Where do I begin to look for main Internet Backhaul

Each fall the very rural county to the north of me holds a very very
popular 10 day festival that is estimated to feature 3000 vendors and
draw 1.2 million visitors. Because of its rural location and low
populatin density one of the participating "towns" (pop: 80) which
hosts a majority of these vendors has no high speed broadband service.
We think we could cover the entire area (2 square miles max) with
802.11g WiFi by using several Firetide HotPoint 1000R Outdoor Wireless
Mesh Routers along with D-Link AirPremier DWL-2700AP Wireless Outdoor
Access Points. The only problem is I'm not quite sure where to find
the Internet backhaul we'll need to run the whole mesh network.

Where do I start? Are there utility maps that list underground fiber
that can be tapped? Is there an office or company that I call to see
how far the nearest T3 or T1 line is? How do I bring the signal from
the nearest T1 or T3 (which is certain to be miles away) to this tiny
town and into our mesh network? Am I thinking too small with just this
town or should we be thinking about setting the whole county up with
WiMax? What about satellite broadband if no other source is
available? Will that be able to handle 2,000 + simultaneous users with
speeds at 700Kpbs+? I've looked and looked on many websites and there
just seems to be so many ways of doing this I'd appreciate some input
from you "real worlders" out there with the experience.

Any suggestions on the best way to accomplish this task would be
tremendously appreciated. Thank you all for any assistance you could
provide.

Jacobs Scooter wrote:
> Each fall the very rural county to the north of me holds a very very
> popular 10 day festival that is estimated to feature 3000 vendors and
> draw 1.2 million visitors. Because of its rural location and low
> populatin density one of the participating "towns" (pop: 80) which
> hosts a majority of these vendors has no high speed broadband service.
> We think we could cover the entire area (2 square miles max) with
> 802.11g WiFi by using several Firetide HotPoint 1000R Outdoor Wireless
> Mesh Routers along with D-Link AirPremier DWL-2700AP Wireless Outdoor
> Access Points. The only problem is I'm not quite sure where to find
> the Internet backhaul we'll need to run the whole mesh network.
>
> Where do I start? Are there utility maps that list underground fiber
> that can be tapped? Is there an office or company that I call to see
> how far the nearest T3 or T1 line is? How do I bring the signal from
> the nearest T1 or T3 (which is certain to be miles away) to this tiny
> town and into our mesh network? Am I thinking too small with just this
> town or should we be thinking about setting the whole county up with
> WiMax? What about satellite broadband if no other source is
> available? Will that be able to handle 2,000 + simultaneous users with
> speeds at 700Kpbs+? I've looked and looked on many websites and there
> just seems to be so many ways of doing this I'd appreciate some input
> from you "real worlders" out there with the experience.
>
> Any suggestions on the best way to accomplish this task would be
> tremendously appreciated. Thank you all for any assistance you could
> provide.

I'll try to keep it simple because of both your *and* my limited
knowledge on this. But I may have had some more experience than you. You
don't dig a hole and tie into the backbone, it simply doesn't work that
way. You can call one of the major phone companies and ask them for
their rates for whatever bandwidth you want, but when you start thinking
of 2,000 plus users, you are looking at MAJOR expense. I'd say that
probably a T3 (45Mbs) would be inadequate, but I've never tried that
many connections at once. A T3 in my area from a tier one provider runs
about $5,000 per month and that's on a one year contract.

And no, there ain't no friggin way that a satellite connection could
help you out with connecting 2,000 clients.

From what I can tell from your post, you are getting in WAY over your
head and the chances of success are well below slim. You need
professional engineering and a lot of time to do a project like you
suggest, not because I think the engineers need the money but because
the problems you'll face would overwhelm you very quickly.

Maybe if you rein in the scope of your plans you might make a favorable
impression on everyone. Set up two, three or so hotspots where vendors
and tourists can go to get online at broadband speeds. They'll
appreciate something like that if it works much more than a huge project
that never gets off the ground.

On 5 Oct 2004 13:50:07 -0700, (E-Mail Removed) (Jacobs
Scooter) wrote:

>Each fall the very rural county to the north of me holds a very very
>popular 10 day festival that is estimated to feature 3000 vendors and
>draw 1.2 million visitors. Because of its rural location and low
>populatin density one of the participating "towns" (pop: 80) which
>hosts a majority of these vendors has no high speed broadband service.
> We think we could cover the entire area (2 square miles max) with
>802.11g WiFi by using several Firetide HotPoint 1000R Outdoor Wireless
>Mesh Routers along with D-Link AirPremier DWL-2700AP Wireless Outdoor
>Access Points. The only problem is I'm not quite sure where to find
>the Internet backhaul we'll need to run the whole mesh network.

