Wifi

[puttputt]

Afternoon all,

Have been asked to research the options for fitting Wifi in a seven acre caravan park with seventy holiday homes (statics). There is a connection to broadband in the office, which is just of centre of the plots overall area.
Spoken to the provider and the router and line are not upto the job.

Has anyone had a similar requirement that could share there experience?

Thanks in advance.

[benc]

Are you able to get a better connection in the park? I would have thought for a service like that, then a 24MB business ADSL line - which had a router with some form of speed limiting would be fine... otherwise you would be looking at leased line or similar which will cost a lot more money for decent speeds.

How technical are you ? pfSense is a great firewall product, with lots of features in it that would help you do the software side of things - the most complicated part, will be getting a reliably signal available all around the park. Are there any places around the park that you can position wireless repeaters?

[jezza2011]

Hi You will need a fast link to the provider.
say something like fiber off virgin for a start.
then from the main router/hub break out into fiber or copper to some remote wireless routers.

simples
ish
you will need some quite pokey wireless routers. especially to cover 7 acres.!!!

look at Cisco's kit. Have to say that as I work for them. :-)

AS the vans are static you could if you can run some fiber to certain points and then break out to cat6 cables to each static van.

do you have a layout of the park?

Its not a simple undertaking due to the size.

[guernseylee]

Wireless WiFi Hotspot Solutions for Hotels, Cafe's, Bars and Restaurants, WiFi Hotel | DigitalAir Wireless Networks UK

we used these people to set up wifi on a pier in london

[SPR]

Originally Posted by guernseylee

Wireless WiFi Hotspot Solutions for Hotels, Cafe's, Bars and Restaurants, WiFi Hotel | DigitalAir Wireless Networks UK

we used these people to set up wifi on a pier in london

+1 for digital Air - I have installed 4 point to point devices for cctv.

along with draytech routers / has two WAN interfaces, 3 broadband accounts loadbalancing, and the 3rd interface is USB for a 3G dongle! and you can have private wifi network/public

If BT infinity in your area - you hit a gold!!!

Filter the service via OPENDNS , and you your laughing !

S.

[Perroboy]

On Solwise website is a link to doing exactly that!!
http://www.solwise.co.uk/downloads/files/vansites.pdf

[Perroboy]

If you wish to charge each van for broadband useage!!!!Heres a link to a company that offers the abilityto do that too!!!

http://www.medusabusiness.com/wifi-f...ce.htmlolution.

[willk]

I run a fairly extensive public access wifi facility. I use this. They make good kit and they're very cheap, in the greater scheme of things.

[Poly]

Originally Posted by Deutcha

Afternoon all,

Have been asked to research the options for fitting Wifi in a seven acre caravan park with seventy holiday homes (statics). There is a connection to broadband in the office, which is just of centre of the plots overall area.
Spoken to the provider and the router and line are not upto the job.

You've not defined what the job is though. If e.g. you just need to provide email access and low traffic websites (e.g. weather, text based news etc). Then a fairly standard 2Mb/s connection can probably handle it. If you might have 70 users all trying to watch stuff on iplayer/youtube/porn sites, download pirate DVDs, use Skype along with 200 smartphones all trying to talk to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, upload their latest holiday snaps/videos and their email programs then you will need a serious connection!

But connection is only half your problem. You then need to share that around a big site which is probably going to call for specialist wifi kit, and then you might need some specialist software/router to let you control who connects, charge them (if you want), get them to accept your t&cs (if necessary), restrict how much of the data each user guzzles etc. In theory you can do all this yourself, but unless you are a serious geek its probably time to call in specialist help.

A stepping stone to the ultimate solution could be to offer wifi only in a restricted area, e.g. in your cafe/bar if you have such a thing. That will be fewer users, who are less likely to be so data intensive, and no real range issue. Your customers still get access albeit not from their tin sheds. If it proves popular then you will know people probably want wifi in their van. if it is not so popular maybe your users are happy to avoid the net when on holiday! As a bonus if it encourages people to use your bar/cafe rather than drink cheap beer/coke in their van all the better!

[willk]

Originally Posted by Polwart

but unless you are a serious geek its probably time to call in specialist help.

I probably should have said. My kit/software was specced by donegaldan. He generally uses it to connect hundreds of spotty students (in Halls) to the Internet. Like I said, worth a look.

[SPR]

it's the same stuff that digitalair sells ... I would suggested as polwart says roll it out to small area...

I have my own wifi at my static caravan, with Bt line! used to have ISDN2 back in the day...

S.

[willk]

Originally Posted by SPR

I would suggested as polwart says roll it out to small area...

Small areas are not where "it's at" in Tourism. Think more along the lines of "Everywhere, Free and Fast"

[SPR]

Originally Posted by willk

Small areas are not where "it's at" in Tourism. Think more along the lines of "Everywhere, Free and Fast"

but everywhere - patchy , free & slow is worse!

[willk]

Originally Posted by SPR

but everywhere - patchy , free & slow is worse!

Oddly, Tourists are rarely comforted by tales of how much worse their lot could have been had the Supplier been even less bothered. The OP is on the right track, full WiFi on site is the way to go. Personally, I'd run a radial cable network and a few poles on the odd static, it's simple, cheap and hard to "knock over".

The overall connection speed isn't as critical as you might think - trust me

[Poly]

Originally Posted by willk

Small areas are not where "it's at" in Tourism. Think more along the lines of "Everywhere, Free and Fast"

Oh, I'm with you there as a potential tourist... however in my view sleeping in a tin shed is not where it is at in terms of tourism either!

If there is budget for everywhere, free and fast then clearly that is the way to go. But I am assuming that the it infrastructure budget on a caravan site might be a bit less than a luxury spa resort, and the cost of coverage and connection might be higher than an urban boutique hotel.

[ianhappy]

Originally Posted by willk

I probably should have said. My kit/software was specced by donegaldan. He generally uses it to connect hundreds of spotty students (in Halls) to the Internet. Like I said, worth a look.

Does he have any mates who offer a similar install? I would use donegaldan, it's just that only about 15% of my students are spotty

[willk]

Originally Posted by Polwart

in my view sleeping in a tin shed is not where it is at in terms of tourism either!

I'll assume that you haven't taken a shine to Glamping either then?

[Andy20]

Hi,

This is somthing i we do through my company, if you would like any advice please do drop me a pm.

Best regards

Andy

[HughN]

Originally Posted by Polwart

Your customers still get access albeit not from their tin sheds

Nice Faraday cages more like.

[SPR]

Originally Posted by HughN

Nice Faraday cages more like.

I get to the next caravan , with a netgear wifi router not too bad, maybe the glass windows help !