Wireless coverage over 3 hotel floors

**J1mmy** · September 15th, 2010, 10:59 AM

Will do.

I am at the hotel now and we have started assigning each AP their IP addresses. We had to sit down and config the router we got from the ISP. Our plan was to use their router because it had a built in modem and then feed it to our own router but we have ditched that idea and taking a connection straight to the switches from he ISP router.

The coverage was a lot more than we expected with our laptops and the speed is also pretty close to the PC connected directly to the router.

One question I have right now is that the ISP router is not N compatible bit this is only through the wireless isnt it. Nothing to do with ethernet?

Ill update you with the progress. Ive also install remote software on the main server PC so I can monitor stuff from home.

**GroundZero3** · September 15th, 2010, 11:06 AM

Im not sure what you are asking? Are you asking that since the router doesn't support N if the access points will be affected? If so no, unless the client tries to connect to the wireless on the router.

**Nude_Lewd_Man** · September 15th, 2010, 11:52 AM

Further to GZ's post.. If you're referring to Wireless N, then that only affects the speed that any wireless clients can access the WAP side of the 'router' (or, prolly more accurately, router/firewall and maybe also mini-switch/hub device), though given that you've just been installing all the other WAPs around the gaff, I doubt this will even matter..! You may even want to either turn that WLAN off, or segregate it (VLAN/subnet) from the other network..

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If you're talking about 'Annex N', then that is on the ISP side of things, and is something that they should be able to deal with - as it is to do with the xDSL line... I would imagine that they would be able to provide you with a router that was compatible with the line - especially as you mentioned that you got it from them..!!

**J1mmy** · September 15th, 2010, 02:30 PM

Another situation here is that we are trying to manually use IP addresses for each AP but its taking forever to connect and even the internet dips in and out.

I am now going to reduce the load of the router and tell each AP to assign an IP within a given range.

Ive been here for about 6 hrs and having problems mostly with IPs and regaining access to the APs. We have had a good connection with a decent speed yet.

**GroundZero3** · September 15th, 2010, 05:17 PM

What ip address ranges are you using for the access points themselves? What do you have the gateway set to? What are you using for the DHCP pool? What static address is on the router?

**Nude_Lewd_Man** · September 15th, 2010, 05:30 PM

I would suggest that you first hook your machine into the LAN rather than the WLAN, partly as it would mean that your machine would always have a valid IP addy, and also in case any of the WAPs are set to not allow you to fiddle with the config from the WLAN (though, you can still fiddle with one WAP's config by joining the LAN side of things through a different WAP) or any similar sort of issues...

I am now going to reduce the load of the router and tell each AP to assign an IP within a given range.

If you're doing that you might run into issues where one WAP's DHCP service knocks another WAP's off - as you can't have multiple DHCP servers on the same broadcast network (IIRC correctly)..

You could also find yourself in a bit of a situation where more users try to connect to one WAP than that WAP has a pool for (which would be a bit of a pain to deal with) or that you have multiple WAPs trying to give out the same IP to multiple devices...

If you wanted to do that, then you would have prolly been better off and implemented a subnet for each floor - then got one device on that floor to assign IPs within that subnet...

Of course, this all depends on the number of WAPs you have and the expected maximum number of potential clients...if the combined total is less than ~200 (including all networked devices, like WAPs, network printers, etc) then you should be fine if you can get the multiple DHCP servers setup working without needing to subnet things..

One other option, would be to get the computer you said will be 'monitoring' to do the DHCP, leaving the router to just route (and firewall) which may well be what suits what you're trying to do..

**GroundZero3** · September 15th, 2010, 05:38 PM

Nude pointed out something I overlooked, you cant have all the WAP's assign DHCP addresses because multiple access points will respond on the network which will not work.

Also DHCP request doesn't cause a "load" on a router

**J1mmy** · September 15th, 2010, 06:05 PM

We got it to work somewhat. The issue didnt seem to be work our IP config but rather the incapability of the router to handle so many connections. It was inconsistent as we would get one to work and then the other AP would not resolve or we could no longer get access to it. Something like that anyway.

