[aklug] Re: large scale wireless question

On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 1:58 PM, Bruce Hill <bruce@slackwarebox.com> wrote:
>
> It's really a mess ... looks like some know-only-a-little guy like me did
> it to begin with. He has a Comcast business class router, a NetGear
> switch/hub/router (didn't pay attention because I think he needs to redo
> it all), and three APs. I've never seen the one on the outside and will
> have to Google it tomorrow. The two in the hallways on the second floor
> were in boxen with two antennas sticking out that had silicon to hold them
> in place. He has two more of those outside antennas (TR-6015f) and two
> home class Buffalo wireless routers he's bought.
>

Are the TR-6015f in place? They're made by Tranzeo. Usually used for
outside/point-to-multipoint links, are a 15dbm panel, with 20 x 30°
beamwidth. Not usually used for indoor, unless you were trying to hit a
narrow area. Plus they're only 802.11b, which is a big waste of spectrum
these days. The Buffalo routers can potentially run dd-wrt, but he wouldn't
need that (in general) if he has a good gateway router.

>
> I'm nothing more than a novice at networking anyway (Arthur is tutoring me
> through Networking Part I, II, and III so far), but this guy has problems.
> He also has a letter from Comcast where someone had violated their terms
> of service regarding privacy ... they used bittorent and downloaded "Conan
> the Barbarian"? Some video I think. He's also having problems with
> bandwidth sharing. His plan calls for 16MB down and 2MB up. If it's like
> my 8/2 he doesn't get it. Comcast is reselling AT&T because there is no
> fibre to this city yet.
>

Dunno what he can do about that. L7 filtering (kind of a big hammer for this
job) will cut down on *some* of it, but as far as I know encrypted
Bittorrent would slip right through that anyway. Traffic shaping (not sure
if that's possible with the Comcast router he has) can sort of limit his
risk, by turning unknown (i.e., illegit) traffic waay down, but that's
expensive to implement.

> Anyway ... I've got to leave, but tomorrow when I get my thoughts
> together. He wants to add three more APs ... one more of the TR-6015f
> things and one of the Buffalo routers ... don't think that's a good
> solution.
>

There are much better solutions than Tranzeo. I've found them to be fairly
stable but opaque. I still have some in operation, but I've migrated most of
those type to either Mikrotik or Ubiquiti.

jermudgeon

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Received on Wed Oct 19 14:11:57 2011