[CS-FSLUG] outdoors wifi

[Mark Clayton]

Thanks for the help. I see that I still have some learning to do. It's
insane the number of fields I'll have to be an expert in... I've been
reading up on wetlands regulations as well...

The biggest thing behind rude owners/managers that I see written up in
rv park reviews is bad wifi. Bad wifi is justified too in my
experience. I stayed at to place this summer that advertised wifi.
They had a linksys box taped up on the inside of the office window -
that was their definition of 'wifi available'. There were people all
hours of the day and night sitting in the one chair that had
reception....

So we want a professional grade installation. Most park owners seem to
be going with tengo internet. I'd rather have more control than what
they allow. I don't have any experience in setting up a large wifi
installation so I'll probably hire a local IT business to come out and
design and install it. But for planning and budget purposes I'm trying
to understand what it'll entail. There are about 120 sites in the
park. I figure no more than 25% of the campers and day use clients
will be using wifi at once, so worse case 40-50 concurrent users. I'm
guessing we'll need 2-4 omnidirectional antennas each with it's own
WAP. Then to get the signal from the office to these antenna I'll use
unidirectional antennas.

Anyhow, thanks again for your info. I think we might go with a KOA
franchise in the end. They offer free access consultants for all kinds
of needs: utilities, legal, IT, etc.

Mark
--
claytoncapers.blogspot.com
www.mark-clayton.com



On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 11:46 AM, Mark Clayton <clayton256 at gmail.com> wrote:
> My wife and I are buying a campground (Lord willing). Two of the four
> we're looking at already have good wifi. For the ones that don't what
> hardware do I need to buy to have decent wifi around the park? Let's
> assume the park sits on 60 acres, roughly shaped as a square. The
> office is located in one corner. Any ball park figures on hardware
> cost?
>
> The hardware is the more important question. But as for software, I'd
> like to use open source. Is there a recommended set of packages or a
> good pre canned iso? Obviously I need router s/w but I'd like to have
> captive portal and content filtering included. What else should I have
> running?
>
> Thanks,
> --
> claytoncapers.blogspot.com
> www.mark-clayton.com