Details of (un)typical AP install - NO TOWER!

[redfeaag]

For the unbelievers amongst you, here's how I do things in the UK. Towers = expense so I use customers houses. Given my belief in short cable runs - 30' max, the AP has to go indoors an, normally in the loft space.

http://www.easycornwall.com/loft1.jpg

And through the traphatch...

http://www.easycornwall.com/loft2.jpg

I have had to cable power but have the benefit of being able to use standard 240v kit.

Here's the external view

http://www.easycornwall.com/loft3.jpg

Note the 300' mast in the background. I suspect that this is why my noise is -83db at this site given the 50kw transmitters on it. The owners wanted £5000 'planning' fee plus £4000pa per antenna to site on this mast.

http://www.easycornwall.com/loft4.jpg

Here's the view. The two grids are used to shoot 16 miles way off into the distance to a site at sea level. In fact at Newlyn, where global sea level is measured from! This site is vital as it provides a service from our ISP to a town shielded by hills and not line of sight from it. We shoot 16 miles one side of the hill, then relay back again the other side! Hell, it works....

3 miles as the crow flies. But vastly cheaper than a fibre or other solution. This one is free.

[avara]

All the images come up as not found for me...

[jlawrence]

Hi,
The reason that you can't get the pictures is that easycornwall as a wireless network no longer exists.
Its wireless network was bought out and mostly dismantled by Tellnet Internet.
Tellnet are now re-rolling out the network, but not using customers houses instead of masts. Imagine having a core node on your wireless network go down and you can't do anything about it because the persons' out. It happened and regardless of the expense of masts, you must have access to the routers.

For those of you thinking that using customers' houses instead of masts is a good idea - think again. It might be cheaper, but when things go wrong it's not amussing.

Regards,
Jon Lawrence

[georgew]

Hasn't been a problem for me... I pre-arrange access, and mount all of my radios outdoors where I can get to them.

The cost of towers would eliminate all possibility of breaking even on the network, when you have competition selling 2 megabit broadband for $24.95. Towers are great when they are inexpensive, but that is not usually the case.

[jlawrence]

Iif you got the access point external then yes it's not a great problem. It is a problem when the routers/AP's are located inside someones roof space :(. It's also a problem if a customer decides he wants rid of the service and tells you to remove the kit - esp' if the link is used for backhaul for other customers.
DSL is still relatively expensive in the UK with 2mb service costing £80 per month (about $135) and where we're based, the population is pretty rural and not many exchanges are dsl enabled.

Jon