Church Network Wireless Question

[AMD'er]

Network maniac's thanks in advance for your input...

here is the situtation, I have to set up a network for a church that is about 9,000sqft...the building is already equipped with a patch panel with 64 ports (all are not needed)...I have somewhat decided on what router and switch I'm going to use..but my question is whats the best way to included wireless

What I want to do is to have the entire building wireless. I know I could use or add AP's in other areas that are hardwired since I have drops in the classrooms and such...but I want just one (Wireless) network with all the AP's talking to each other and where the users only have to link up once and not everytime they walk into another part of the building where another access point is located...

Any suggestions on how to do this? I've been told I could get about 3 or 4 linksys routers or netgear (as long as they can be flashed with DDRT) and disable the router feature and use them as AP's to communicate but I was wondering if there is something better..

Thanks

[gangaskan]

depends on how much you have to spend :)

get me some figures, aka around 1,000 for wifi or whatever.

[AMD Phreak]

Agreed it all depends on how much money you have.

The best thing to do is to start off with a site survey by placing AP's around the place and gathering signal strength data to determine how many extra AP's you need. After that you formulate a channel plan.

Then you roll the AP's out and adjust their output power accordingly and re-test.


Most of us professionals charge a few grand just in engineering charges, pre-installation. Install is another few grand depending how how hard it is.

[ou_phidelt]

This isn't overly complicated but unless you want to be perminant tech support for when things go wrong, and with a set-up that is going to be needed for this, things will go wrong, you may want to have the church look into getting it professionally done.

[AMD'er]

This isn't overly complicated but unless you want to be perminant tech support for when things go wrong, and with a set-up that is going to be needed for this, things will go wrong, you may want to have the church look into getting it professionally done.

Yeah I thought about this option also..but its pretty much a startup church with about 60 plus members as of today (which all joined last sunday) so I would most likely have to be the Perm tech support...alot already come to me for their personal/home computer and wireless network needs....

So the 5000-10,000 network arrangment is out of the question for the (Pros)...as far as how much willing to spend...around 1,000 for the first (setup) and as the chruch grows in size and money then we can expand to bigger and greater things....

[AMD'er]

Agreed it all depends on how much money you have.

The best thing to do is to start off with a site survey by placing AP's around the place and gathering signal strength data to determine how many extra AP's you need. After that you formulate a channel plan.

Then you roll the AP's out and adjust their output power accordingly and re-test.


Most of us professionals charge a few grand just in engineering charges, pre-installation. Install is another few grand depending how how hard it is.


A few grand to implement a wireless setup...don't forget the building has already been hardwired...with a 64port patch panel..so basically all I have to do is add my router and what managed switch I may want to use..I was really looking for any suggestions for the wireless portion...what may be the best way to go when it comes to having more than one AP communicating with each other without having to connect to AP1 when a person is on the left side of the building and the connect to AP2 when they are on the right side...I would prefer once they are connected then they have free reign over the building connected only once..

thanks for the info

[ou_phidelt]

easiest way I know off the top of my head is to use DD-WRT or Tomato compatible routers and set them up as extenders.

[AMD'er]

easiest way I know off the top of my head is to use DD-WRT or Tomato compatible routers and set them up as extenders.

yelp thats exactly what I was thinking...and plus the price is really affordable to do it that way.

thanks