Wireless network covering the whole campus

[glio]

I work in a school made up of three building blocks, plus the basketball field and the football field, the whole campus spans an area of 200m x 100m. Two buildings have 4 storeys and the other one has 3 storeys. All buildings have quite a number of rooms in them and the walls are pretty thick.

My project is to build a network that covers the whole campus. Wiring the whole campus with Cat5/6 cables seems to be the easiest way out... but we want also the flexibility of a wireless network.

Can anyone out there recommend a low cost solution for building a wireless network that spans the whole campus (plus the classrooms inside the building)? My principal heard from someone that one of the local schools here build a wireless network with two "equipments" that mount on the two ends of the roof and everyone can happily hook up to the web. Is there such miraculous apparatus? How much would that be???

 

[bpinning]

Hey,

I don't think that you will get two AP's that will cover all of the users inside and outside.

I would suggest cabling the rooms inside the building and save money with wireless for the outside areas and for transmission between the buildings.

How many users are you anticipating? Whats you budget? Whats your current setup?

Brett

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http://www.eyetstore.com

NSW, Australia
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[glio]

Thank you very much for your reply.

There are over 150 users during the peak... they are all distributed over the whole campus. We are using cable network, which covers part of the school only. The principal wants all teachers to use their notebooks freely inside the classrooms, that's why we're thinking of replacing the cable network with a wireless network... but then we'll have to setup quite a number of APs all over the campus...

Jimmy

 

[bpinning]

Yep,

For perfect coverage, you will more than likely need an AP in every few rooms, and maybe more, depending on the signal strength.

But if the teachers have their desks near the window you may get away with using the outside ones...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.eyetstore.com

NSW, Australia
(Unless you want to pay for our trip?)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~