Wireless: City Wi-Fi Solution

[ssubron]

Hello Experts,

I am working on a proposal for a Wi-Fi solution for a citywide. The plan is deliver internet access to the residents in the city. I need some help with the following:

1. Is there an existing Cisco Validated Design (CVD) that I can refer to? I was not able to find one. Perhaps I am not looking at the right place.

2. What would be the appropriate gear to use to be able to deliver at least 50meg download for each resident?

Any input will help.

Thanks

[Scott Fella]

This is not a question that really can be answered 100%.  As far as your question #1, I don't think there is a CVD for this, more of outdoor wireless which you would have to reference.  As you also know, you would have to do the calculation on RSSI and client density to determine what throughput you can provide?  What bands are you guaranteeing?  These are all questions you need to gather to help with your proposal.  The biggest thing is that with mesh, you don't want to have many hops, so that means you would need to have hard wired connection to many of these outdoor access points to really provide the throughput and user experience.  Like I mentioned, this is hard to guarantee because of attenuation, trees, rain, snow, other obstruction.  I'm not saying its not doable, but you need to gather the risks and calculate that in your response.  I've had peer design and implement outdoor wireless for large areas, stadiums and or events and its not easy.  i think its experience on knowing what works in what situation and what to look out for that makes a good install.

Sorry I couldn't provide you with much info you need.

[Flavio Miranda]

Hi

 I will try to help you with the second question, as the first there will be not doc, as far as I know.

"2. What would be the appropriate gear to use to be able to deliver at least 50meg download for each resident?"

I used to manage a network like this using cisco APs 1552. They are end of life now but they did the job at the time. They are outdoor APs with External omin antennas.

 But the problem about city area wifi network is the same for any vendor or AP model.  First, your client will be smartphone mostly and then problem begins. Your AP will send good signal for, let´s say, 100 meters square, clients will receive the signal with good quality but will reply with poor quality, depending how far they are. In the order hand, they may connect and walk away cauing stick client problem.

 In my scenario I was representing a ISP, which means, if clients did not surfe on the internet properly, they may rise a ticket and things gets ugly. But if you are providing free internet with no possibility to clients rising tickets, then your life can be much easier.

 I tried to play with RXSOP and Optmized Roaming to make sure at least, if clients were on the network, they should have some level of signal quality. This helps but clients may get dropped from the network depeding on the smartphone quality. And the number of clients also decrease.

 Keep in mind that I am not talking about hotspot here. This example I gave aimed to provide Wifi signal around a city with Access Point installed in posts and cables all around. Usually we hung them in telephone cables along the streets.

[ssubron]

Hello Flavio,

Thanks for the reply. The info is very helpful. What model of AP and how many of them would you recommend for a city block of around 1sq mile and around 1500 residents?

Thanks,

Sanjay

[Scott Fella]

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@ssubron wrote:

Hello Flavio,

Thanks for the reply. The info is very helpful. What model of AP and how many of them would you recommend for a city block of around 1sq mile and around 1500 residents?

Thanks,

Sanjay

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No one can provide the answer to this?  What happens if you say 300 and then you really need maybe 800.  What do you think the signal will be inside the residence, have you tested that?  These big projects, you can't just guess, Can you cover a 1sq mile city, sure you can, but will you provide the coverage that a users wants or have a good signal where you really need it?  The environment and the building types will be a big factor.  If the signal is weak in the resident building, the project is a failure, because no one can really use it.  With covid and many still working from home, you need to provide a signal better than what they can get from their ISP.  There are already many ISP's that are doing something like this also.  It's different if you just want to provide wireless in open areas like sidewalks or parks, but inside a residence would be tricky.

[Leo Laohoo]

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@ssubron wrote:

Thanks for the reply. The info is very helpful. What model of AP and how many of them would you recommend for a city block of around 1sq mile and around 1500 residents?

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WTF?  

How important is this project to succeed?  

This is, by far, one of the dumbest question posted in this forum I have ever seen.  This project, in my opinion, is no laughing matter and playing a game of "shopping for answers" is really a dumb move. 

No one is stupid to answer a question like this in this forum because everyone knows this kind of work requires a lot of thinking.  Get a proper systems integrator to do this job right (right) or do not even try doing this on the "cheap".  

[ammahend]

Agree with Scott and Flavio, Not too long ago Cisco acquired  fluidmesh, which is specifically build for this kind of deployments and smart city use cases and Cisco has been pushing it for City wide deployments, you might want to talk to your Cisco AM about it. They might have a few use cases for you. 
I am assuming you are just gathering info right now, so fluidmesh is something you want to look at as well. 

[Rich R]

In addition to what's already been said - cities are difficult.

From our experience you will usually need a hybrid mix of solutions:

- cabled where possible

- mesh if you have to - we prefer to avoid mesh if we can - too many problems in our experience

- high point radio downlinks to spots you can't get cables to - fluidmesh is good for that but not the only solution in town

Mounting points for APs can be difficult, places you can/can't mount which doesn't always match the technical requirement.  Getting power to the APs can be another challenge.  Needing to match with street furniture or buildings sometimes - all things you may need to consider.

The logical choice of product now is Catalyst 9124 AP: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/catalyst-9100ax-access-points/nb-06-cat9124-ser-ap-ds-cte-en.html

How many and where and which variant needs to be based on site survey and all the other constraints and requirements imposed on you.