Re: router for apartment complex

"Thomas Hallock" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:altrouters.20.antialias-(E-Mail Removed)...

> I'm looking to get a new router for my apartment complex. At peak
> operation, I'd be servicing no more than 48 network devices in 16
> apartment units...

How do you plan to share the costs?
Will you act as an ISP to your neighbors? (And pocket the profits?)

What do you call this kind of network activity? Community networking?

***

> In order of necessity, this is a list of features for my ideal router:
> * NAT
> * remote operation...
> * a good firewall...

> * 10 MBPS. That's all I really need for distributing broadband.
> Faster is okay, but this is all I really need.

Where do you get a 10Mbps connection that you can distribute freely at a
reasonable price?

I just connected a 150 apartment block to a fiber-optic Ethernet-link. The
speed had to be reduced to 6Mbps/6Mbps to get the price under 1000 euros /
month

> * dual WAN connections in case one goes out.

This is a though one. Not too many devices around that can do this.
Some Taiwanese load balancers or "Multi-Homing Broadband Routers" have been
available in Finland. One main use has been to combine to ADSL-lines for
residential networks in housing co-operatives (HomePNA or Ethernet).

- Taicom TMH-121
http://www.taicom.com.tw/cpebu2/BU2-...%20DM-V650.pdf
- Leadfly ADV420
http://www.leadfly.com/ADV420_Manual_1_3_1.pdf
- Edimax BR-6524
http://www.edimax.com/html/english/products/BR-6524.htm

The price for these devices in Finland is 120 - 200 euros (including VAT)

> * some way to logically separate units of the apartments complex for
> security and bandwidth management. VLANS? My CAT switch can do
> port-based VLANS, but requires VTP functionality in the router.

You do the separation in the switch(es) using asymmetric port-based VLANs.
I believe most new switches can be configured to work this way. This is also
a standard feature in HomePNA switches.

To see how this works see the Cabletron ELS10-27MDU manual:
http://www.enterasys.com/support/man...dware/3276.pdf

***

> I'm leaning towards getting a Linksys WRT54G ($56 at NewEgg) and putting
> some 3rd party firmware on it, but I have reservations with Linksys
> equipment after my experiences with my current router.

Something like OpenWRT?
http://openwrt.org/

The user inferface for OpenWRT is still lacking. My personal preference is
m0n0wall (+ PC). The user interface is excellent
http://www.m0n0.ch/wall/

What is missing from your list is a traffic shaper to stop p2p-traffic from
slowing down or blocking interactive traffic. Both WRT54G + OpenWRT and
m0n0wall can do the job.


--
Petri Krohn
petri. krohn <a@t> iki. FI(nland)
__________________________________________________ ___________
Fiber-optic Community Networking: http://www.HelsinkiOpen.net

On Sun, 5 Sep 2004 in uk.telecom.broadband, "Petri Krohn" wrote:

>> * 10 MBPS. That's all I really need for distributing broadband.
>> Faster is okay, but this is all I really need.

>Where do you get a 10Mbps connection that you can distribute freely
>at a reasonable price?

I think the poster was intending to use 10 Mbps *within the building*
as it would be sharing lower speed WAN connection(s) and 100 Mbps is
therefore not essential. Thanks for the useful links in your post.

On 5 Sep 2004 in uk.telecom.broadband, "Petri Krohn" wrote:

> The speed had to be reduced to 6Mbps/6Mbps to get the price under
> 1000 euros / month

Worth knowing next time someone comments on having expensive high speed
services in the UK !! 1000 Euros = ~675 GBP (from www.xe.com today).

Petri Krohn wrote:
>
> What do you call this kind of network activity? Community networking?
>

I believe they are known as NANs - Neighbourhood Area Networks

Tony

"Petri Krohn" <(E-Mail Removed)> kirjoitti viestissä
news:chdtp2$p6r$(E-Mail Removed)...

> You can do the separation in the switches using asymmetric port-based
> VLANs. This is also a standard feature in HomePNA switches.

> To see how this works see the Cabletron ELS10-27MDU manual:
> http://www.enterasys.com/support/man...dware/3276.pdf

Cisco calls this feature "Private VLANs" (PVLANs) or "protected ports".
The feature is not supported on the Catalyst 1924 switch.

See the "Private VLAN Catalyst Switch Support Matrix":
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/473/63.html

It is also described in RFC 3069 -
VLAN Aggregation for Efficient IP Address Allocation:
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3069.html


--
Petri Krohn
petri. krohn <a@t> iki. FI(nland)
__________________________________________________ ___________
Fiber-optic Community Networking: http://www.HelsinkiOpen.net