You're in over your head. Get some expert help. 3000 vendors do not
suck 700Kbits/sec each. They use it for credit card machines that
work just as well at 1200 baud and move very little traffic. What
will kill you is the one idiot that uses your network to redistribute
his lastest virus or worm, or the inevitable video conference. Most
of the traffic will be VoIP (phone calls), email, and Ouchlook
replication. Ask someone that's run one of these event for a traffic
summary. My guess is that you could do it with one or two T1's.

>Where do I start?

Well, if you had bothered to disclose the name and location of the
event, I could have looked up the name and location of the nearest
ISP. Even though the town is small, there are usually nearby towns
with big ISP's. You give them a call, arrange for some temporary
bandwidth at exhorbitant charges (mostly setup time). Then, you get a
wireless backhaul point to point bridge (usually at 5.6GHz) to deliver
the bandwidth to the fair. The first box it hits is the bandwidth
manager. You don't want one user hogging ALL your bandwidth.
Therefore, you need someway to control bandwidth use by application,
IP address, and traffic pattern. Search Google for "bandwidth
manager".

Lose the mesh network. If you really have 3000 users in a relatively
small area, the very last thing you'll need are bandwidth wasteing
store and forward repeaters. Put some access points around the
perimeter (where you can get to them without getting trampled) and
connected with a fiber ring for redundancy. Power should be locally
supplied (gel cell with solar charger) so you don't have to run AC
power or generators. Antennas should be 90-120 degree sectors pointed
inward. No sense in illuminating areas that don't need coverage.
Take a map and build up a channel plan so that you don't have any
overlap. Use one SSID for everything and forget about roaming. It's
too difficult to get right and not worth it for the few that need it.
Just have them re-connect.

>Are there utility maps that list underground fiber
>that can be tapped?

Ummmm.... You don't "tap" fiber. Try that and the owner of the fiber
will have you drawn and quartered. You need to find a location where
all the fiber comes together where it can be run through a repeater
and splitter. That's usually at the local CATV company or telco
central office.

>Is there an office or company that I call to see
>how far the nearest T3 or T1 line is?

Actually yes.
http://www.dslreports.com/coinfo
When you locate the local central office, you'll see a list of their
capeabilities and available services. The catch is that T1's and T3's
tend to be maxed out and will require an upgrade at the CO to supply.
The monthly costs are exhorbitant, but wait until you get the
installation charges. That's why you want to borrow bandwidth, not
arrange for a new connection.

>How do I bring the signal from
>the nearest T1 or T3 (which is certain to be miles away) to this tiny
>town and into our mesh network?

Lose the mesh network. It won't work with such density. The usual
way is with wireless point to point radios. Do it on 5.6GHz so that
you don't trash the 2.4GHz band for the users.
http://www.proxim.com/solutions/backhaul/
http://www.ydi.com/products/bridges/index.php
If you decide to shovel encapsulated ethernet to the ISP's router,
instead of a raw T1 or T3, make sure your wireless bridge can handle
the large number of MAC addresses (one per client) that the system
will need. This eliminates all of the cheapo bridges on the market
which usually max out at 32 MAC addresses. Even the fancy ones
(Alvarion, Lucent/Proxim) will max out at 256 MAC addresses. If you
do your own routeing, this is not a problem.

>Am I thinking too small with just this
>town or should we be thinking about setting the whole county up with
>WiMax?

You can't buy functional 2.4GHz WiMax hardware unless you wanna be
part of someones beta test.

>What about satellite broadband if no other source is
>available?

There are commercial satellite broadband vendors that will supply your
necessary bandwidth. I don't have my list handy.

>Will that be able to handle 2,000 + simultaneous users with
>speeds at 700Kpbs+?

Hell no. You don't need it anyway. I strongly suggest you carefully
analyze your bandwidth usage and your topology as I'm sure you're
over-estimating the type and magnitude of the usage.

>I've looked and looked on many websites and there
>just seems to be so many ways of doing this I'd appreciate some input
>from you "real worlders" out there with the experience.

See:
http://isp-wireless.com
for the Wireless ISP mailing list. Lots of people with lots of
experience.

>Any suggestions on the best way to accomplish this task would be
>tremendously appreciated. Thank you all for any assistance you could
>provide.

