Need Info On 802.11b Wireless Isp Equipment

I work with a wireless ISP in Lagos, and I have been assigned some R & D task: finding out modalities of a cheaper Customer premise equipment.

At present we use the airBridge TOTAL from smartbridges.com, but it costs $300 (approx. 44,000 after shipping).

Is it possible to build your own, using antenna, cable, pigtail and PCI card? I know some ISP's use a similar setup.

Diagrams below

with a decent ariel I don't think you could make your own CPE for cheaper

In building your on CPE, there lots of option you will have to consider. If you talk about using a Pci card with ant and some other devices, you will ask yourself if your base station system will support that i no of one system that allow the CPE to be either a brigde or a wireless PCI card, A friend of mine that work with an internet wireless provider like yourself use a system of a very simple brigde that is not that cost but built it in a kind of way that suit much like a CPE. i don't have the picture of one here i would have show here. the one you said your company use which am seeing here, !! too big, or probally it work fine,

one advantage I can see is that you could potentially get a speed and security (limited security) by using a directional arial in your CPE.

Also wouldn't you be better to deploy 802.11g, it's cost isn't exactly high and you've got backwards compatability anyway.

Hunter is right!

i also advice using G-class instead of B, the cost difference is not that much! very soon wireless vendor will stop production of wireless B b'cos of the invent of Wimax promising about 25miles coverage capabilities, by this time next year, Wireless B will no where to be find if you dont deploy G-class. So look into your consideration. when Wimax system will be much in the market or very popular, it might be diffilcult for wireless B client to connect or wimax systems might not supprt it b'cos of it's limited data rate transfer of 11mbps. you can imagine a base station in a distance of 20miles away and you want to use wireless B client to connect and B data rate speed is 11mbps and again now where voice, video and large data are going to send throught wireless media, so you can see how the connection is going to be poor or it will never work at all compare to G where you have total connection thruoghtput from 54-108mbps. another consideration is the security perspective of it,

Bolaji4349:

If you talk about using a Pci card with ant and some other devices, you will ask yourself if your base station system will support that i no of one system that allow the CPE to be either a brigde or a wireless PCI card

Already, the base station allows PCI and PCMCIA cards to connect, if they are within 500 feet outdoors. I have also tried clients in bridge mode, they work too.

Bolaji4349:

the one you said your company use which am seeing here, !! too big, or probally it work fine,

Oops! its only 7" x 7" x 2.3" ! It works at a range of 1.5 - 2 km [line-of-sight]

Hunter:

one advantage I can see is that you could potentially get a speed and security (limited security) by using a directional arial in your CPE.

This CPE has an integrated panel antenna, 53 degrees and 9 dBi gain. I want something with 19dBi or more

Hunter:

be better to deploy 802.11g, it's cost isn't exactly high and you've got backwards compatability anyway.

From what i found out, wireless-G cannot really go far. and i need a radius of 12 km

Bolaji4349:

Hunter is right!

i also advice using G-class instead of B, the cost difference is not that much! very soon wireless vendor will stop production of wireless B b'because of the invent of Wimax promising about 25miles coverage capabilities, by this time next year, Wireless B will no where to be find if you don't deploy G-class. So look into your consideration. when Wimax system will be much in the market or very popular, it might be diffilcult for wireless B client to connect or wimax systems might not supprt it b'because of it's limited data rate transfer of 11mbps. you can imagine a base station in a distance of 20miles away and you want to use wireless B client to connect and B data rate speed is 11mbps and again now where voice, video and large data are going to send throught wireless media, so you can see how the connection is going to be poor or it will never work at all compare to G where you have total connection thruoghtput from 54-108mbps. another consideration is the security perspective of it,

WiMAX would have been th bomb, but you see, the whole thing hasnt been standardized yet. besides, the equipment cost defeats my purpose: a cheaper CPE. really for now i dont mind a tx rate of 11mbps per node, i dont expect to be moving that much data anyway!

but hunter, bolaji, do you have any idea whether my suggestion will work?

Thoeritically it should be possible, but wether you can do it for cheaper (and better) than a purpose built unit, is somewhat doubtful.

hi Gridlock,

If the base station unit support PCI Card, "that's nice" but the distance it will connect at 500ft is another issue, but i can give you a suggestion on weather you can extend the coverage area with a pci card, You will do more of the work, go internet and make a researche on verious kind of ant that can work with Pci card, i guess you will find one btw 12 and 19dbi you wanted, the manual of that ant will instruct you on how to make the connection but to be precise what you will do is to remove the small ant that comes with the wireless PCi card and insect the one of the ant, with this you will be able to design a cost effective CPE but i dont no how far your base station unit signal can go, that will determin how far your CPE can be situated.

