[PLUG] OT: Large Wireless Network on the Cheap

["Aaron Crosman" <ACrosman@afsc.org>]

One of the projects that I've been ignoring for the last several months
is setting up a wireless network in our building.  We cover 3 floors,
plus a few other spaces.

I'd love to be able to afford the Cisco solution.  For a mere $600 a
unit I could use their equipment, do the whole project with only 5 or 6
base stations, and 1 server and life would be good, but I don't have the
$6000+ it takes to do that (and last time I tried to talk to a salesman
he didn't want to talk about any solution <$10,000).

To save money we started to setup a network outside our main network
with a collection of Linksys base stations (WRT54g).  At $40-$50 a
piece, even though I would need 10-12 (with signal boosting antenna) to
do the job, the price is much nicer.  Also we get to skip out on the
expensive management server, and stick with a simple firewall (Linux
based).  The problem is that the Linksys units are proving to be
unreliable over time.  We got 4 to get started, and it seems that every
couple of weeks I have to reset one and set it up from scratch again.
Without management software I only know they are failing when someone
calls for support.

So I'm looking for new ideas.  I figured this would be a good group to
through the question out to.  How would setup a wireless network for use
in a building by both the employees and guests with minimal support from
IT (this means NO MAC filtering)?  Anyone have good luck with other
brand hardware over time, or different Linksys models (I always seem to
buy the wrong Linksys units).  Anyone know of a solution that's
in-between doing it the Cisco way, and the really cheap way (there is
SOME money around).

Aaron
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