Just one suggestion. Hire someone that has a clue or you'll burn big
bucks on something that isn't gonna play. However, I am impressed
that you're trying to tackle such a project. Best of luck and may you
stay within budget. I'll post my list of satellite vendors when I
find them.

Some notes on the last BurningMan wireless network:
http://www.eugeneweb.com/~bm/ibm.html
http://www.templetons.com/pq/

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# 831.421.6491 digital_pager (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
:If you decide to shovel encapsulated ethernet to the ISP's router,
:instead of a raw T1 or T3, make sure your wireless bridge can handle
:the large number of MAC addresses (one per client) that the system
:will need. This eliminates all of the cheapo bridges on the market
:which usually max out at 32 MAC addresses. Even the fancy ones
Alvarion, Lucent/Proxim) will max out at 256 MAC addresses. If you
:do your own routeing, this is not a problem.

Small point: the Cisco 340 and 1100/1200 series are spec'd at more
than 2000 MAC addresses... but I don't think I'd really want to try
running even a fraction of those!
--
This signature intentionally left... Oh, darn!

On 6 Oct 2004 03:01:50 GMT, (E-Mail Removed) (Walter
Roberson) wrote:

>In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
>Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>:If you decide to shovel encapsulated ethernet to the ISP's router,
>:instead of a raw T1 or T3, make sure your wireless bridge can handle
>:the large number of MAC addresses (one per client) that the system
>:will need. This eliminates all of the cheapo bridges on the market
>:which usually max out at 32 MAC addresses. Even the fancy ones
>Alvarion, Lucent/Proxim) will max out at 256 MAC addresses. If you
>:do your own routeing, this is not a problem.

>Small point: the Cisco 340 and 1100/1200 series are spec'd at more
>than 2000 MAC addresses... but I don't think I'd really want to try
>running even a fraction of those!

Not so small point. Cisco 350 VxWorks firmware before 12.04 barfs on
anything over about 127 MAC addresses:
CSCeb61728 — The access point no longer hangs and reboots when
an abnormally large number of clients are associated.
That drove me nuts for about 3 months until I figured out what was
happening.

This feature:
CSCin46639 — When configured to do so, the access point now
switches to repeater mode when Ethernet link is down.
also provided endless entertainment value as unplugging an ethernet
backhaul instantly caused wireless traffic to slow down by 50%.

(Moral: Read the release notes to avoid surprises).

Incidentally, the usual trick is to put 3 radios on each pole on
channels 1, 6, and 11 to deal with the problem. With 256 MAC
addresses per radio, chances of running out are low, especially if the
access point is sufficiently smart to expire stale MAC addresses as
fast as possible. With a fake roaming type of arrangement, this is
possible using fairly short expiration times. The users will see
disconnects if they go idle, but will reconnect almost instantly, so
it shouldn't be a problem.

I also forgot to mumble something about network management and SNMP.
These are nice because you can keep track of what each radio is
actually doing, which radio is getting abused, and who's connected to
what. All this can be done from a central location. With SNMP, you
can also change settings, but that's best done by a web browser
interface.

Of course, there should be some way to do authorization and signup to
insure that evil bad guys (like myself) don't just reconnect when you
try to pull their plug. Some of the hot spot software will work but
might require a RADIUS server to work. Of course, you could just
trust everyone to do the right thing, but the first bozo that shows up
with a virus or worm infected laptop will ruin that idea.

There's no way that I know of that someone can setup a big wireless
LAN, fire up an IDS (intrusion detection system) and just walk away.
Someone has to watch the traffic and play policeman. With the proper
network mangement tools, it's much easier to do this.
http://www.mikrotik.com
There are lots of others.
--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# 831.421.6491 digital_pager (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS

Jeff,

As always I count on you for brutal honesty and you never disappoint.
Thanks for the advice and input. You all have undoubtedly saved me
tons of time and money. We are doing market research over the next
week and that will indicate what kind of "demand" we are looking at in
the first place so that should tell us a lot about being able to scale
down the project.

