neighborhood wireless network question

[queequeg99]

Eight neighbors of mine are considering setting up a wireless network to share internet access. We live in a relatively rural area (we live on 6 acre lots) and there is no DSL or cable access (nor will there be for the foreseeable future). We can have a T1 line run in for $500 a month and we're trying to figure out if we can easily set up a network to share the service. We would use the network to share internet access and to occasionally game amonst ourselves. We can see two big issues that need to be addressed:

First, what network technology should we use? Each house is about 120 meters from the other so cat5 cable is out of the question. Fiber would cost about $400-500 per house (NICs, cable, and conduit). So we're left with wireless. Most of the houses have a very clear line of sight. However, three of them have some trees that obstruct the line of sight. The obstruction is not complete and you can easily look through the trees and tell where the houses are. However, I'm not sure how well the various consumer grade wireless technologies (even when augmented with directional antennas) can penetrate some foliage. My thoughts are that some form of 802.11g would be best because it would provide the most room for error. That is, it's highest theoretical limit is much higher than 802.11b so if the connection is less than perfect, we might still have pretty good performance. Any thoughts? If 802.11g is the way to go, we would want to get equipment that allows for after-market high gain antennas (or cantennas). Any recommendations?

Second, whoever gets the T1 run into his house will have to set up some sort of server. Can anyone provide some info or recommend a decent website that gives some basic information on what would be needed from an equipment and software perspective to set this up? All eight up us already have basic home networks set up using the internet connection sharing that comes with WinXP but this project will probably require quite a bit more.

Thanks.

 

[AkumaBao]

Just have whoever is going to get the line to their house to run a strong gateway of some sort (Might look into some BSDs) and have it provide MAC filtering DHCP. Run an access point from that box, or even turn it into an AP. Run 802.11g with WPA enabled, a have a repeater at each house to make sure the signal stays strong. Also, make sure to keep broadcasting off to avoid wardrivers. Depending on what is already in each house, the repeater can help share the wifi connection, or hook it to a router or system to share hard-wired connection. Of course you can always wait until the 3rd quarter of next year when 802.16 should become available, and then you won't have to worry about range at all.

 

[JeffMD]

you should do some google searches about wide area wifi implimentation. You will definetly be looking into some expensive startup cost here. You will need to buy some commercial grade access points (That specialise on power output) and suitable outdoor antennas that will output a strong signal. The houses within view of eachother will prolly do fine with directional antennas, and the houses that are blocked off can simply use a directional antenna that runs out of the house and goes to the antenna setup on the other side of the trees.

You all will prolly want access point routers, that way you can setup your own network behind the neighboorhood one, so there is only one connection per family the main router at the T1 needs to worry about. aslo remember repeaters also half the bandwidth rates, since it needs to alternate cycles of send and recieve.