Campground Wifi Network

ebaierl
Comes here often

Campground Wifi Network

I have inherited admin duties of a smaller campground for RVs. It was setup sometime around six years ago using a Meraki MX60 for firewall and security, and an MR62 sending out an SSID. They had a company set up the whole network, but as I'm digging into things, I'm finding that it was cobbled together and the owner was charged a lot more than he probably should have been.

 

I've access to the Meraki cloud services so I can admin it now. I've been looking around at things, but not changing anything, just making my way through to try and understand how it is all set up.

 

Out in the campground, we used to have three access points. Two of them disappeared. Not from the network, but were apparently just stolen by guests. I was able to find the third one, which had been working up until about three months ago when it somehow lost power and was corrupted.

 

The access point though is a TP-Link AP. Not sure what went wrong with it, but I was unable to access its admin page and do anything with it and finally did a hard reset and still can't get it work. I'm not sure what went wrong with it, but it appears beyond fixing. It was also a wifi N, so upgrading to AC would be nice anyway.

 

I have permission to spend the money to upgrade and repair the network using all Meraki APs. The main AP is still working fine and the licensing is good for another three years so we may as well stick with what is working there. 

 

Anyone have any insight on what would be the best way to make a mesh AP over the whole campground and which APs would be the best to get? The closest satellite AP would be around 800 feet from the main AP, but that one also has directional antennas pointing to where the old APs were. I figure I can just use the same location for the old ones (except making sure the two missing places now have physical security). That way they are still right in line with the directional antennas and should be okay.

 

I also need something that has external antenna ports and which kind of antenna to get. The campground is about 20 acres with less than a third of that currently covered with the main AP. The way it is laid out, I should be able to put directionals at both ends of the void area now and then a omni antenna in the center to cover it all.

 

I'm just not sure which APs to get to fill in the mesh and cover the whole space. 

11 REPLIES 11
PhilipDAth
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Wow!  What an opportunity.

 

The first thing to note is that the AP licence is the same for all APs.  So if you replaced your old MR62 with a newer AP you wouldn't need to re-purchase the licence for that AP.  So that makes upgrading the main AP cheaper.

 

The units you should probably be looking at are:

MR74: https://meraki.cisco.com/products/wireless/mr74

MR70: https://meraki.cisco.com/products/wireless/mr70

 

What kind of antennas does your current MR62 have on it?  It might have a model number on it.  If you are not sure could you post a photo.

 

How are the APs currently powered?  Do they plug into a mains power point, or some kind of PoE injector or maybe even an PoE switch?

 

You will get the best results if you only use Meraki APs and get rid of things like the TP-Link AP.

The MR74 is a much better fit for your environment.  Forget I mentioned the MR70.

They were all powered with an AC outlet and have power located where the new ones will be. Two of the three can be placed inside a building and the antennas placed on the roof, so they do not need to be outdoor antennas. The third one, which was missing for long before I got here, may require more work and be an outdoor protected unit since it is just inside a screened in building. All three have access to power though, so I do not need to use PoE or anything. But then even if I did use PoE, I'd need to have a power source somewhere since I'm not going to run 400 yards of ethernet wire.

I did some more checking, and I think I can go with something with Wifi-N if it'll save money. I'm not sure what the licensing is on used equipment or if its a pain in the butt to get something transferred, but saving money would be helpful. The reason I say N is okay is because I plugged into the DSL modem directly with ethernet and ran speedtest. 

 

I got about 28Mbps ul and around 6 Mbps dl. And somehow that is supposed to be okay for 160+ sites. We have been locking down streaming, but right now it is the slow season so it hasn't been a huge issue. When this place fills up in the winter though, having all those people on at once, even if they can't stream, is going to bog it down completely. 

 

We are also pretty remote and AT&T DSL is the only service we can get here. The owner wants to have wifi available, but he also wants this place to remain rustic and not high end by any means. There are other, much more expensive places around here for that.

Oh and for the antennas, I looked for a model number a few days ago and couldn't find anything printed on it at all. The are just the regular directional antennas and may be generic, just the almost triangular, white antennas. They didn't appear to be Cisco/Meraki antenna or anything special.
ebaierl
Comes here often

I've been looking and pricing things out, and I think for now the best option would be to place a MR74 where the previous one working TP-Link was. That's about $590 + I can get a 3-year license for $200 with an electronic download. But it doesn't come with antennas, so I'd need to add that as well. I was thinking about getting the MA-ANT-25 ($160/each) for the unit, but I think I need two and I assume they each plug into antenna ports on the top or bottom (as in, not one cable to top, one cable to bottom, but both to the same side from one antenna). 

