Need help with RV park system
Hello all, first time poster.
We own a small RV park campground, approx. 3 acres on the river. We have approx. 30 guests at any time. We have 150 Mbps service into the office currently. I'd like to update the current wifi system which was in place when we purchased the park, which consists of a cable modem in the office, ligowave antenna on the roof of the office, and a Netgear router approx. 300 feet away in the bathhouse. The Netgear router is inside the bathhouse, in the roof trusses. So we have our Office wifi, then an access point from the antenna on the roof, then there are two more access points off the Netgear router. Needless to say, it doesn't work so great, and the Netgear is testing out at somewhere around 4-6 Mbps and servicing maybe 20 clients.
What I would like is faster, more stable connection for those in the back of the park especially. I don't need very sophisticated controls, just the ability to change the password occasionally, like once a month, and check on the system in the event someone calls to report an outage. I was looking at the EAP 225 Outdoor for this build, and was planning to place one on the roof, and the other on the roof of the bathhouse. I figure just that should improve things. They are approx. 300 feet apart, and line of sight with minimal to no trees between.
So can the one on the office be made to act as an access point while also sending wifi to the second one? And would I need any other equpment to make this work? To be clear, only the one at the office would be capable of being plugged into ethernet for internet, the second one would be power only.
Thanks in advance, I'm still learning...
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Ok we are making progress. I was able to get the second unit linked and they are talking to each other. I get speeds at the second unit from 40Mbps to Unable to Connect, within 50 feet, but most of the Unable to Connect are happening on the back side of the building, IE no line of sight from the second AP to the end user.
The other troubling thing I've had is speaking to my ISP about my speeds, they were able to survey my modem and said that whatever was plugged into slot 4 on my modem is only capable of receiving 100 Mbps. Well guess what's plugged into slot 4? Yep, the TP Link. But it's advertised as up to 1200 Mbps and I checked the firmware is up to date, so what could this mean? BTW I used brand new Cat 6 shielded cable for the install.
BTW, 15 feet is about 4.5 meters.
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AC1200 is more or less marketing speak. Look at the specs:
802.11ac:
5G: 6.5 Mbps to 867 Mbps (MCS0-MCS9, VHT20/40/80)
2.4G: 78 Mbps to 300 Mbps (MCS8-MCS9 VHT20/40)
802.11n: 6.5 Mbps to 300 Mbps (MCS0-MCS15, VHT 20/40)
802.11g: 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, 54 Mbps
802.11b: 1, 5.5, 11Mbps
802.11a: 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, 54 Mbps
Note that those speeds are wireless speeds. For n/ac modes protocol overhead is ~30%, so in 2.4 GHz 300 Mbps at 40 MHz channel width wireless speed yields ~210 Mbps data speed. Since WiFi is half-duplex (always only one radio can send at given time), this yields ~100 Mbps data throughput in full-duplex mode. For ac mode data speed would be ~600 Mbps at 867 Mbps wireless speed half-duplex yielding ~300 Mbps full-duplex speed, but this requires 80 MHz channel bandwidth = 4 channels used simultaneously.
In b/g modes protocol overhead is ~50%, making throughput even worser. APs supporting true Gigabit speeds in full-duplex mode between two APs (not consumer clients!) are available, their weight is 10kg and price starts at around 1,800 USD per AP.
But EAPs are still very good. Remember that client devices such as smartphones, tablets etc. have much worser antennas, much worser signal strength and thus much worser throughput. 100 Mbps data speed is a good throughput maximizing the full 300 Mbps capability of 2.4 GHz at 40MHz channel width or bit lesser than what's possible over 5 GHz at 40 MHz channel width.
Regarding metrics - just didn't know that ' is abbreviation for feet. :-)
10-15 feet is a good height for 300 feet distance.
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