Wireless Internet Access

Hello group,

A friend of mine needs a wireless network to use her brother's internet
connection. Problem is, they're both totally beginners when it comes to
networking, especially wireless. I know a bit about networking myself
having a home network with four computers, but I don't know much about
wireless networks. Anyway, I've promised to help them. Here's the deal:

Her brother has an ADSL internet connection and lives in an apartment
roughly 150-200 meters away from her apartment, however there's another
apartment building between them. There's also the chance that another
friend wants in on the network.

Basically, what would be the best setup? We're only talking about
internet access here so 11mbit should be sufficient. What I'm worried
about is security, none of them can even spell the word "hacker" and
there's at least a couple of hundred other apartments within the
network's reach. How easy is it to achieve good security on a wireless
network run by inept users?

I assume an access point with built in firewall and NAT would be the
best option, but what about for her? Would a PCI card be enough, or is
it better to buy another access point without firewall that you can move
around to get the best reception. Also, can an access point be used both
as a receiver and repeater?

I appreciate all suggestions and comments.

Thanks,
Ulf

> A friend of mine needs a wireless network to use her brother's internet
> connection. Problem is, they're both totally beginners when it comes to
> networking, especially wireless. I know a bit about networking myself
> having a home network with four computers, but I don't know much about
> wireless networks. Anyway, I've promised to help them. Here's the deal:
>
> Her brother has an ADSL internet connection and lives in an apartment
> roughly 150-200 meters away from her apartment, however there's another
> apartment building between them. There's also the chance that another
> friend wants in on the network.
At the brothers internet connection you will need a wireless router so you
can plug the DSL connection into the WAN port on the router. On the
wireless side of the router it will probably be best to get a router that
you can attach your own antenna. You'll probably need to purchase a
directional antenna and point it in the direction of your friends apartment.
This will increase the strength of the signal seeing as you need to get
through a number of walls.

>
> Basically, what would be the best setup? We're only talking about
> internet access here so 11mbit should be sufficient. What I'm worried
> about is security, none of them can even spell the word "hacker" and
> there's at least a couple of hundred other apartments within the
> network's reach. How easy is it to achieve good security on a wireless
> network run by inept users?
As far as wireless security goes, as of yet, it's not great. If someone
really wants to get on your network than they will. But there are some
measures you can take to help keep the lesser motivated "hackers" out.
First enable MAC filtering on the Router and specify the mac addresses of
the devices you want to allow access. Second, enable WEP encryption and
give the WEP key to the people you want to allow access.

>
> I assume an access point with built in firewall and NAT would be the
> best option, but what about for her? Would a PCI card be enough, or is
> it better to buy another access point without firewall that you can move
> around to get the best reception. Also, can an access point be used both
> as a receiver and repeater?
As with the router, get something that you can attach a directional antenna
to, both PCI cards and access points have antenna jacks. Point the Antenna
toward the access point.
On both the Access Point and the Client... keep the Antenna cables short,
the longer they are the more signal loss there will be. If you need to move
the antenna than move the accesspoint with it and just give it a longer
patch cable.

Most access points can also work in client mode (as a receiver) but only
some can work in repeater mode. So far I have yet to see an accesspoint
that can work in more than one mode at a time. Also, if you are going to
use the directional antennas and you want to put more than one person on
line, than you need to make sure both people are within the beam
width/height (measured in degrees) of the antenna. If they are on opposite
sides of the access point then the most simple thing to do would be to find
an access point that has 2 antenna jacks. I know D-Link makes them as well
as other companies I'm sure. Again, trying to get a signal through a
building could be difficult, depending on what the signal must penetrate.
For instance, brick will be tougher (if not impossible) than wood. No
gurantees as far as that is concerned.

I think thats basically everything. You'll have to do more homework on
specifics of course. Post more questions if you need.
Goodluck.
Billy

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:

> Hello group,
>
> A friend of mine needs a wireless network to use her brother's internet
> connection. Problem is, they're both totally beginners when it comes to
> networking, especially wireless. I know a bit about networking myself
> having a home network with four computers, but I don't know much about
> wireless networks. Anyway, I've promised to help them. Here's the deal:
>
> Her brother has an ADSL internet connection and lives in an apartment
> roughly 150-200 meters away from her apartment, however there's another
> apartment building between them. There's also the chance that another
> friend wants in on the network.