You are right by saying wireless g card cannot go far but they work effectivily than B card, the reason why hunter i advice G card is for futuer purpose and when there is more request on bandwith from your customers and large data is required to pass through,

Gridlock, let me put a tip in your mind now, if you are not consdering Wimax systems now, dont think your system can go far as 12km radius (you are assuming theoritiacally), in achieving 12km or more, try considering about 4 sectorial ant backing themself so that you can achieve feather distance just like the way the telecom guys does, check any terminal station of any telecom company, they dont use an omi directional ant but sectorial cos the secotrial look at one end and go farther than omni, If only your base station unit can go farther for about 12km radius or more with an omi ant then go for it but follow the directive of your base station unit vendor.

Before finalizing on your decision let your company setup a test wireless network and conduct a proper survying in testing the solution from your base station to about 12km radius or more if you use the right CPE trying to connect.

Regard

http://www.ferimex.com/en/product.php?Antenna_Flat_9
check this site out

Cotact me offlist, I could be of help to you,

Hi Gridlock, The cost of your CPE will be determined by the wattage of radio and the antenna gain you intend to use.

Your best bet is to have enough gain at your base station so that you can have less power requirement at the CPE end. Use sectorial antenna and a powerful radio in the range of 1 to 2 watts, you can achieve this using amplifiers.

With the above, a 65mwatts and 14dBi antenna will go as far as 3km while a 200mwatts of the same configuration. Note also that some modern antennas comes with pouches which houses your radio and allows you to make it outdoor. That saves you the cost of IF cables.

If you care, I can provide you with 65mwatts CPE radios(ethenret radios with POE support) of the above configuration for only N40,000.00 and 200mwatts with 14dBi for N50,000.00

I am assuming all the way that you are operating in an ISM permitted environment and not acting illegally against NCC standards.

I seriously advise against using amplifiers. This is the problem every ISP is facing presently. When you amplify, you kill everyone as well as yourself. Remember amplifiers do not only increase signal but also increase your noise. Stick to Sector antennas with whatever radio you use and your CPE units and try and balance out your channels. DO NOT, I advise, use amplifiers unless you are causing more harm than good for yourself and others.

Like I stated earlier, if you contact me offlist, I will probably have a solution for you to do the job you are looking for.

ok,ok y'all should chill with all the nerdy talk (lol, am just joking). i'm kinda new at this, so y'all should be patient wit me. are y'all saying that you can provide yourself internet services? lemme rephrase that, can you be your own ISP? pls someone explain all this to me.

peace.

take a look at this site: http://www.bbwexchange.com/ 'tis fully loaded with info. and even if they don't have what you need on the site, you can mail them and they might be able to refer you to a good source.

PS*** what part of lagos does your company serve? Do you have a website? If you service my part of town i might wanna sign up with you, so lemme know. You can post here or contact me on my yahoo (check my profile)

Thanks for the info, everyone. The base station is in Dolphin estate, Ikoyi @ the moment (single cell, started last year September). I agree that we need to use sector antennae, maybe three 120* sectors will do.

The primary problem is cpe, anyway. from my calculations, the cost of assembling and shipping the equipment is a really big deal. The CPE shown in the image at the top of this post is a 9 dBi directional panel antenna (59* vertical polarity) integrated with a wireless radio w/ PoE. At some distance (< 2 km), i get RSSI of 45% or less and signal strengths of 51%, and seriously fluctuating. Is it the trees? Or the distance (i hope not!) I know that adding a 14 dBi (or higher) Yagi to the CPE would solve the problem (it has support for external antenna), but make it more expensive.

@medube: you are right, i stubbornly bought a 1 watt amp to use with the present 100mW AP, and caused the noise levels to rise! I have disconnected it now. Wondering who will buy it from me ,

@lagbaja: can you get me a 200mW PCI card? I set up a mini Access point with a D-Link G520 card (Atheros 5212 chipset), and FreeBSD, but its only 63mW. I plan to replace the current AP

and this is a built-up area (3 storey buildings, with trees - arrgh!)

gridlock, can you send me a PM on yahoo, topdog9926, or gimme your email addy. i'd like to ask you a question regarding your company.