We now have this ISP router configed to run as a modem only and the router we bought which is the same brand as the APs seems to know what its doing. But i might be speaking too soon.

As for IPs I want each AP to have its own statis IP and I am using the router for the gateway. But I have a queston...

The router has the ability to reserve IP addresses for specific MAC addresses. Does this mean that I do not need to configure each AP with its own IP as the router will seem to do that for me?

**J1mmy** · September 15th, 2010, 06:17 PM

Oh yeah whats the deal with not having the AP in the same channel. What if they in Auto.

**GroundZero3** · September 15th, 2010, 09:44 PM

I wouldn't do mac reservations for the access points, hardcode them to the static ip addresses. Its just good network practice to assign them static addresses.

What I normally do for a small network is make x.x.x.1 the router address, x.x.x.2 - 10 servers (depending on the amount), and .11-.50 for other hardware such as access points, printer servers and any client machine that needs a static address. Then .100-254 for clients. Of course this all depends on what subnet mask you are using im assuming you are a class C. If the router can do layer 3 I would put all the clients on a different private subnet and put all the hardware/server on another subnet.

Curious do you have the latest firmware updates installed?

As for your second question setting them to auto will cause overlapping of the channels which will cause interference, disconnects, and abnormal network performance for wireless clients

**J1mmy** · September 15th, 2010, 11:12 PM

I was just tidying up the cables in teh control room and disconnected a few cables from the modem and router and now the internet doesn't seem to be restoring itself to its previous state. I've looked through the router settings and can't find anything here that might be preventing internet access. Local access if fine.

That's also the same I am doing IP from 192.168.1.2--20 is for APs and 192.168.1.1 is the gateway.

**GroundZero3** · September 16th, 2010, 06:03 AM

If you plug the cables that you disconnected back in does the internet restore?

**J1mmy** · September 16th, 2010, 06:29 PM

Eventually it does, but it takes a while to kick in. Sometimes a few seconds.

After it went haywire yesterday night, we was on it for the following 20 hours and we've completed it all today. Two out of the 14 or so AP's don't seem to want to give you an internet connection despite letting you connect locally. There's something else wrong with those ones, as I did same exact same thing for every AP individually. Nevertheless, once connected, you will soon get internet access within 20 seconds. We left just after the guests began to use it so I'll get feedback later this week after a few days of use by the residents.

I'm also concerned about the speed to, it needs to be consistent. Before we got to finishing it off we spent hours troubleshooting, experimenting etc. Pages were loading slow, internet connections dropped, limited or no connection, etc.

We didn't do a proper robust test due to time constraints, such as disconnecting an AP then connecting it and seeing if it restores itself, or downloading excessively whilst other browse the net etc.

There is also lack of control. I can't see an accurate amount of how many people are connected to the network in total, access device usage, connection time etc. One issue is being not being able to connect to each AP despite them all being connected to the router via a switch. But for this I need to insert a specific IP to get the AP to recognise me, this proved to be a real painover the past 2 days.

But I suppose our effort will be judged over the next few days after the feedback.

Just to give you an idea of my config

Gateway 192.168.1.1
AP Range: 192.168.1.2-22 Static
DHCP Pool BEGIN: 192.168.1.20
Subnet 255 255 255 0

WLAN Line is Capped at Downstream 15MB/s with 1MB/s Upload

Each AP settings access was changed, as was their SSID, Channel, Security

1 AP on Ground floor as requested, 6 on first floor, 6 on second floor and 1 on the third floor fully cabled individually with no repeaters. Each floor with its own individual unmanaged switch with an Ethernet to one of the 4 available port at the router.

**Nude_Lewd_Man** · September 17th, 2010, 02:02 AM

Two quick things, while I'm on my BlackBerry..

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You have an overlap of three IPs between the WAP IP range and the DHCP scope, this could [WILL] lead to IP conflicts when the first clients connect. Personally, I would prolly have left a gap of 10~20 IP addresses for later use, but it is your call..