 

I think that would work to cover a lot of the campground, and if it is not, I can add another device later. I was reading the licensing setup for Meraki, and I think if I read it right, if we do add a three year license, it will combine them all so they end on the same day. 

 

So getting it all from amazon, I'd be looking at $1110 for everything for one unit with 3-years. Its a little more than I was hoping to spend, but having everything easily work together would be so much easier than trying to patch it all.

PhilipDAth
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

I'd replace the existing MR62 with the MR74 so you have the best AP at the centre of your network.  Then re-locate the MR62 to the other location.

 

Yes you will need two antennas, one for each band.

 

When you first get the unit add it to your Meraki dashboard, place it in your network (in the Meraki Dashboard), and then leave it plugged into the Internet for 30 minutes.  They need a bit of time to get their intial MESH configuration. This only ever needs to be be done once.  People deploying the MESH technology often have a problem because they take it out of the box and have an expectation it will work immediately, spend some time trying to figure out why, and then half an hour of grief later it springs into life.

 

You are also going to need a PoE injector to power the AP.  There wont be one in the box.  It sounds like you are in the US so you would need MA-INJ-4-US.  Otherwise if you are in another country change the "US" to your country code.

 

You definately want 802.11ac if possible over 802.11n.  While your Internet circuit is not fast enough to sustain the higher speeds WiFi is a very chatty protocol.  It sends lots of beacons and other frames.  The problem gets worse with more SSIDs and clients.  The faster you can send to clients the more RF spectrum is freed up for other clients.

 

Correct - if you add a licence they will be combined so their is a single termination date.

 

Have you looked at pricing to get a satellite connection as "well as/instead of" DSL?  Your MX60 is getting pretty old now, but it is capable of taking dual Internet circuits.  The latency is much higher for web browsing on satellite and you do notice it a bit - but then again if your DSL connection is not so flash it might not be a huge difference.  But you should be able to get much faster satellite connections.  More speed means being able to support more users.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Installation_Guides/MX_End_of_Sale/MX60_(EOS)_Installation_Guide...

 

I would also consider finding a local Cisco partner in your area and asking them for a price.  You can ask for pricing for just the hardware and say you want to install it yourself.  The Cisco Partner locator can be found here:

https://locatr.cloudapps.cisco.com/WWChannels/LOCATR/openBasicSearch.do

In the "Technology" field you can put "Meraki".  There are lots of discount programs that apply to different kinds of Meraki technologies that Cisco partners have access to.  I'm not saying it will be cheaper - but it could be so I think it is worth a shot.

The MR74 has four antenna ports though, I think the MR62 only has two. Right now, the 62 has two directional antenna on it, so would I be able to take out the 62 and plug in the 74 in place and only have the directional antennas plugged into two of the four ports, or would I need to get new directional antenna that each have two cables to plug into all the ports?

 

And then I have the 62 without any antenna. The ones I was looking at for the 74 have dual cables for each antenna, so I think I would either need only one of those that can do both bands, or else need a wide field to cast out the SSID in that area. It is going to be located on the edge of the campground and pointed towards the center, so an omni would waste half the signal, but a directional would be too narrow. Is it possible to use antenna that have like a 90 degree field of coverage?

PhilipDAth
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

If you swap out the MR62 for the MR74 swap the antennas over as well.  You want everything matched.

 

This is the datasheet for the MR62.

https://meraki.cisco.com/lib/pdf/meraki_datasheet_MR62.pdf

It lists compatible antennas as being:

ANT-10

ANT-13

 

I would stick to using the correct antennas with each AP.  Otherwise they might not be RF matched, and it could produce unpredictable results.

 

 

I am installing a RV park now and am using Quickdraw Satellite Internet, its great. I love the meraki solution just a bit pricy, anyone tried MerakiGO for RV park? 

GIdenJoe
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Hehe,  when you say campground in a WiFi forum, for some reason I seem to think about this:

GIdenJoe_0-1590766724378.png

If you get it.. please say so 🙂

 

what the heck? 

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