Okay, i am narrowing down my search. I think i can get a pigtail and LMR cable here. Main problem is antenna and PCI cards.

Does anybody know where i can buy parabolic grid antennas or yagi antennas (minimum of 14 dBi) in nigeria? I have a payment and shipping problem with outside countries (they always say we dont ship to nigeria, anybody wonder why!). I aslo need wireless PCI cards, like, somewhere i get to buy in bulk.

Thanks.

[building the CPE myself gives me more flexibility: my mini-accees point has been up for 2 days, no hitches, and i can switch channels, auth-mode and tx speed (a, b or g) without rebooting. when it was running on dlink's firmware, i couldnt do that]

Hello Gridlock,

Are you only looking for CPE solutions or APs as well. I am manage and partly own an ISP in Nigeria. We are currently using CPE solutions with antennas, site survey and installation fee to the client at N50k. If you're interested, I could probably work out a good deal for you in whatever quantity you require.

Let me know if you're interested,

Very much interested. Email me [oyebayo@gmail.com] or give me a number (mobile or landline, preferably landline)

gridlock i have an idea why not go to datacomm express its in sabo yaba they sell all this antennas u need and wireless wifi radio that mite actually interst you.
i also work with an isp and thats where we get our equipments from though we have started importing equiipments too.just go there,fortunately they have an inhouse engineer that advices you on wat and wat mite really help you
check out there website www.datacommexpress.com
i hope this helps

Yeah datacomm express seems to have most of my needs, but some of thema are rather exotic. (400 mW miniPCI cards and WRAP boards). Still checking them out, femilangy thanks.

OK, i notice that datacomm's site shows a lot of items that are actually missing from their shop ("removed from our catalog": does anybody know where i can get a WRAP.2C or WRAP.1E motherboard (SBC)? Or A Soekris net48xx board+case? I dont want to have to order it from the UK/US, they abhor Nigerian Orders.

I have my own router OS (mikrotik asks for a per user license: pay a per-user licence my ass!) built from FreeBSD, so i want to intall on these boards to use as AP/Router/DHCP server/BW monitor/firewall primary reason: i want to build my own AP's so that if one goes down I can fix it, instead of waiting for DLINk or netgear or whatever to send in a replacement (can take up to 3 weeks: that sucks!)

@medube: still waiting on u o, my boss has great expectations.

New Realtek Chipset CPE low cost doing great job for ISP customers, high power low cost CPE costs less than 80USD

Pointred

@gridlock
from java to building routers. you're hot o!

need help and equipment list on seting up a wisp/hotspot for 12 km
and a proposal will be welcome .plus30 pc cybercentre

urgent,

@chrisblack

Hello Chrisblack, as for Realtek, I have used some of their items and i feel they are good and strong, but you will have to consider distances and climate, They come out with Chipset 8186, which we have hacked here in philippines and can reach a power of 4watts, thats roughly more than 30dbm,

I can make a link for you, Please email me  bimbo@abimbolaadewoyin.com

I run a wisp in a rural area here in Philippines and i have also installed a link in Ibadan in a rural area, i normally use realtek CPE, depending on budget of clients and Wireless Radios like motorola Canopy, Mikrotik , Cisco. we can setup something cheap for you and affordable,

please email me and give you list,

bimbo@abimbolaadewoyin.com
pictures shows some setup of ours in Philippines

More pics below,

Use Mikrotik Router Board Rb333 and UBNT SR2 Mini PCI Card

@gridlock

i can ship Antennas for you to nigeria, Grid, and other antennas like Yagis, Parabolic, Omni, Panel type Backfire type, i also sell Mini Pci card that are based on Atheros Chipset , , Wifi Cables like LMR400, CFD200, RG58U, wifi coneectors N conectors, RPSMA, TNC AND e.t.c
CPE Realtek Chipset, Atheros Chipset,

I have CPE cost effective with 400MW, 1Watts, 2watts and 4watts all FCC Aproved, running 2.4ghz and also have the new frequency 2.3ghz(less interference)

I have shipped a lot to South Africa and Ethopia, Let me know your requirements, I am from Philippines,

The pictures shows below a link of 5kms using Realtek Chipset 8186 with 15dbi backfire antennas running voip and remote cctv monitoring,

pls email me, bimbo@abimbolaadewoyin.com

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