Networking Problem

[hawd69]

I am looking for some help with regards to designing a wireless network for a building. The building consists of 3 floors, each floor being 10x 90m (900 square meters)

Between the floors there is 6m of concrete and I need to have roaving between the floors.

1) What equipment would I need to link up around 40 wireless computers in the above situation?

2) Also, I want to separate the data and the voice. How can this be done?

3) have very good security

4) keep the internal comms going even if the link to the internet goes down? (I was thinking of using a failsafe to ad hoc mode, but am not sure if this is the best way.

Please help
Thanks
hawd69

 

[benzimm86]

All i know about this is good luck with the cement. My old house had cement walls and i had to get a bunch of signal boosters. I dont know how well it will work with the entire floor being cement. You may have to run a wire to each floor with a device that sends out the signal to the computers on that floor.

 

[Fix-your-comp]

Your are definitely going to need signal boosters. Attenuation is very high in wireless networks, especially with 6 metres of concrete and 3 floors.

As for security, get a good router with a build in firewall, and set up a wpa network key. The longer the key, the more secure your network is.

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

I would imagine you would need to have at least one wireless access point on each floor.

As far as having connectivity in the building even when the internet is down, yes, you still will, unless you have 40 IP's from the ISP you are using (would be too expensive IMO)... If you are doing DHCP internally, then you are golden... your network will function wether the internet is up or down... (OBVIOUSLY, anyone NOT in the building WILL NOT be able to access the network with the internet down, unless you get an out-of-band ISDN line for back up.)

 

[hawd69]

can you guys be a little more specific? the posts that you guys let dont really help me too much, or even direct me in the right way...

Please help...

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

1. You would need a wireless adaptor for each PC. It could be an internal PCI card, or a USB type adaptor. If the users have laptops, the can use PCMCIA cards or the USB adaptors. Some laptops have built-in wireless capabilities also.

For the computers to connect to the network, you would need a number of wireless access points throughout the building. Depending on what the users do on the network, the through put of the access points, and the range, you may need 1-4 per floor. I doubt the signal will get through 6 meters of Concrete, and if it does, it will likely be severly degraded.

To connect the access points, you would need a place to store the router, and possibly even an Enterprise class managed switch. Then, run cable drops from this room to each wireless access point.

2. Are you wanting the phones to be wireless as well? I am not too familiar with VOIP phones, so I can't suggest any specific products. You can you managed switches and have the Voice & Data put on different VLANS, then use trunking to a router, and QoS on the router to run Voice & Data over the same circuit, if that is what you are wanting to do...

3. I can't help out for this catagory.. Cisco PIX firewall....

4. I am not too sure what you mean here.... Example: If you internet FAILS, and you have servers ONSITE connected to the network, users will still be able to access it. Files can still be shared between the PC's. If the phones are on the same network (different subnet), internal office extensions will still work.

A setup like I just mentioned could easily be more than $100,000.