO works is per card. Right now, I only now of cards that have a max of 3 antennas ports. You can't combine multiple wireless cards to increase the number of antenna chains. To answer your question about, "does it really make a difference," the answer is yes, when you can control both sides. It makes a small difference for a hotspot when you do not have control of both the client adapter and the AP. When you can design both sides of the link, it makes an incredible difference. Keep in mind, that most of the products that will use your hotspot will only have 1 or 2 antenna chains. So if a product were to actually have more than 2 antenna chains, all other antenna chains need to be able to be used to improve the signal and not be used for an additional spatial streams. That additional spatial streams will just fall on deaf ears.
 
n21roadie
Forum Guru
Forum Guru
Posts: 1949
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2009 10:36 pm
Location: Limerick,Ireland

Re: For Wireless Experts

Wed Mar 26, 2014 5:19 pm

:? ....a City Wide Hotspot. There will be no CPE involved..... :?
I like many others will be very surprised if this can be done, the link supplied why not ask the company for a referral from a customer using their equipment, if it works OK you will get one?
You will find the smartphones and laptops will in most cases receive the AP but the AP will not receive the replies or requests from them,
Remember 2.4GHz (and 5.8GHz) is an unlicensed frequency band(s) used for many other applications and not just WiFi?
Just recently I encountered a cordless phone which just blocked out all channels on 2.4Ghz and rendered the WiFi router wireless un-usable in that apartment,
Foil backed plasterboard is very popular now in building and attenuates most if not all RF signals, a question I always ask customers as this will determine the location of Wifi router, so how will you address this issue when a customer wants your service with being used at their location?
There is a saying "If was easy to do then someone would have do it already"
 
User avatar
rickfrey
Trainer
Trainer
Posts: 609
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2010 11:41 pm
Location: Van, Texas
Contact:

Re: For Wireless Experts

Wed Mar 26, 2014 5:27 pm

That's true. Very few city wide hotspots would be considered successful.
 
rmichael
Forum Veteran
Forum Veteran
Posts: 718
Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2009 11:00 pm

Re: For Wireless Experts

Wed Mar 26, 2014 7:52 pm

Hello Guys,

I have been doing lots of research about antennas and radios. I am a MT guy and want to stick with MT but I have found some other equipment that have some claims that makes me wonder. What I am building is a City Wide Hotspot. There will be no CPE involved but the smartphones and laptops users will connect with. The NLOS is very important for me so I have been looking. I will be using 2.4ghz for clients.

I just bought three BaseBox 2.4ghz and will use 9dbi antennas from l-com to test. I want to see how that works. BUT I also found this company that claims 500m NLOS for smartphones and laptops. Can someone tell me if this is true? Cant I make an 8X8 mimo with the basebox 2.45ghz by adding more radios? Can I duplicate with basebox this? maybe not 8X8 but 4x4? Does it really make a difference from 2x2 mimo?

Here it is:

http://www.altaitechnologies.com/wp-con ... 131113.pdf

thanks

Daniel
Since NLOS is everything that is not LOS take 500m NLOS performance for what it is (not to mention they put phones and laptops into one category) - marketing. With that said Altai's radio/antenna technology is much more advanced than anything available on Mikrotik so it could work to your advantage.

btw, you cannot make MIMO anything using multiple radios.
 
dannyboy
Member Candidate
Member Candidate
Topic Author
Posts: 195
Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2005 4:21 am
Location: Nicaragua/USA
Contact:

Re: For Wireless Experts

Thu Mar 27, 2014 12:25 am

Great information guys... I love MT also and i have been doing Apartment complexes for a long time. Year 2000 I setup my first apt complex with orinoco ap2000 and hyperlink Tech antennas. It was fun and at the same time a beautiful nightmare. Anyway I learned that the point to do a great wifi in apt complexes is to put more AP at the required distance. So this is what am thinking to do in My home town. I will stick to my number one equipment MIKROTIK, I will use the Basebox 2.4 every 40 meters apart with 2 9dbi l-com rubberduck antennas. I will use Static WDS to share the internet. I think this is my solution for everyone to get an excellent signal and the network be a stable one. Attachd is a picture of how I am thinking of doing this. I will use 5.8ghz for BH on one out of 6 APs rest is wds. This is my primary plan. Treated like a huge apartment complex.

I will check on Altia, they are actually doing a study of my location and how are houses build to see how much NLOS they really can cover. The price is $6400, so at 500m NLOS it looked pretty inexpensive. The other issue that they said its it can only handle 60-80 users at one time. But I think that any AP....

Please I am open to suggestions.