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Are you sure that it is 15 MB/s, not Mb/s (difference of 8x) and the 'normal' measure is in megabits...

**J1mmy** · September 17th, 2010, 09:18 AM

Yes I thought it mught cause some conflicts and was supposed to make that adjustment on the router but I just hope it doesnt cause a stand still of the system. We were a bit scared after everything went down that any change in router settings or even physical wiring changes could end up blocking off internet access for whatever reason.

Doesnt thr router know which devices are static and therefore skip those IPs when alocating IPs to oher devices??

And as for thee speed its 15 megabytes a sec.

**Nude_Lewd_Man** · September 17th, 2010, 10:15 AM

The DHCP server (in your case, the 'router') only knows about the IPs that it has assigned out, it doesn't check whether the IP in question is already in use...it just works from the pool it is authorised to use, giving out from the earliest/lowest IP available within the pool, and progressing forwards..

I'm still surprised to hear that you/they have got a 15 MBps download, as that is incredibly fast - even on a fibre optic link I'm "only" getting ~1.5 MBps (which is over 1,500 Mbps) so for you/them to have 10 times that is somewhat interesting......especially as you're somewhere in UK too....

**J1mmy** · September 17th, 2010, 05:57 PM

Originally Posted by Nude_Lewd_Man

The DHCP server (in your case, the 'router') only knows about the IPs that it has assigned out, it doesn't check whether the IP in question is already in use...it just works from the pool it is authorised to use, giving out from the earliest/lowest IP available within the pool, and progressing forwards..

I'm still surprised to hear that you/they have got a 15 MBps download, as that is incredibly fast - even on a fibre optic link I'm "only" getting ~1.5 MBps (which is over 1,500 Mbps) so for you/them to have 10 times that is somewhat interesting......especially as you're somewhere in UK too....

I'm not sure, when I checked the clients list it was handing out IP's randomly, I think. I saw one with .55 and then another with .100 but doesn't the AP communicate with the router and make its IP known?

I'm quite surprised myself. Its BT business line which I think is capable of around 20 Downstream.

However, before I left one person was download some antivirus software which should have been more than a few megabytes, but seems to be hitting rock bottom speeds, we're talking 3-4 Kbs. I don't know what's going on there. We connected to each AP and did a speedtest and was getting at least 8Mb and on others up to the full 15.

**J1mmy** · September 18th, 2010, 10:15 PM

Got some bad news.

I was called in today, and it appears that as before the internet connection to some of the AP's have stopped working. Only a selective are as they used to be, others won't even establish a connection.

I am beginning to think that the router we have in place isn't compatible with such a huge network (i.e. 12 AP's and additional devices). It just doesn't seem to be 100% stable. What do you think?

**Nude_Lewd_Man** · September 19th, 2010, 03:00 AM

I would just double check whether you can (when connected to the LAN, via cable - so not on the WLAN) get a response if you PING each WAP in turn, to ensure that they are able to get communication. I would also do the same with the gateway, and to an external location (Google have a public DNS server of 8.8.8.8 that responds to PING requests) you should try the external location by PINGing it by name and by IP, as that would ensure you're getting DNS resolution...

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I presume that you have either changed the DHCP scope and/or checked that the issue isn't IP related - duplicate or APIPA..I remember that you had a three IP overlap....... I doubt that the issue is the 'load' on the router, as you don't seem to have many devices on the W/LAN, but I have seen it before when using Fista and a couple of brands or router, where the Fista machines couldn't get an IP, but that was only the case if the router was also doing the DHCP management - in which case it might be an idea to test the scenario when you disable the router's DHCP service and set it up on the other machine you have on the network... It is worth a try, if nothing else..!

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Let us know how you get on...! :d

**GroundZero3** · September 20th, 2010, 08:27 AM

1 Mb of upload for several clients? No kidding you are gonna have slow page loading/response! You need to see if you can up the internet connection, people are going to kill that internet connection in a second. Everyone is always like my download speeds are high numbers with some crappy upload its gonna really affect your performance. I'm not sure how that was overlooked.

Do you have the latest firmware installed on the access points and router?