Setup Hotel Wireless Network

[darylh]

Hello all, thanks for your help in advance!

My employer wants me to setup a wireless network at his Hotel. I've got little experience in setting up WIFI and so I've been trying to learn all of the basics. On top of that, I'm not in the same state as the hotel, so I am unable to see what all of the specifics of the physical location, until I get there.

There is WIFI at the hotel now, but we are unhappy with how it is performing and want to improve it. I'm trying to figure out which equipment to buy that will meet our needs. It appears we have small office home office equipment there now. We need to switch to a enterprise solution to resolve the WIFI problems.

We have three buildings that I need to setup WIFI in:

• 
  ■320 feet by 36 feet building. Has internet directly run to it (it has its own modem).
  ■90 feet by 36 feet building. It has 2 floors. I'm considering re-purposing a couple of pots lines to get internet to this building from the main building.
  ■210 feet by 36 feet building. Cement floor between the levels. Has Internet directly run to it (it has its own modem). It has 2 floors.

The boss has a couple of requirements that I really have had trouble with:

• 
  ■He wants a secure password for the hotel guests that want to check email or browse the web.
  ■He wants a different secure password for hotel guests that pay for additional bandwidth. Such as customers wanting to stream movies to their computers.

Does this mean I need to setup an authentication server? Part of what I read indicated I'd need a 802.1X authentication server if I wanted different user level access. Some of what I read suggested I could use a open source linux with a free radius server. I've setup and run some linux servers before. Setup user logins, etc. But I'm unfamiliar with what a radius server is. I'm sure I can figure it out if that is what I need, but I'm not sure if that is what I need, etc.

As I understand it, each access point should be setup to have the same SSID. Each access point should only overlap its neighbor by 15%. Each access point should follow the channel pattern of being on 1, 6, and 11 to avoid channel contamination. Am I going to have a problem with the fact that I have two internet connections using the same SSID to different access points? I don't think so, but I have been slightly concerned.

Someone recommended Ubiquiti Network Equipment because it was a lower cost Enterprise equipment with a cloud based controller. I'm wondering if they are a good solution or if I should try some of the others. When I tried to contact them, they do not offer phone support, only email support.

I was looking at the Ubiquiti AP Pro because it handles both 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz. According to the product page it has a range of 400 feet. Since none of my buildings is longer than 320 feet, It felt like one per building ought to do the job. The building with the cement between the floors made me wonder if I'd need one on each level. I was trying to figure out the overlap of 15% in planning how many APs. I researched a ton of free site survey tools. I found a heat mapper tool that works pretty well. I know some of the paid ones will actually guess ahead of time where to put my APs based on construction materials, but I couldn't afford the $5k prices in my budget. So I've been trying my best to guess what I'd need before I go out.

I am on a budget. People have suggested systems costing 10s of thousands and that is way out of the ballpark. I'm probably in the range of 2 to 4 thousand total for hardware in my budget.

I've looked into some third party contractors doing the work and have found some that have offered reasonable rates. However, my boss wants me to do the work. FYI, I am happy to study this on my own and learn, but its been hard finding all the appropriate resources. So if you have suggestions on additional resources to read, I'd love to hear it. So I have to figure this out and would love any help you have to give.

Thanks,

Daryl

 

[getochkn]

I would do the contractor thing. You are in way over your head if you don't know what half the things are, and your Linux experience is settings up a few user accounts.

People suggest 10K + setups because this is what it costs. The budget can be any budget the person wants to set. Doesn't mean it's realistic.

 

[bill001g]

There are no AP that can do 400ft.....maybe outdoors or if you had one huge room.

The signal strength is only part of the issue. You are going to try to sell a service that lets users stream video and it better work if you are going charge for it. Video is one of the worst things you can do when you share a AP. You might get 3-4 users per AP. Even just simple web surfing you should not exceed 15 per AP. You need to look at your user density per AP since that will likely limit you well before you have signal level issues.

Still buildings vary greatly so the only real way you can determine signal level is with a site survey.

I suspect you are going to have huge budget issues trying to do this for under $5,000. You could try to do this with radius but it tends to be a pain for users to setup.....not for educated ones but so many people are lucky to be able to turn on the machine. Most hotels use some form of interception portal software that forces the users into a web page to authenticate. This means no configuration on the end user machine which mean less support especially when they could have anything from a iphone to some linux laptop.

 

[bicycle_repair_man]

I would do the contractor thing. You are in way over your head if you don't know what half the things are

I agree entirely, you really need the help of a specialist installation team for a project like this. I don't mean to disparage the Tom's Hardware community, but an online forum is not the place to be asking for advice in this instance.

 

[darylh]

There are no AP that can do 400ft.....maybe outdoors or if you had one huge room.

The signal strength is only part of the issue. You are going to try to sell a service that lets users stream video and it better work if you are going charge for it. Video is one of the worst things you can do when you share a AP. You might get 3-4 users per AP. Even just simple web surfing you should not exceed 15 per AP. You need to look at your user density per AP since that will likely limit you well before you have signal level issues.

Still buildings vary greatly so the only real way you can determine signal level is with a site survey.

