Proposed backhaul layout.

[mohave_steve]

http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee201/mohave_steve/Wireless/CopyofWirelessdist.jpg

[samcamfilms]

Well... ** LINK HERE**

Here's my example

http://i34.tinypic.com/zmgz7k.png[/img*]

Remove the stars and you get top gear!

[img]http://i34.tinypic.com/zmgz7k.png

[mohave_steve]

Thank you.

I was looking for some method to upload the image and could not find it. Likely because it is not there.....

[WHT]

mohave_steve...

Images can't be "uploaded" per se, like in Photobucket.

In the forum here, you have to point the image tag to a URL .

So you have two options...use the URL tag to point to an image outside of the forum,
or use the Img tag to embed the image into your post.

What's the difference? If you have a really big photo or drawing, it might not render
too well in a forum post, so its better to point it off site.

Option 1 - point to an image outside of the forum.
Copy and paste the URL of the image into the post, it will look like:
http://forum.ubnt.com/forum/images/rank_ubntmod1.gif

It will automatically render as a hyper link because the forum engine senses the http prefix.

Now drag you mouse over the link and highlight it, then click on the URL icon and it will
enclose the link with the [ url ] (image address) [ /url ]
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The underline will be removed and will be in orange text.

Option12 - embed the image in your post.
Copy and paste the URL of the image into the post, it will look like:
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It will automatically render as a hyper link because the forum engine senses the http prefix.

Now drag you mouse over the link and highlight it, then click on the Img icon and it will
enclose the link with the [ img ] (image address) [ /img ]
http://forum.ubnt.com/forum/images/rank_ubntmod1.gif

[jcremin]

mohave_steve,
Do all of your sites have clear line of sight between them? You'll need that to get your backhauls working. The only one I see that might be a challenge is the 23 mile link.

I would use 5ghz for the backhauls wherever possible.

Also, is there any chance you can make your first point to point link from the gateway directly to Thorne? All but one of your sites are dependent on 3 links in the drawing and going directly to Thorne would eliminate one link which is one less chance for things to go wrong.

Joe

[mohave_steve]

Joe,

I wish I had LOS from Gateway to Thorne. Unfortunately I cannot put a 120' tower in my back lot. Thorne is the highest central point that can see most of my remote locations but does not have LOS to any location where I can obtain land based broadband. So... I don't have much chioce but to have an intermediate hop.

[mohave_steve]

I am considering using 5.8 PTP backhaul from Thorne to each of the remote site and a 5.8 AP as WDS master to serve the sattelite locations as WDS station and 2.4 AP's connected to the sattelite 5.8 APs via ethernet.

Thorne <PTP> Remote <ethernet> 5.8 WDS Master <WDS>5.8 Satellite WDS station<ethernet>2.4AP<PTMP> clients.

Does that make sense?

[Pinion]

Joe,

I wish I had LOS from Gateway to Thorne. Unfortunately I cannot put a 120' tower in my back lot. Thorne is the highest central point that can see most of my remote locations but does not have LOS to any location where I can obtain land based broadband. So... I don't have much chioce but to have an intermediate hop.

How many hills and tree cover are you seeing between GW to Thorne? How much bandwidth would you need?

Reason I ask, is that I can flow about 10mbps on a 900mhz Backhaul. If a connection like that would fit the bill, you could eliminate a haul. From what I've seen thus far, a 10mbps link should provide for up to 100 clients @ 2mbps each. We have 50 clients @ 2mbps each and 10mbps is plenty.

Hardly crack 3mbps most of the time. :shock:

[mohave_steve]

Pinion,

There are no trees in the path. There are two "hills" one at .5 miles and the other at about 2.5 miles. The total path is around 7 miles. Both project above optical LOS. My best estimation is about 50'.

I would love to try 900mhz. Unfortunately (lacking bullet9's) I don't have a cost effective method of testing.

I need the link from Weinhard to Thorne anyway. How much will that additional hop affect system performance?

[Pinion]

Pinion,

There are no trees in the path. There are two "hills" one at .5 miles and the other at about 2.5 miles. The total path is around 7 miles. Both project above optical LOS. My best estimation is about 50'.

