Making a big hotspot

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone can help.

I'm thinking of bringing broadband to my village, we will most likely never
get ADSL and so I'm thinking I'll have a go at doing this myself, most
people live within 1.5 miles of my house. I would buy a 2mb leased line to
the net and then share this across the wireless. I was thinking of buying a
very good wires router and using a high gain antenna to cover the area.

The area is resonably flat with some trees and the houses.

Does anyone know if this will allow people with normal wifi cards to connect
to this AP? What are the limits on numbers of people to connect to the AP?

Regards,

Steve

> Does anyone know if this will allow people with normal wifi cards to
connect
> to this AP? What are the limits on numbers of people to connect to the AP?
in some cases this may function, but not in about 100metres distance. so
you'll need to mount little outdoor or windows-antennas on the client sides.
but this should be a small problem, nor?

limits - well, just calculate. you'll get about some mbits effective
bandwidth. how much can anyone get till the leased line is full?

antennas: www.wimo.com

yours, dreamguard.at

> > Does anyone know if this will allow people with normal wifi cards to
> connect
> > to this AP? What are the limits on numbers of people to connect to the
AP?
> in some cases this may function, but not in about 100metres distance. so
> you'll need to mount little outdoor or windows-antennas on the client
sides.
> but this should be a small problem, nor?
>
> limits - well, just calculate. you'll get about some mbits effective
> bandwidth. how much can anyone get till the leased line is full?
>
> antennas: www.wimo.com
>
> yours, dreamguard.at
>
>

They would only need a 1 Mbit connection to the leased line or even half
mbit. It will be a full 2Mbit leased line but since around 50 people are
going to be sharing it, they would not need much bandwidth. most people
using the line will only be light users. The main aim is to get broadband to
my area where BT will not upgrade the exchange unless they bring the trigger
level down to, say 80 people!!

I'm planning on working with the local council to help fund this and once
going will pay for itself.

Check these routers out: http://www.mikrotik.com
the pdf manuel: http://www.mikrotik.com/Documentatio..._2.7/index.php

These guys have a product out where you can actually download a
limited version of the routing OS. They also have a really cool way
for people to interface with a hotspot through redirection to a web
page to log in at. The router can be managed by a radius server to
help manage users/passwords and mac addresses. Also have a "GUI"
winbox interface to manage it all.

BAD: Their tech supportand some compatiblity: I hope you know a few
things about netowrking. These guys are in germany. And a word of
advice, dont buy the A/B/G card with it. You will have less problems
with a prism2 card.