The building in between will likely be the killer.

>
> Basically, what would be the best setup? We're only talking about
> internet access here so 11mbit should be sufficient. What I'm worried
> about is security, none of them can even spell the word "hacker" and
> there's at least a couple of hundred other apartments within the
> network's reach. How easy is it to achieve good security on a wireless
> network run by inept users?
>
> I assume an access point with built in firewall and NAT would be the
> best option, but what about for her? Would a PCI card be enough, or is
> it better to buy another access point without firewall that you can move
> around to get the best reception. Also, can an access point be used both
> as a receiver and repeater?

For that sort of distance, you'd want an external antenna that will provide
some gain. You'll also want to get gear that supports WPA for security.

>
> I appreciate all suggestions and comments.
>
> Thanks,
> Ulf
>

--

Fundamentalism is fundamentally wrong.

To reply to this message, replace everything to the left of "@" with
james.knott.

Billy wrote:

<good advice snipped>

> As with the router, get something that you can attach a directional antenna
> to, both PCI cards and access points have antenna jacks. Point the Antenna
> toward the access point.
> On both the Access Point and the Client... keep the Antenna cables short,
> the longer they are the more signal loss there will be. If you need to move
> the antenna than move the accesspoint with it and just give it a longer
> patch cable.
>
> Most access points can also work in client mode (as a receiver) but only
> some can work in repeater mode. So far I have yet to see an accesspoint
> that can work in more than one mode at a time. Also, if you are going to
> use the directional antennas and you want to put more than one person on
> line, than you need to make sure both people are within the beam
> width/height (measured in degrees) of the antenna. If they are on opposite
> sides of the access point then the most simple thing to do would be to find
> an access point that has 2 antenna jacks. I know D-Link makes them as well
> as other companies I'm sure. Again, trying to get a signal through a
> building could be difficult, depending on what the signal must penetrate.
> For instance, brick will be tougher (if not impossible) than wood. No
> gurantees as far as that is concerned.

I think they are concrete buildings, but I'm not positive. However,
there's another building perpendicular to the one between them, can the
signal bounce off of it so they don't need extra antennas? I know 2.4
GHz is a very high frequency, so maybe the building will just absorb the
radio waves...?

>
> I think thats basically everything. You'll have to do more homework on
> specifics of course. Post more questions if you need.
> Goodluck.

Thanks, I really appreciate your help!

> Billy
>
>
Ulf

> > As with the router, get something that you can attach a directional
antenna
> > to, both PCI cards and access points have antenna jacks. Point the
Antenna
> > toward the access point.
> > On both the Access Point and the Client... keep the Antenna cables
short,
> > the longer they are the more signal loss there will be. If you need to
move
> > the antenna than move the accesspoint with it and just give it a longer
> > patch cable.
> >
> > Most access points can also work in client mode (as a receiver) but only
> > some can work in repeater mode. So far I have yet to see an accesspoint
> > that can work in more than one mode at a time. Also, if you are going
to
> > use the directional antennas and you want to put more than one person on
> > line, than you need to make sure both people are within the beam
> > width/height (measured in degrees) of the antenna. If they are on
opposite
> > sides of the access point then the most simple thing to do would be to
find
> > an access point that has 2 antenna jacks. I know D-Link makes them as
well
> > as other companies I'm sure. Again, trying to get a signal through a
> > building could be difficult, depending on what the signal must
penetrate.
> > For instance, brick will be tougher (if not impossible) than wood. No
> > gurantees as far as that is concerned.
>
> I think they are concrete buildings, but I'm not positive. However,
> there's another building perpendicular to the one between them, can the
> signal bounce off of it so they don't need extra antennas? I know 2.4
> GHz is a very high frequency, so maybe the building will just absorb the
> radio waves...?
I've heard of someone setting it up so that the signal bounced off another
building, but this building had a glass & steel surface. I don't know that
it would work with concrete, I haven't tried that myself. But again, you
may need to use directional antennas to bounce the signal because it is
going to lose some strength in that bounce.