I would love to try 900mhz. Unfortunately (lacking bullet9's) I don't have a cost effective method of testing.

I need the link from Weinhard to Thorne anyway. How much will that additional hop affect system performance?

Well, if you hook them like WDS>ETH>WDS you will see good performance. Thats the way my system runs on our main hub, much like your thorne site. I can pull 10mbps on the far end of a multi WDS system in the 2.4 band ( 5.8PTP<>ETH<>2.4PTP), which is my full connection. Keep your radios on different channels in each separate link. GW to Weinha can be on one channel, use another channel to go from Weinha to Thorne.You could reuse the GW>Weinha channel at the Thorne hub if you wish.

Use a good network switch at your sites. I use Cisco's I get on Fleabay, usually pick up one for about $30-$50. If you don't have room (IE - Using a small enclosure, solar array, whatever) then use a Linksys 5 port or something. I like Linksys, they are cheap and work OK, and best of all, small.

I expect if you do this as you intend, you will have good results. Where you get big performance hits is when you go cheap and try to reuse a radio for 2 links. Like Radio 1 <> Radio 2<> Radio 2 <> Radio 3, that hits performance big time, as Radio 2 is receiving then having to rebroadcast on the same channel to radio 3. Radio 1 and 3 can't x-mit as radio 2 is talking. Using Radio 1<>Radio2 <>ETH<>Radio 3<> Radio 4 will give you nearly full capacity as 1 and 2 can talk at the same time as 3 and 4 provided you use two different channels on the links. Translation = You are on the right track!

Anyway, I've rambled enough. Hope that makes sense!!! :D

[mohave_steve]

I think I get the idea.

I have in mind for all of my backhaul radios to be dedicated PTP links until I get to the last hop of my backhaul. There I have hopes of using an AP at the end of the link to be connected via etnernet to the PTP radio and serve as WDS Master to 2 or more WDS stations which will each connect (ethernet) to a 2.4 AP to server customers:


Gateway Radio <> Weinhard#1<enet>Weinhard#2<>Thorne#1<enet>Thorne#2<>Turner#1<enet>TurnerWDS
<>Turner Satellite#1<enet>Turner2.4AP#1<>Clients
<>Turner Satellite#2<enet>Turner2.4AP#2<>Clients
<>Turner Satellite#3<enet> Turner2.4AP#3<>Clients

That does not display very well. TurnerWDS is master and the three satellites are WDS-station and have 2.4APs hanging off of the ethernet port.

As I understand WDS as long as a group of AP's are all talking to the same master and there are no multiple hops via WDS I should not take a performance hit.

Is this correct?

Thanks

Steve

[mohave_steve]

Maybe this will be a little clearer:
http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee201/mohave_steve/Wireless/WirelessTypicalLink-2.jpg

[Pinion]

I think I get the idea.

I have in mind for all of my backhaul radios to be dedicated PTP links until I get to the last hop of my backhaul. There I have hopes of using an AP at the end of the link to be connected via etnernet to the PTP radio and serve as WDS Master to 2 or more WDS stations which will each connect (ethernet) to a 2.4 AP to server customers:


Gateway Radio <> Weinhard#1<enet>Weinhard#2<>Thorne#1<enet>Thorne#2<>Turner#1<enet>TurnerWDS
<>Turner Satellite#1<enet>Turner2.4AP#1<>Clients
<>Turner Satellite#2<enet>Turner2.4AP#2<>Clients
<>Turner Satellite#3<enet> Turner2.4AP#3<>Clients

That does not display very well. TurnerWDS is master and the three satellites are WDS-station and have 2.4APs hanging off of the ethernet port.

As I understand WDS as long as a group of AP's are all talking to the same master and there are no multiple hops via WDS I should not take a performance hit.

Is this correct?

Thanks

Steve


Yeah, it looks right, other than I'm wondering if the Turner WDS and Turner Satellites are dedicated WDS links? Or are you sharing one radio at Turner and 3 satellites off that radio? If you are using the radio for 3 links, you could see a performance hit once you start ramping load on those links. :?:

[mohave_steve]

You are correct. One WDS master, riding off of the ethernet connection on the PTP backhaul radio, feeds three satellites that are WDS stations.
There are no multi hop WDS links.