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<(E-Mail Removed)>. ..
> On 6 Oct 2004 03:01:50 GMT, (E-Mail Removed) (Walter
> Roberson) wrote:
>
> >In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
> >Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> >:If you decide to shovel encapsulated ethernet to the ISP's router,
> >:instead of a raw T1 or T3, make sure your wireless bridge can handle
> >:the large number of MAC addresses (one per client) that the system
> >:will need. This eliminates all of the cheapo bridges on the market
> >:which usually max out at 32 MAC addresses. Even the fancy ones
> >Alvarion, Lucent/Proxim) will max out at 256 MAC addresses. If you
> >:do your own routeing, this is not a problem.
>
> >Small point: the Cisco 340 and 1100/1200 series are spec'd at more
> >than 2000 MAC addresses... but I don't think I'd really want to try
> >running even a fraction of those!
>
> Not so small point. Cisco 350 VxWorks firmware before 12.04 barfs on
> anything over about 127 MAC addresses:
> CSCeb61728 ? The access point no longer hangs and reboots when
> an abnormally large number of clients are associated.
> That drove me nuts for about 3 months until I figured out what was
> happening.
>
> This feature:
> CSCin46639 ? When configured to do so, the access point now
> switches to repeater mode when Ethernet link is down.
> also provided endless entertainment value as unplugging an ethernet
> backhaul instantly caused wireless traffic to slow down by 50%.
>
> (Moral: Read the release notes to avoid surprises).
>
> Incidentally, the usual trick is to put 3 radios on each pole on
> channels 1, 6, and 11 to deal with the problem. With 256 MAC
> addresses per radio, chances of running out are low, especially if the
> access point is sufficiently smart to expire stale MAC addresses as
> fast as possible. With a fake roaming type of arrangement, this is
> possible using fairly short expiration times. The users will see
> disconnects if they go idle, but will reconnect almost instantly, so
> it shouldn't be a problem.
>
> I also forgot to mumble something about network management and SNMP.
> These are nice because you can keep track of what each radio is
> actually doing, which radio is getting abused, and who's connected to
> what. All this can be done from a central location. With SNMP, you
> can also change settings, but that's best done by a web browser
> interface.
>
> Of course, there should be some way to do authorization and signup to
> insure that evil bad guys (like myself) don't just reconnect when you
> try to pull their plug. Some of the hot spot software will work but
> might require a RADIUS server to work. Of course, you could just
> trust everyone to do the right thing, but the first bozo that shows up
> with a virus or worm infected laptop will ruin that idea.
>
> There's no way that I know of that someone can setup a big wireless
> LAN, fire up an IDS (intrusion detection system) and just walk away.
> Someone has to watch the traffic and play policeman. With the proper
> network mangement tools, it's much easier to do this.
> http://www.mikrotik.com
> There are lots of others.

Also, is there a consulting company that you all might recommend to do
a feasability/site survey study of the area? I'm sure if I ask 5
different companies they will all have 5 different ways of
accomplishing this so I am looking for some recommendations.

Thanks
Jacob

On 6 Oct 2004 09:24:54 -0700, (E-Mail Removed) (Jacobs
Scooter) wrote:

>Also, is there a consulting company that you all might recommend to do
>a feasability/site survey study of the area? I'm sure if I ask 5
>different companies they will all have 5 different ways of
>accomplishing this so I am looking for some recommendations.

Oh goodie. I get to plug my friends, favorite vendors, and
accomplises.

Marlon Schafer
http://www.odessaoffice.com/wireless/
Marlon's been around since the stone age and knows

Jack Unger
http://www.ask-wi.com
Jack gives mostly lectures on Wireless ISP techniques, but knows
everyone in the business (with a clue).

If they can't fly to your unspecified location, they will certainly
know who can do the engineering for you, hopefully in the area.

You might also wanna contact the vendors that carry a wide range of
hardware. Ignore the usual sales pitch and concentrate on the names
and enginnering.
http://www.ydi.com
http://www.winncom.com
etc...
They will have the names of dealers, groups, and individuals that have
already done portable wireless and fairs.

Incidentally, I can think of at least 10 (not 5) radically different
ways of doing the wireless, including a few that have probably never
been tried. I've always wanted to try my "leaky waveguide" method of
"plumbing" the area. Maybe a tethered helium balloon mounted access
point or repeater. Perhaps an inflatable tower:
http://www.boschaero.com/tower.htm

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

> Oh goodie. I get to plug my friends, favorite vendors, and
> accomplises.
>
> Marlon Schafer
> http://www.odessaoffice.com/wireless/
> Marlon's been around since the stone age and knows
>
> Jack Unger
> http://www.ask-wi.com
> Jack gives mostly lectures on Wireless ISP techniques, but knows
> everyone in the business (with a clue).

Of the two I found Jack to be far more accessible to the non-RF engineer
type. Not really putting Marlon down, but seems he's too busy to deal
much with people starting out in wireless.