Questions about wireless networking for a private school

[Dead3ye]

I have very little experience with networking (my two home PC's) and absolutely none about wireless. So I come to here.

The story: I was placed on the technology comittee (by my wife) at the catholic school my children attend. They have major computer hardware issues of which being outdated is the worst. The actual PC's I can handle and maybe some light duty networking. They do have a DSL line running into the school. They don't have a wired network through any part of the building and the preliminary estimates are ranging from $12,000 to $20,000 just to run raceways and cat5 cable. They just don't have the money to do this. The school building is 3 stories high with 12" thick slabs of cement separating the floors, concrete block walls and no drop ceilings. A networking nightmare to say the least.

In passing I suggested considering wireless. I really don't think major security is an issue. I know that 10Mbps is about max, but could possibly looking at around 5Mbps because of the building. Speed is not an issue here either. We're looking at about 20 - 25 PCs. I was thinking a server connected to the DSL line and networking the other workstations.

Is the feasible? Am I way off base here? We're talking about children PreK thru 5th grade. Could I get some suggestions from you people and maybe point me in the direction of some good sites out there that might help?

TIA

 

[ktwebb]

The only way your going to know for sure what you need is to get a site survey done. A proper one as well. Not some guy down the street who setup his own AP. There has been a proliferation of wireless LAN and WAN companies in the last 3-5 years. I know because I was in on the mini-explosion. If all the PC's are in one room that's a little different story. You might can get away with eyeballing it..or if the school is extremely small. With a 3 story description my guess would be you'd be looking at multiple runs to AP. Your still going to have to run cable, except it would only be to the number of drops you need in terms of Access Points. Having said all that, if your server room sits right under the room where all the PC's are then none of what I have said would not necessarily apply to you. If your have a building with the nodes spread out then do yourself a favor and get a site survey done. We charged 500 up front but swallowed that if we got the job. You could probably do better than that. We were on the high side. Sold Cisco hardware almost exclusively. You might be able to get away with SOHO equipment if the job is small enough.

 

[JackMDS]

BTW. Concrete slabs are the enemy of Wireless propagation as well.

I agree with Ketweb good analisis. However a job like this done by a pro would not be much cheaper then the CAT5 ordeal.

I assume that the main idea is to feed Network connection into each classroom, and central offices. I.e. you do not expect little kids running around with Laptops roaming from one AP to another, the way it is done in the business environment.

If the environment allows creating Wireless connection to feed into a Switch that will be installed in each room, and use wire inside the rooms is probably possible with SOHO equipment. It is hard to know how many bridges you will end up with, so the price will be substantial no matter what. In addition you probably need to look into the more expensive 22Mb/sec. Wireless Hardware. Otherwise taking loses into account you will end up in some places with no bandwidth.

 

[Dead3ye]

Thia is exactly what I was afraid of. I guess they weren't thinking about networks back in the 50's when this place was built.

I will gladly take more feedback on this situation.

 

[ktwebb]

If the environment allows creating Wireless connection to feed into a Switch that will be installed in each room

Good call. You can definitely same some money with some workgroup bridges supplying wired NIC's directly or through a hub/switch, especially if you have mini-labs where several computers are together. One WGB vs X amount of wireless cards.

 

[ktwebb]

Thia is exactly what I was afraid of. I guess they weren't thinking about networks back in the 50's when this place was built. I will gladly take more feedback on this situation

It's just too hard to say without going onsite but I have cabled some monster runs. You would have to cable to the AP's of course but cabling to say, 3 to 6 AP's would be a heckuva lot easier than 25 drops to the various workstations. Now would it be significantly cheaper would be determined by the equipment the company uses and how they configure it. Client cards versus Workgroup bridges where applicable. Number of AP's based on a good engineering job giving adequate bandwidth but maximizing locations. I could give you plenty of advice. Done hundreds of jobs like your talking about but it'd all be guesses without seeing your location and doing some testing. I can ALMOST guarantee you, unless the school is enormous, I could cut save you substantial money on your lowest quote, if not outright cut it in half. Get somebody onsite. Got to be a WLAN/WWAN company within driving distance that would come out and talk some numbers.