testing the MP 2 phone

[phakamani mavela]

What would the impact of connecting a ubiquiti rocket 5, that's been flashed with SECN 2, to a 2.8Ghz omni antenna? I want to test a communities responsiveness to a Mesh network but I do not have the resources to place MP2 devices in house holds. What i want to do is start with a single mesh node and have it fully connect to the internet then use the mesh node as an access point for the test period. What I'm curious about is how to make a single node have as much reach as possible to connect laptops, tablets and smartphones in a reasonable section in the townships

[T Gillett]

Hi 

Just to clarify what you are trying to achieve...

You would like to use a single Ubiquity Rocket device with an omni antenna as a WiFi Access Point to cover as large an area as possible of a township as possible.

The device will be connected to the Internet via some upstream service (eg an ADSL modem/router or similar)

You want to be able to connect a range of devices (laptops, tablets and smartphones) in the community via WiFi to this device in order to allow them to access the Internet.

Is this all correct so far?

A few questions:

1. You mentioned a "Rocket 5" device and a "2.8Ghz omni antenna".

Do you mean Rocket M5 device with 5GHz omni antennas, or a Rocket M2 device with 2.4GHz antennas?

If you use an M5 device, you may find that only a limited number of the client devices will actually be able to connect to it as most devices have only 2.4GHz WiFi capability.

2. Why do you want to use mesh firmware like SECN if you only have one node?

The original firmware will be able to work as an AP with just some simple configuration. 

In your application (if I understand it correctly) the SECN firmware will not add any value over the original firmware.

3. Is the requirement just for Internet access, or do you also want some telephony?

4. Do you plan to extend beyond a single node?

5. How will you control Internet access to individual client devices so that all clients get a fair share of the available bandwidth?

In general, the Rocket devices are a well proven and relatively powerful device and you can attach antennas with some gain to get a wide signal coverage.

If you can put the device in a high position, well above surrounding rooftops, you will get better coverage. 

Of course there will be some loss of signal strength within buildings, depending on the type of construction, position of windows and so on.

But you can probably get workable coverage for a few hundred metres form the node in a high position.

You might also consider providing some static content locally rather than getting it all from the Internet. The VT-RACHEL firmware is an example of this. If there is static content that is of interest to the local community, providing it from a local server device will give much faster access and save Internet data bandwidth and data usage.

 Regards

Terry

On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 4:04 PM, phakamani mavela <phakama...@gmail.com> wrote:

What would the impact of connecting a ubiquiti rocket 5, that's been flashed with SECN 2, to a 2.8Ghz omni antenna? I want to test a communities responsiveness to a Mesh network but I do not have the resources to place MP2 devices in house holds. What i want to do is start with a single mesh node and have it fully connect to the internet then use the mesh node as an access point for the test period. What I'm curious about is how to make a single node have as much reach as possible to connect laptops, tablets and smartphones in a reasonable section in the townships

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[phakamani mavela]

Hi Terry,

Thank you for the prompt reply. I don't know a lot about ubiquiti devices but I assumed the Roket device would work with any antenna but given what you highlighted about the devices the intent then would be to use the rocket M2 with a 2.8Ghz to reach smart devices

To answer your questions

1. I want the network to be able to accommodate the telephony aspect of the MP once the network is popular and well adopted

2. I want to extend the nodes eventually, as the demand from the local community increases. The average person in townships cannot afford a device on their own but can appreciate the convenience of internet access.

3. I have seen the post about VT-RACHEL static content. I have been apart of an organization in the townships of makhaza in khayelitsha that uses khan academy as a learning tool so I believe there can be early adoption there.

4. I would like some advice on bandwidth fair use software packages I could use to manage users and bandwidth use

[T Gillett]

Hi Phakamani

If you are interested in using telephony, then the SECN firmware may be of use, even with a single node and without any MP2 devices, as it will support softphones. 

So if you have client devices like Android smartphones (or tablets with audio), then you can install a softphone application on the client device and  set up an account on the node. The softphones will be able to call each other and you can also set up a VoIP account with an upstream provider and the softphones can make calls into the PSTN network - at a cost of course.

You can extend the coverage by adding nodes to the mesh as you say. You might choose to use some MP2 devices with external antennas for some of these extra nodes, and this would allow you to have a conventional phone at these points. Having the Rocket as a super node will allow the satellite nodes to make good mesh connections to it.

The WShaper package is included in the SECN build but not enaled by default. That can help with some basic traffic shaping:

       http://www.techrapid.co.uk/openwrt/traffic-shaping-on-openwrt-with-wshaper-on-luci/

But you may have to go as far as throttling the data rates for individual users in which case you will need to add something like a Mikrotik RouterBoard and RouterOS 

    http://routerboard.com/

There are others on the list who have extensive experience with these units and who may like to make some suggestions.

Adding a RACHEL server to your network would be quite straightforward.

Regards

Terry

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[Steve Song]

Hi Phakamani,

On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 8:48 AM, T Gillett <tgil...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Phakamani

If you are interested in using telephony, then the SECN firmware may be of use, even with a single node and without any MP2 devices, as it will support softphones. 

So if you have client devices like Android smartphones (or tablets with audio), then you can install a softphone application on the client device and  set up an account on the node. The softphones will be able to call each other and you can also set up a VoIP account with an upstream provider and the softphones can make calls into the PSTN network - at a cost of course.

You can extend the coverage by adding nodes to the mesh as you say. You might choose to use some MP2 devices with external antennas for some of these extra nodes, and this would allow you to have a conventional phone at these points. Having the Rocket as a super node will allow the satellite nodes to make good mesh connections to it.

The WShaper package is included in the SECN build but not enaled by default. That can help with some basic traffic shaping:

       http://www.techrapid.co.uk/openwrt/traffic-shaping-on-openwrt-with-wshaper-on-luci/

But you may have to go as far as throttling the data rates for individual users in which case you will need to add something like a Mikrotik RouterBoard and RouterOS 

    http://routerboard.com/

There are others on the list who have extensive experience with these units and who may like to make some suggestions.

I think there are two practical options for gateway appliances.  Either RouterBoard and RouterOS (http://www.mikrotik.com/software), for which there are many suppliers in South Africa or Pfsense (https://www.pfsense.org/) which runs on a variety of hardware.

Both support captive portals which can register users and user-level traffic management.  They can also do things like prioritise VoIP traffic in general.  Both are good options.

Regards... Steve

 

Adding a RACHEL server to your network would be quite straightforward.

Regards

Terry

On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 7:50 PM, phakamani mavela <phakama...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Terry,

Thank you for the prompt reply. I don't know a lot about ubiquiti devices but I assumed the Roket device would work with any antenna but given what you highlighted about the devices the intent then would be to use the rocket M2 with a 2.8Ghz to reach smart devices

To answer your questions

1. I want the network to be able to accommodate the telephony aspect of the MP once the network is popular and well adopted

2. I want to extend the nodes eventually, as the demand from the local community increases. The average person in townships cannot afford a device on their own but can appreciate the convenience of internet access.

3. I have seen the post about VT-RACHEL static content. I have been apart of an organization in the townships of makhaza in khayelitsha that uses khan academy as a learning tool so I believe there can be early adoption there.

4. I would like some advice on bandwidth fair use software packages I could use to manage users and bandwidth use

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[phakamani mavela]

Thank you guys for the advice. I'm going to investigate the options you have me and return with anymore question one I have the equipment in hand