Hi, I've been asked by work to look into providing a wireless coverage in our office. We only have 1 internet connection and its quite a large area to cover, so I assume I would need some kind of wireless meshing hardware. I've found a company called Air2Air who seem to have what I want?

Has anyone got any experiece or advice on this one?
Thanks

Getting a wireless router will help you get the job done. Make sure that all terminals have wireless adaptors as well.

If this is for a business network I'd suggest staying away from wireless routers from Linksys/Netgear/DLink and the like. Chances are your company already has some sort of router in place, which means you just need an access point (although more info on the equipment you have would be really helpful). The Cisco Aironet access points are fantastic and have a much larger range them the standard consumer equipment you'd find at CompUSA or BestBuy. Also, the Aironets support authentication through RADIUS and some other extremely useful features.

BTW, "wireless mesh" is NOT what you're looking for, you just need a few access points that can repeat the signal so that it's available throughout your office. Wireless mesh is actually a different type of wireless technology, see the Wikipedia page here for a description of what wireless mesh actually is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Mesh_Networking

If you can provide your current networking equipment and what the goal of the wireless network is I'd have a much easier time giving you a more specific suggestion on equipment/configuration.

thanks for your help i will look into getting a Cisco Aironet access point as range is very important

I would suggest getting installed Pure "MAN" setup, and hooking it up to a good set of routers. But you can also try and advanced Bluetooth connection or even Wi-fi.

You can get also signal reflectors and or boosters to your wireless routers.

Keep in mind Cisco products are going to be a lot more expensive then something made for consumers like a Linksys and Netgear are. The big difference is the features the Cisco will support, the range you'll get, the security, and the reliability. Once you get the Cisco Aironet configured you can put it in a ceiling and forget about it, because they are just that stable. Don't forget to add a SmartNET contract (service contract) if your going to want support and repair service. Normally for an Aironet I'd go with something like 8 x 5 NBD for the support ( phone support from 9a - 5p / Monday - Friday with a tech or replacement part on the next business day if you need service) since wireless isn't really critical.

Also:


I have no idea what you mean by this. Are you suggesting a Metopolitan Area Network for a single office??


Yes, routers are definitly important. Cisco makes some excellent routers wich are important if you're going to be using the wireless/wired network heavily and to get internet access.


I don't think Bluetooth is even possible in this situation. He wants to provide wireless network connectivity to an entire office which he's said is fairly large. Bluetooth has a very poor range and is slow compared to an 802.11G network (pretty much the standard now). WiFi is definitely the best choice here, which is why I suggested a Cisco Aironet...they come in 802.11 A/B/G and combined versions.


I'm not sure a signal reflector would help too much here, but a repeater certainly would (since it would act as a signal booster).

Is it a skyrise? A MAN (use fiber optical)setup may seem expensive but here alot of skyscrapers use them becuase there wide span, and the speed is great at each pc they get around 30Mbps (30000 kbps) download.

The carrier on which a network is based often has very little to do with the performance of a network

Designing a carefully crafted network for maximum performance will bring you speed, not just using fast connections.

Say you have 1000 terminals, and connected them all to a single 1024 port router (if there was one), the amount of collisions that would occur on the network and also the load of that router would bring it to a stand still undoubtedly

Wheras if those 1000 terminals were split down into segments of max 100 users which then connected back to the main router, we would see much better performance

Top notch advice there, you don't want home user equipment in a large business area. Cisco are after all industry leaders.

I'm still not sure what in the world you mean by MAN, even if you use fiber (using fiber alone will NOT provide a wireless network as the original post said was needed).

thanks for all your help guys, i will advise my boss

If you need any further help just let us know. This is what I do for a living (network engineering consultant) so I'm always happy to help others learn.

Instead of using regular cat5 to hook the wirless routers between them use fiber optical, you dont loose packets like you do with cat5, your wirless will be connected to a "WAN" which you get your signal from, well try getting a fiber optical signal cable installed like a "MAN" setup, that would boost your wirless signal up.. Unless the router is capped by your network technician.