I have been asked to help configure 8 RB433 systems for a local school to provide wireless across their campus. When I came onsite the systems were each setup as with their own SSID and keys, resulting in poor coverage in many areas as users jumped from ap to ap.
I located the Mesh WDS guide on the wiki and configured the devices as shown here http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Mesh_wds , this seems to be working right now, but it appears that the wireless devices are sharing their data over the wireless , cutting into available bandwidth and creating unneeded wireless traffic. This mesh setup is exactly what I am after from the wireless clients perspective, but I am worried that once school starts the wireless will be saturated.
Can I make the mesh devices communicate with each other over the wired LAN instead? Is there a better setup I should be using ? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
I assume each 433 has got just one miniPCI card, hence the limited options.
If yes, i am not aware that you have an option besides wds.
With wds you can use a bridged setup like i’m sure you did or a routed setup which would require setting up virtual APs - more tedious to setup but i think more reliable than wds bridging.
On the side, if you really anticipate heavy traffic on each ap then it would probably be worth the extra bucks getting a second card for each router and setting up true repeaters.
Each device only has one wireless card, but has 3 ethernet ports, of which only one is in use, providing power and LAN access to each RB433.
WDS appears to do what I want from the students perspective, They see only 1 wireless network no matter where they are on the campus and can move around between coverage areas without a problem.
My concern is the back end, If I am reading correctly WDS is using up to half the wireless bandwidth for the RB433s to communicate with each other, and the wired network is only being used by 1 of the RB433’s which is acting as a gateway for the rest ? ( How do I tell which one?)
I would prefer if the wireless was only used for Students connections, and all network traffic to the internet, lan, or other RB’s then occured over the wired LAN.