Thanks guys..
ElCalvario.jpg
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
 
User avatar
rickfrey
Trainer
Trainer
Posts: 609
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2010 11:41 pm
Location: Van, Texas
Contact:

Re: For Wireless Experts

Thu Mar 27, 2014 4:32 pm

That definitely looks like quite the undertaking. Its way too involve to be properly validated on the forums, but there are some suggestions that can be made. First, I would strongly advise against the WDS solution. Second, consider using the 5GHz band to augment the 2.4GHz APs. That will improve your frequency re-use plan. Lastly, instead of doing this like a big apartment complex, I would try to build this out more like a WISP. I would use dedicated BHs and take advantage of the opportunity for redundancy. I would use OSPF for sure.
The picture didn't really explain the difference between the type of circles or where the Internet feed(s) will be, but with the number of users this system will likely handle at any one point in time, I would definitely step it up from a typical apparment complex type installation and use a more commercial approach. I hope that helps. :)
 
dannyboy
Member Candidate
Member Candidate
Topic Author
Posts: 195
Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2005 4:21 am
Location: Nicaragua/USA
Contact:

Re: For Wireless Experts

Thu Mar 27, 2014 7:07 pm

Hello ssofet,

Thank you for the response. I think I have to look at it as an apt complex. This hotspot is going to have to reach indoors and houses in Nicaragua are made of concrete blocks, wood, adobe, clay roof, zinc roof. But also they have many windows, cracks, inner patios, open corridors and many other ways that the signal can reach. I still have to do a real site surveys to determine the actual amount of basebox I will use. Now, about using the 5ghz, most of smartphones in Nicaragua are Chinese androids, and after I did a test with one AP, 80% of the users that connected were this type of phones. These phones from what we researched don't have 5ghz.
Ok to explain better the diagram, I will have on top of the church at the left hand side a basebox 5ghz with two radios, one its to connect all the red dots which will be a basebox with 2.4ghz for the "supposed wds" and a 5ghz for back hauling.
I do not want to make it like a Wisp, meaning I don't want to setup any cpe on clients side, that's just to expensive since in Nicaragua you pay $200 per each wireless link. By having users connect with their own mobile devices.
If I don't do was how am I going to share the internet with all other bridges? Static routes?

Resume:
Red aps are internet access links
All others are clients hotspot 2.4ghz
Thought I was going to use was but awaiting on suggestion on how to do the internet sharing..
Thanks
 
User avatar
rickfrey
Trainer
Trainer
Posts: 609
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2010 11:41 pm
Location: Van, Texas
Contact:

Re: For Wireless Experts

Thu Mar 27, 2014 7:55 pm

Ok, that makes things a little clearer. I'm still confused about your last question though. As I understand it, the dark orange spots have an Internet feed there and the lighter ones are essentially bridged back to the main one? Is that what you doing or am I still missing something?
 
rmichael
Forum Veteran
Forum Veteran
Posts: 718
Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2009 11:00 pm

Re: For Wireless Experts

Thu Mar 27, 2014 11:11 pm

Consider SXT HG (can provide power PoE for OM2P-HS) for back-haul together with OM2P-HS (open-mesh) unit. Use additional OM2P-HS units as wireless up-links.
 
dannyboy
Member Candidate
Member Candidate
Topic Author
Posts: 195
Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2005 4:21 am
Location: Nicaragua/USA
Contact:

Re: For Wireless Experts

Fri Mar 28, 2014 6:06 am

ssofet

That is correct... I just put a basebox 2.4ghz with 2 9dbi to test and this is working like crap... I am not blaming MT because I am not sure if it it configured right. I have never used MT for wireless before and am not sure how to config the wireless interface. But I get at 20 meters away and throughtput drops to 1meg... WTH!!! Can someone send me a good config to upload and test this equipment good?

Thanks,
 
User avatar
rickfrey
Trainer
Trainer
Posts: 609
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2010 11:41 pm
Location: Van, Texas
Contact:

Re: For Wireless Experts

Fri Mar 28, 2014 4:38 pm

This is out of ROS 6.9 and will work for a simple AP delivering a connection to 802.11 devices:
/interface wireless
set [ find default-name=wlan1 ] band=2ghz-b/g/n disabled=no distance=indoors \
    frequency=2437 l2mtu=2290 mode=ap-bridge ssid=Example wireless-protocol=\
    802.11
 
dannyboy
Member Candidate
Member Candidate
Topic Author
Posts: 195
Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2005 4:21 am
Location: Nicaragua/USA
Contact:

Re: For Wireless Experts

Sat Mar 29, 2014 12:35 am

Ssofet,

Thank you, I will test and let you know.

daniel
 
User avatar
rickfrey
Trainer
Trainer
Posts: 609
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2010 11:41 pm
Location: Van, Texas
Contact:

Re: For Wireless Experts

Mon Mar 31, 2014 5:11 pm

Did that work for you?

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: mstanciu and 25 guests