I suspect you are going to have huge budget issues trying to do this for under $5,000. You could try to do this with radius but it tends to be a pain for users to setup.....not for educated ones but so many people are lucky to be able to turn on the machine. Most hotels use some form of interception portal software that forces the users into a web page to authenticate. This means no configuration on the end user machine which mean less support especially when they could have anything from a iphone to some linux laptop.

Hello Bill001g,

Thank you very much for your input. I'd wondered about the 400 feet thing. It seemed unlikely to me, but it was posted on the product page. So I was having a hard time trying to figure out how the overlap would work. I figured I'd have to do some sort of heatmap site survey, and try to overlap the 15% that way. Heat maps seem to go from red, orange, yellow, green and I was trying to figure out where the 15% overlap should be. Is it over the red portion?

It sounds like I need to reduce the transmit power in each of the access points significantly, and place them closer to each other. Perhaps aim the antennas down to reduce the beam width.

I was reading the "Concurrent Clients 200+" on the product page, and it seemed a bit odd to me too. What your saying makes a lot more sense, ie. the type of usage would effect the number of people each AP uses. My understanding is the hotel currently has 20+ users in the busy season on the wireless. So I'm trying to start simple and prepare for growth.

I'd been to a hotel that used the "interception portal software" once before. I'd wondered if that might not be a good idea. Especially since it has a user agreement the customer has to click before he can access the WIFI. I also saw something similar at a air port once. Do you have a brand suggestion for this type of software?

 

[bill001g]

Since you have been on the ubiquti site their software that they give away for free to manage their AP does a pretty good job of discussing the layout issues. The largest issue is actually getting the overlap. You can't just draw circles and think it works that way. Walls make a huge difference. This is where a site survey comes in. You will find a number of discussions on how to do site survey yourself on the cheap. To do it correctly though you do need specialized equipment.

The portal software generally is closely tied to a firewall. It is in effect putting dynamic rules into the firewall. There are a couple of free ones that work the free pfsense firewall but I forget. "captive portal" is the magic search string, this will get you started

What you pay for in the commercial software portals is ease of use. Just like firewall the ones that have very easy to use interfaces and reporting tend to cost a lot. Stuff like pfsense can do almost everything even the best firewalls can but you have to have a lot of unix and security knowledge to set it up. When you boss put no value on your time to learn all this stuff then of course using "free" software is the way to go.

 

[darylh]

Since you have been on the ubiquti site their software that they give away for free to manage their AP does a pretty good job of discussing the layout issues. The largest issue is actually getting the overlap. You can't just draw circles and think it works that way. Walls make a huge difference. This is where a site survey comes in. You will find a number of discussions on how to do site survey yourself on the cheap. To do it correctly though you do need specialized equipment.

The portal software generally is closely tied to a firewall. It is in effect putting dynamic rules into the firewall. There are a couple of free ones that work the free pfsense firewall but I forget. "captive portal" is the magic search string, this will get you started

What you pay for in the commercial software portals is ease of use. Just like firewall the ones that have very easy to use interfaces and reporting tend to cost a lot. Stuff like pfsense can do almost everything even the best firewalls can but you have to have a lot of unix and security knowledge to set it up. When you boss put no value on your time to learn all this stuff then of course using "free" software is the way to go.

billing001g, thanks again!

That is some great advice. I sure appreciate it. I've been trying to learn how to do site surveys on my own for a week, using free software. I found some amazing site survey tools and wished I could put them in my budget. But since, I am only going to be using the equipment once for the hotel, there is no way under the sun I could ever make it fly. I found one free software that did the heat mapping. I found another that told me about channels, mac addresses, SSIDs, and signal strength. I noticed exactly what you are talking about, that where walls were, the signal length was reduced, and changed the pattern from a circle to the wall structure's pattern. Differing construction reduced the signal more or less. None of the free ones I've found seem to read noise contamination.

I looked at some tools over at nutsaboutnets. They seemed to have a few different WIFI diagnostics tools, that I wondered if would do the job. Like the AirHorn Dual-Band for $350. Or the WifiEagle for $300. But having so little knowledge in the industry it was hard for me to tell if they would do the job. I mean there are products like Airmagnet (which looks totally awesome), which would give me a good idea before I went out to the hotel, what kind of access points I'd need, based on a floor plan and construction materials.

Since I don't have access to those, and can't hire a contractor. I've basically been trying to guess a few pieces of hardware will meet my needs, so I can buy some and start practicing with it here at my current work place, before I ever go out to the hotel. And use the free site survey tools I have access to here. That way I could learn how to setup the authentication servers like radius before I went to the hotel.

Now I see I will also want to consider adding the "interception portal software" as well. It sounds like a good idea to me. And your point is certainly taken about the different UIs that are more user friendly cost more money. Every little tweak and change to make a product more user friendly takes time planning and implementing. I can totally understand the developers wanting to be paid for that time. I'm quite surprised at the number of community made free to use software available.

Now I'm wondering if I could buy a few of the Ubiquiti AP Pros and try to set them up with an authentication system. I wonder if the controller software that comes with it, would handle the authentication. I think I'm going to try contacting their support again to see if they have some input on it.

Thanks!