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Duckie
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Mini WISP-like Deployment

Fri Oct 01, 2021 1:06 am

I have a project to provide basic wireless internet to an area of about 7 hectors/17 acres for a local club. This is a rural, flat location with metal buildings. Other than the buildings there are no obstructions on the property. Internet is currently provided by DSL at 30/3 Mbps, although this will be raised in the next few years when fiber is installed along the road. I do not see a need for greater than 100 Mbps capability on the network. The normal "population" of wireless clients will be 20-30 at peak times on the weekend with a max of 75-100 for events. There are a few laptops and tablets, but most devices are just phones. It is not expected that this network provide a high level of service for video streaming to devices, etc. It is just for basic connectivity for text messages, checking email, and occasional website visits.

A challenge is that it is not feasible for physical cables to be run between buildings. Distribution must be done by RF links. There are several mounts that are already in place that are ideal for adding APs as these locations already have a weatherhead to allow easy passage of cables into the building for power. At this point there is no requirement for wireless inside the buildings, just covering the outdoor areas around the buildings. Some individual members have their own "repeaters" for connection inside the metal buildings if they want it, the club might support this further in the future, but not at this time. The initial budget is up to $3,000 USD for hardware.

The current system they have is a Ubiquiti UniFi system with a Dream Machine in the office and several of their mesh APs. This was selected by a prior member as it was supposed to be easy and hands off, just set it up and forget it. Unfortunately it's proven a bit difficult. On several occasions over the past three years everything will disconnect and just quit working, requiring manual resets and messing to get everything setup and connected again. The office has no external antenna, and the remote mesh nodes will loose contact for a few minutes several times a day. I have also been unimpressed with UniFi's capabilities at simple things like knowing what IPs are assigned, etc. (this should be simple, right?)

The current network is a very basic flat /24 network with open (unsecured/no authentication required) wireless. It does not even use the "guest network" feature of UniFi. It has been open/unsecured for about 10 years without issue, so they do not want to make a change, but that is something I foresee in the future (at least adding a segmented guest network SSID).

I am a little nervous about using Mikrotik as I am still learning myself. This application would be approaching mini-WISP scale, which is more than I have ever done, but would be a good learning experience. To match what they have now is pretty simple configuration wise, and there is a lot of room to grow.

I am looking for advice on the following:
  1. Once established, how much effort will be required for network administration? Is this something that can be left unattended most of the time and checked on once every six months?
  2. What advice do you have for hardware selection and physical configuration?
  3. What resources (paid okay) are available to help me learn/troubleshoot if I get stuck?

Graphic explanation:
  • Blue outline is property boundary
  • Red outlines are building footprints
  • Blue dots are easy antenna mounting locations

Current setup:
  • DreamMachine inside main office
  • Unifi Mesh Pro AP at Mnt1 (Good connection)
  • Unifi Mesh AP at Mnt2 (Okay connection drops 1-3 times/day)
  • Unifi Mesh Pro AP at Mnt 3 (Poor connection drops 1-2 times per hour and bounces between direct connection to DreamMachine and relay via Mnt 2)

Thoughts on future setup:
Mnt1, Mnt2, and Mnt3 all have direct line of sight to the office. The area around the office is also the most used area. I am thinking of a sector antenna for RF links and users around the office with directional antennas at those three mount locations to connect back to the office. Each Mnt location could then have an omnidirectional or sector antenna. Mnt5, and Mnt6 both have line of sight to Mnt3.

It seems to be best practice that the RF links are 5Ghz and the user APs be 2.4 Ghz. With our speeds, should we use all 2.4Ghz, or will it be beneficial for interference at mount locations to have the backhaul be one and distribution to clients be the other?
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SiB
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Re: Mini WISP-like Deployment

Fri Oct 01, 2021 12:03 pm

You should search about https://mikrotik.com/consultants at that project because some people say MikroTik is not for wifi AP but for P2MP Links it's ok .. etc. .
Consultants should be your answer.
 
Duckie
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Re: Mini WISP-like Deployment

Fri Oct 01, 2021 5:56 pm

You should search about https://mikrotik.com/consultants at that project because some people say MikroTik is not for wifi AP but for P2MP Links it's ok .. etc. .
Consultants should be your answer.

Thanks, I have been looking there and reached out to a consultant we used a few years ago for work, but they had not gotten back to me yet. I have not reached out to anyone else yet.

I would be comfortable setting up Mikrotiks for the P2P/P2MP backhaul links, it's the AP side I have done less with. I know many people talk about Ubiquiti stuff for AP, but my experience poking around with it over the past year has been less than impressive. Maybe if I use a Mikrotik for the router/DNS/DHCP/etc. it would work better than the current DreamMachine.

