Hi,
I have a location that is roughly circular (4.5 mile radius) that has a 150’ tower at the center. The terrian is relatively flat, small hills, trees, etc. This tower has 3 120deg sectors providing 360 deg coverage with 802.11a. The hardware is Strix on the tower. Each 120 antenna is on its own 802.11a radio. Association using WPA, or WPA2 are available to the tower.
Within this 4.5 mile radius circle, there are approx 160 small sites that will have to connect to the tower. We can put small towers, push poles, etc to get line of site from each location. Bandwidth will not be an issue, since it is very small (kilobits) per site up to the tower.
At each site, we will need 802.11b/g client coverage, as well as backhaul to the tower over 802.11a, and 1 ethernet port to plug equipment into at the site. The client coverage will be required to provide multiple SSID with a different VLAN per SSID. The Strix system handles passing VLAN, and the switch the Strix plugs into is trunked as needed.
I need a mikrotik/routerboard solution. It needs to be weatherized as well as meet the criteria mentioned above. I need centralized management, or at least the ability to push configs (SSID, VLAN etc) to 160 units at a time. Also some realtime stats, or connectivty graphs would be a PLUS. Solution DOES NOT need to be POE. We have solar at each location, I would like to run 12VDC. I would also like to cap it at approx 30Watts at 12VDC.
thank you for your time.
ds
I am aware that Mikrotik will be able to handle just about all of your requests:
What wireless radios are you looking to use, as that has a big impact on power usage?
RB433 will probably be the minimum as you mentioned that you will backhaul to your main tower via 802.11a, and provide local wifi via 802.11b/g correct?
You can try to find the Mikrotik Large external case, but I have had more luck getting the "Hinged Die Cast Enclosure - Large 2 Hole " from Quicklink and or wlanparts.
There may be one or two vendors that would be willing to build these for you, otherwise there will be some drilling and assembly required for each unit. Heck I might even be willing to put them together for a modest fee (as this is the configuration that I build for myself).
I have not tried using vlans across a wireless link however they are supported.
As I am unfamiliar with Strix, there maybe compatibility quirks that might have to be ironed out.
It will probably work, but is there a reason you aren’t going to try and use a single vendor for everything?
I am not aware of anything that is pre-built to be able to manage configurations, however because there is a command prompt, configuration changes can be scripted quite easily with something like: Linux (expect, perl Net::Telnet, etc), SecureCRT scripting, or possibly Kiwi Cattools.
As for realtime (or near realtime) monitoring check out The Dude. Or use any snmp based monitoring system to get atleast bandwidth usage.
My brief estimated cost with no quantity discounts or assembly would be around $370 for each site.
$100 RB433
$100 SR5 (could replace with R5H for less cost)
$100 SR2 (could replace with the R52 or R52H for less cost)
$50 Enclosure (might include ethernet pass through)
$20 Pigtails @$10
Plus board mounting supplies (standoffs and screws)
Hope this helps.