Wireless Repeaters

[thisisshanky]

I havent had to setup any repeaters in the wireless networks I have designed..In this specific case, I am thinking about using a repeater to establish a wireless shot between four locations. Here is the scenario..

Site1---Site 2(Omni)----Site 3(Repeater)----Site4

Site 2 is the hub site (Omni antenna) while Site 1 and 4 are spokes which will use Yagi antennas. Site 3 is a location which has LOS to Site 2. Site 4 does not have LOS to Site 2. In this case, how should Site 3 be designed.

Yagi---Bridge1----crossovercable----Bridge2---Yagi

OR

Yagi---Bridge-----Yagi

In the first scenario two bridges will be installed in Site 3 and each bridge will use one Yagi antenna. The bridges are connected back to back using a cross over cable (or switch). Bridge 1 will shoot the signal back to Site 2, while Bridge 2 will shoot the signal to Site 4. Will this work ? Will there be a 50 % reduction in throughput like in case of a true repeater ?

I am not sure about Scenario 2 but any inputs will be very helpful.

Scottmac- May day May day - need help!!

[jaregalado]

Hi Sankar

Your first scenario should work without any throughput reduction on the RF side as long as the bridges are operating on different channels and SSIDs. Cisco documents specify a bitrate reduction of about 10% because of Ethernet latency.

The second scenario introduces a loss of throughput of about 50% because two remote bridges will be associated to this bridge.

But no matter what you do, you already have an end to end loss of throughput using an omnidirectional antenna at Site 2, so I would choose the first option in order to avoid further degradation on the end to end bitrate.

Regards.

[thisisshanky]

Jaime,

I had posted this question at Wireless section and had got some responses there..I am definitely going with solution number 1..Thanks for replying though!!

Sankar