Hello,
I need to install a WLAN services in a hotel with 11 floors (28m x 20m), a second building with 3 floors (20m x 100m), about 400 rooms.
The two building will be connected via a 5MHz bridge, or via an existing cable.
The WLan service is not meant for customers (yet), but for the internal personal using wlan for a software they use to facilitate needs in the hotel.
The idea is to have a continuous (through-going) network to be able to roam from one hotspot to another without interruption or packet loss. VoIP is NOT the goal, but an uninterrupted experiance using the software.
As we cannot use the preexisting network within the hotel we would have to rewire the hotel to connect the hotspots, and I would like to keep wiring to a minimum.
My ideas (first thoughts):
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Put a switch on each (second) floor, connect standard stations (picostation etc.) via cable and set all routers on same SSID on different channels.
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Put a switch each (second) floor, connect one Mikrotik (2 wlan, 1x 2.4GHz, 1 x 5GHz) to it and use about four more on each floor using WDS.
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Put a Switch on the top and bottom floor as “mesh exit points” and use Mikrotik Mesh on the floors as needed. The mesh is used to transport data trough the two wired access points to the server/internet.
The Mikrotik Wlan-Routers on each floor, connected via a 5MHz connection to replace cabling between the floors. Could Mikrotik’s WDS mesh solution be used to extend the range of the wlan network on the floors and maybe between floors?
How may devices/hops are supported?
My questions:
- Is there any experiance how many hops and devices a Mikrotik-Mesh can support? And without loosing to much (half data rate per hop)?
- What could the range of the Mikrotik be? The walls in the hotel are not concrete. The center of the hotel is steel-concrete with lifts on the inside (12x5m).
- Could I use one Mikrotik in the ceiling to cover two floors? Is it feasible to just install Routers every second floor?
I am very courious about your experiance, your ideas and your warnings.
Thanks for relpying in advance!
Robert
PS: Floor Plans
