Wireless Computing Case Studies

Wireless Case Study - Laser Link

A regeneration charity working in Yorkshire won funding to redevelop an old farmhouse as additional office and exhibition space.

The farmhouse was half a mile from the main organisation office and the needed to be linked up to enable staff in both buildings to share across the network.

Wireless technology works well in buildings but often struggles across such long distances. The solution was to use a laser link – one transmitter and one receiver, mounted on a pole and with line of sight.

The link provides a 100Mbit per second connection, enables both buildings to use the same network and staff to share resources.

The laser link has proved very reliable and the only failures have been in heavy fog. The receiver needs to be able to ‘see’ the laser beam. It has not yet been tested for interference with heavy snow but seems to work well in damp and wet conditions!

The solution wasn’t cheap, costing a few thousand pounds, but was essential in providing the speed needed for transferring large files across the connection. Dial-in and similar low-cost options simply weren’t an option.

Wireless Case Study - Crossing the Road

A local community organisation set up a community hub and installed a single member of staff in the hub. Their challenge was to connect the two buildings, the hub and a main office across the road, to the same network.

The hub raised a few communications problems. There was no cable provider to use and it had already proved difficult to get BT for basic telephony and leased line. The suggested solution of a VPN and dial-in also wouldn’t work because of the need to share a specific application.

The organisation opted for a wireless network. There was no line of sight between windows in the organisation and a concern about the reliability and potential interference of two other wireless networks next door and down the road.

The standard 802.11b and g options were discounted. After further advice and creative thinking, the organisation went for a specialist 802.11a standard, licenced from Ofcom.

Two wall mountable budget wireless bridges were set up and the organisation now happily and securely shares its network with no interference or major reliability issues. Costs were in the region of several hundred pounds.

Contributed by Morgan Killick of ESP Projects - www.espprojects.co.uk