[CUWiN-Dev] Re: dual radios (access & backhaul)

[David Young]

On Thu, Aug 18, 2005 at 10:49:31AM -0700, Sean Fioritto wrote:
> This brings up something I've been thinking about: Dual radios, (with
> one acting as an AP), or really cheap customer premises equipment are
> a must have. In Tim's case, it will cost CUWIN $350 and  some time to
> set him up with a node. If we had dual radios, he could be up and
> running by simply creating an account for him on a RADIUS server, or
> however you wanted to manage that. If CUWIN's software could run on a
> wrt54g - 60 dollars later, and Tim is up and on the mesh, assuming the
> linksys can get a good link inside his house.
> 
> I'm curious as to how hard it could actually be and what is involved?
> If we're already talking to an ethernet interface, would it be
> difficult to also talk to a wireless interface? Is it as simple as
> adding a few things with iptables, (uh, ipfilter?), or is there more
> to it? Also, I'm just wondering if anyone else thinks this would be
> useful, or has thought about this same problem.

Can you elaborate on how you think this would work?  Bear in mind that
if the access and backhaul radios operate on the same band, and their
antennas are colocated, then they will probably interfere with each other.
So you can move the antennas apart from each other (I believe 20 feet will
do), or you can add 5GHz to the equation.  Also, there is the matter of
antennas: we use a backhaul antenna whose beam is directed at the horizon.
Would the access antenna be the same?  What would the whole kit cost?

Dave

-- 
David Young             OJC Technologies
dyoung at ojctech.com      Urbana, IL * (217) 278-3933