Help me understand here:

Four radios running WDS. A, B, C & D.

Senario #1(bad!):

Radio A <> Radio B <> Radio C <> Radio D

Throughput A-B=100%, B-C=50%,C-D=25%

---------

Scenario #2:

Radio A <> Radio B
Radio A <> Radio C
Radio A <> Radio D

Throughput A-B=up to 100%
Throughput A-C=up to 100%
Throughput A-D=up to 100%

It appears to me that if you load any single link you would get 100%. If you load all three equally then they would be equally sharing the bandwidth available from A. Do I understand correctly?

If I have an Internet connection that provides at most 6mbps and I maintain solid 24mbps connections on all of my backhaul AND I use traffic shaping to limit clients to 1.5mbps It appears the network config I have should work well???

Thanks again for your input.

Steve

[Pinion]

You are correct. One WDS master, riding off of the ethernet connection on the PTP backhaul radio, feeds three satellites that are WDS stations.
There are no multi hop WDS links.

Help me understand here:

Four radios running WDS. A, B, C & D.

Senario #1(bad!):

Radio A <> Radio B <> Radio C <> Radio D

Throughput A-B=100%, B-C=50%,C-D=25%

---------

Scenario #2:

Radio A <> Radio B
Radio A <> Radio C
Radio A <> Radio D

Throughput A-B=up to 100%
Throughput A-C=up to 100%
Throughput A-D=up to 100%

It appears to me that if you load any single link you would get 100%. If you load all three equally then they would be equally sharing the bandwidth available from A. Do I understand correctly?

If I have an Internet connection that provides at most 6mbps and I maintain solid 24mbps connections on all of my backhaul AND I use traffic shaping to limit clients to 1.5mbps It appears the network config I have should work well???

Thanks again for your input.

Steve

Yes, you are correct. By using one master and 3 slaves, in theory if one ramps to 100%, you should have most of that available. The only downsides I can see is if those links start loading heavily, and also if the master radio fails, you got nothing on all three of those links.

Other than that, go for it.! :twisted:

[mohave_steve]

I will loose service if ANY of the backhaul radios in the path fail as well.

[WHT]

Is there any reason why you can't replace the Turner master WDS to all the Turner sites with three backhaul radios?

[mohave_steve]

If I understand what you are asking I could replace the WDS master radio serving 3 satellites with three radios so that I would be running three individual PTP links. Cost and available chanels make the PTmP attractive.
If it will not work well then the cost savings is not worth it.

[WHT]

Well...running three separate radios will fore go lots of potential problems. With the cost to low on the Bullet, its hard to pass a three radio solution by. Actually it would be a total of ten radios compared to three in your drawing.

[mohave_steve]

I believe that to convert the Turner satellites from the WDS scheme shown in the drawing I would need to go from 4 radios to 6 radios.

If using the PTmP WDS setup will cause problems I will certainly go the other route. My goal is to provide a reliable network with solid performance without in$talling unneaded hardware.

As I have such a large area to cover my network is hardware heavy compared with the number of potential customers. Every piece of hardware I add moves my ROI out just that much further. As will every lost customer due to network troubles.....

[Pinion]

I believe that to convert the Turner satellites from the WDS scheme shown in the drawing I would need to go from 4 radios to 6 radios.

If using the PTmP WDS setup will cause problems I will certainly go the other route. My goal is to provide a reliable network with solid performance without in$talling unneaded hardware.

As I have such a large area to cover my network is hardware heavy compared with the number of potential customers. Every piece of hardware I add moves my ROI out just that much further. As will every lost customer due to network troubles.....

If you don't expect a huge volume on the satellites, use NS5's. They are cheap, reliable, have external antenna capability, and can reach 5 miles or more with the stock antennas. 6 of them can be had for about $540.Can't wait for the bullets and loco's. then we getz ROI :twisted:

I should point out that using a PTMP setup is not wrong, just creates more SPOF's. As you point out, you have single links throughout your network, and anyone of them can bring a large part of it down. So a PTMP setup there isn't really that different from the rest of the network. Try to build redundant links wherever the most people would be affected by failure, and separate links where appropriate.

Maybe going PTMP first and upgrade if needed???