How is a building 'professionally' Wi-fi'ed ?

Crazy_Eddy

Crazy_Eddy

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My mom is part of the YWCA committee, and it seems they're looking to add Wi-fi to their guest house. They had asked BSNL for info on the same, and BSNL said they would outsource it to another agency and gave a quote of Rs. 80k for the same.

The guest house is spread out across 4 floors, with each floor being I guess roughly 2000 sq. ft.

Now I figure all one needs is a bunch of routers, say 1 router per floor and the whole thing put together should cost around 10~15k.

My query is - is there something else I'm missing?

I do understand when its done professionally they use RF signal meters to plan and verify the signal strength, etc. But is that alone worth the premium?
 
Is it possible for you to yourself get a very good WiFi router and i suppose we get Repeaters right ? Not sure, never used or seen but they can be used to spread out the signal over wider span.
 
Professionally, I dunno exactly but I can only suspect that besides setting up WiFi like we all do, one has to check for dead zones and probable interference zones and take care of signal strength in area where the basic building's infrastructure can create a Faraday's cage thus trapping the signal.
 
Tell them you'll do it for 60k :ohyeah: I suppose you'll have to roam around checking the signal strength everywhere, and add repeaters in places where there's a weak signal.
 
IMHO 80K is not a huge amount considering the total building.Usually professional people use expensive access points from Cisco,HP,Ruckus etc which cost premium.All so other than access points cables may laid between APs.Check whether they also include a UTM.Enabling building under WIFI is depends on various facts like no of users,structure of the building etc.If you want to make it in a cheaper way ask them to dio it with some cheap netgear access points and router.
 
Thanks everyone for the inputs :D

Ryunosuke said:
Professionally, I dunno exactly but I can only suspect that besides setting up WiFi like we all do, one has to check for dead zones and probable interference zones and take care of signal strength in area where the basic building's infrastructure can create a Faraday's cage thus trapping the signal.
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Yep, thats what they use the RF signal analysers for right. I suppose one could just tot a laptop around and do the same for free if one is looking to spend the least possible? :P

dracul said:
IMHO 80K is not a huge amount considering the total building.Usually professional people use expensive access points from Cisco,HP,Ruckus etc which cost premium.All so other than access points cables may laid between APs.Check whether they also include a UTM.Enabling building under WIFI is depends on various facts like no of users,structure of the building etc.If you want to make it in a cheaper way ask them to dio it with some cheap netgear access points and router.
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The problem is they did not give a parts list. They just gave a quote. They did mention cabling would be expensive, but isn't a repeater supposed to do away with cabling? UTM as in a firewall? Not sure about that either, but why not leave it to the end user's PC for that ;)

Thanks for bringing up the no. of users bit, I took that into account only later. I suppose the amount of RAM a router has plays a big role in how many users it can handle? FWIW, I guess we may be looking at an average of ~20 users online at a time.
 
Better use a wifi phone to check the signal. If it canbe detected on a wifi phone, can be eeeeasily picked up by a lappy :P
 
I really dont think u need anymore than 4 routers. Even if you go for N routers, why would that cost more than 15-20k?

Heck my sis managed to get wifi working over four floors with a single router recently. Obv signal strength isnt great everywhere so one per floor is much better that way.
 
yes u need powerful route N extreme cost upto 8-10 k

at least one or 2 route will be enough for 4 floor :)
 
But even if u get N series routers, not all WiFi-enabled devices support n, they mostly work in g so why splurge but then again as N has become a certified standard recently, accommodating future needs today never hurts.
 
You can buy one router or 2 per floor, and wire 'em up. 80k is way too much. Try contacting them and seeking a list of devices they initially planned to setup. If there is one wireless controller and rest all dumb devices (terminals) then maybe that's why the price went up. Those devices are costly and little cryptic to understand at the first go.
 
uh, I'm sorry if this sounds dumb, but does the building already have an ultra-fast internet connection from BSNL or is that also factored in on the 80k quote?
 
^ They already have a connection, although it is only a 256K UL connection. I don't think the connection was factored into the cost.

At this step I guess its best I ask them for a sort of component list and then compare and see why the cost is going up. Thanks everyone :)
 
4 routers in wireless N draft mode (n+g),is a good way to go,and i think u could add one of these..it might not look professional but it increased signal strength to full bars everywhere in my house.
Ez-12
 
Crazy_Eddy said:
^ They already have a connection, although it is only a 256K UL connection. I don't think the connection was factored into the cost.

At this step I guess its best I ask them for a sort of component list and then compare and see why the cost is going up. Thanks everyone :)
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A 256k UL connection?? For the whole building?
Even if there are just 4 routers, the speeds are gonna suck for sure.:ashamed:
 
I guess even bsnl is missing most of the factors involved here. Please answer a few questions to help me help you. 1. Will you be having a Guest access as in Internet on a paid basis. 2. will a controller be used to control and configure the access points. 3. how many rooms on a floor, what is the partition material (Bricks, Ply, etc). 4. how will you authenticate each client who wants access. Just by giving them the password?? are you going to be using something like a ACS server or something. Are you going to filter websites and access or just allow users to leach the connection to whatever they want like downloads and pornography?
 
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