BUILDING A WIRELESS NETWORK in Developing Countries PART III

PART III: INSTALLATION CONSIDERATION


When installing a Wireless Access point a couple of consideration need to be taken into account. If the WLAN access point is to be installed outside , it needs to be protected from rain , wind , sun and other elements that may deteriorate it. It needs to be properly grounded to sustain when lightning occurs, power spikes. Also, power needs to be provided to it and antennas need to be installed in such away that will cover the maximum area possible.

• Lightning protection and power spikes
  

It's imperative to properly protect not only your equipment but also all equipments connected to your network against lightning. To do so , you can make use of fuses and circuit breakers. Too often neglected , a simple installation of a circuit breaker can protect network managers from very tragic situations. Another protection is to ground the antenna. When grounding remember that you are trying to accomplish two goals: First you want to create the shortest path from the highest conductive surface to the ground . Then you want to create a circuit to dissipate that excess of energy. The idea is to have the lightning energy to travel through the shortest path thus bypassing the equipment. Power stabilizers and regulators take different level of power and provide the desired voltage. Although , they are very important devices they offer little to no protection from lightning. You should always check power stabilizers after a lightning strike because more than often they'll burn out. Regulators are less likely to burn out.

• Providing Power: Power Over Internet

I actually did a presentation on this subject this week. I'll try to find a way to post the slide on my next post. Basically, Power over Internet is defined in the IEEE 802.3af standard and soon the IEEE 802.3at. The later is expected to be adopted in early 2009 and expect to provide power up to 60W ( more than enough to power a laptop!). The IEEE 802.3af standard was adopted in 2003 and provide 13W of power to Powered Devices. It defines the means of supply power to devices using an Ethernet cable. Power is supply without interfering with data transmission on the same wire. Some Ethernet switches will provide power using the same wires used for data others will use unused wire pairs. Power Over Ethernet is the first internationally approved power standard. The adoption of the new standard promises a bright future for power over Ethernet. Anything can be powered by it laptops , WiMax base stations , the only limit is human's brain.



(To be continued....)