Who else is recommended for cost effective outdoor APs? Durability and simplicity are the main attributes we seek over speed and number of clients supported.
 
mixig
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Re: Mini WISP-like Deployment

Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:44 pm

Maybe Cambium APs?
 
mducharme
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Re: Mini WISP-like Deployment

Sat Oct 02, 2021 9:08 pm

I would be comfortable setting up Mikrotiks for the P2P/P2MP backhaul links, it's the AP side I have done less with.
You can consider MikroTik's 60GHz solutions. More bandwidth than you need for cheap, easy to set up, and they will stay out of the wifi range. You can to PTP up to ~1km safely, more than that can work but may drop when it rains. PtMP is also possible with 60GHz but the achievable distance will likely be shorter due to what I would expect would be a less powerful gain on the panel antenna required on the AP side. We have done PtMP 60GHz for campus networks where a bunch of small buildings/trailers in the same direction connect to one larger one.
 
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Re: Mini WISP-like Deployment

Sat Oct 02, 2021 10:19 pm

I would be comfortable setting up Mikrotiks for the P2P/P2MP backhaul links, it's the AP side I have done less with. I know many people talk about Ubiquiti stuff for AP, but my experience poking around with it over the past year has been less than impressive. Maybe if I use a Mikrotik for the router/DNS/DHCP/etc. it would work better than the current DreamMachine.
We often use UniFi APs, and sometimes switches, but using Mikrotik for the gateway functions. Ubiquiti airMAX or Mikrotik Wireless Wire for the interlinks, host the UniFi controller locally (e.g. on an Intel NUC), or elsewhere depending on the requirements. Never have been impressed by the USG or UDM Pro - looks flashy but your are very much stuck with the way Ubiquiti want to do things, and various holes and unfinished areas in the implementation (e.g. certificate handling).
 
Duckie
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Re: Mini WISP-like Deployment

Sun Oct 03, 2021 7:26 pm

I would like to thank everyone who has replied so far.

Maybe Cambium APs?
I will look into these, I am not familiar with them yet.

You can consider MikroTik's 60GHz solutions. More bandwidth than you need for cheap, easy to set up, and they will stay out of the wifi range. You can to PTP up to ~1km safely, more than that can work but may drop when it rains. PtMP is also possible with 60GHz but the achievable distance will likely be shorter due to what I would expect would be a less powerful gain on the panel antenna required on the AP side. We have done PtMP 60GHz for campus networks where a bunch of small buildings/trailers in the same direction connect to one larger one.
I am looking at the 60GHz selection from Mikrotik, and it's pretty slim compared to 2.4 or 5 GHz.

We often use UniFi APs, and sometimes switches, but using Mikrotik for the gateway functions. Ubiquiti airMAX or Mikrotik Wireless Wire for the interlinks, host the UniFi controller locally (e.g. on an Intel NUC), or elsewhere depending on the requirements. Never have been impressed by the USG or UDM Pro - looks flashy but your are very much stuck with the way Ubiquiti want to do things, and various holes and unfinished areas in the implementation (e.g. certificate handling).
I am with you on this. I know we use Ubiquiti at work for user wifi, and the only major complaint I have heard was that some update they did broke all the VLAN stuff we had and it took a few days for everything to start working correctly again. This at it's base is a dead simple network, so leveraging what we have now for user access would be a bonus and just redoing the backhauls with Mikrotik. The mesh features of UniFi are not working well, and the networking capabilities of the UDM (DHCP/DNS/Gateway/etc.) are not where I would have expected them to be coming from OpenWRT-based stuff.


Edited to add:
After doing some more reading/research, I am thinking of starting with a mANTBox 15s as the main base for the system. With that I can cover the three current points that would need to tie back to it. In my initial graphic, Mnt3 has the mesh link that is dropping the most, so I would start there. I will use a PowerBox Pro on that mast fed with a 48V passive PoE from within the building. That will power/connect the backhaul to the main office, the current Ubiquiti Mesh Pro, and a future sector to the north.

Any advice on what to use as a backhaul to the main sector would be appreciated. I am looking at the DISC Lite5, SXTsq Lite5, SXT SA5, (or something else?).

Assuming I use good separation on the 5GHz frequencies and restrict the Ubiquiti Mesh Pro to 2.4GHz, anything else I should be doing to reduce interference of these three devices in close proximity?
 
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Re: Mini WISP-like Deployment

Mon Oct 04, 2021 4:15 pm

I would go for all 60HZ stuff to connect the buildings, so zero interference with local wifi, including channel separation considerations.
Whats wrong with building 8 (seems like a candidate for a pole antenna somewhere?

1. Is coverage inside all the buildings required?
 
Duckie
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Re: Mini WISP-like Deployment

Mon Oct 04, 2021 5:40 pm

I would go for all 60HZ stuff to connect the buildings, so zero interference with local wifi, including channel separation considerations.
Whats wrong with building 8 (seems like a candidate for a pole antenna somewhere?

1. Is coverage inside all the buildings required?
Okay, I will look at the 60GHz equipment and purchase some hardware to do some testing.

There is no convenient place currently to mount on building 8. The blue dots are existing, easy to mount to structures that already are already present, like poles with a TV or radio antenna. More can be added as needed, but I'm eyeing the low hanging fruit first.

At this point, there is no requirement for wireless inside the buildings. I do think that will be something in the future though, but not within the scope at this point in time. They are currently shy to it because the "courtesy" free wifi they had been sharing has now become an expectation, so they don't want to actively take on more responsibility.

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