Neighborhood Wireless Network

Prepared by: Marcel J. Fortin

Alliance of WV Champion Communities, Inc.

PO Box 747, Alum Creek, WV. 25003-0747

September 1, 2008

Development of the Coal River Road Neighborhood Wireless Network

Accessibility and affordability of broadband services in rural areas continues to be a stumbling block to the adoption of technologies and internet usage for West Virginia citizens. This demonstration project by the Alliance of WV Champion Communities, Inc., in partnership with One Economy, Inc., is an attempt to determine the feasibility of creating neighborhood wireless networks in rural settings. The mountains and forests of West Virginia make rural wireless deployments difficult and expensive. One Economy, Inc provided equipment, a community resident provided the Satellite broadband connection and the Alliance provided the man power for the demonstration project. The project’s goal is to use a Satellite broadband connection, which in rural settings is often the only method of receiving broadband services, and share the connection with residents of a rural community. ‘Up the holler’, ‘down the road’, ‘around the bend’, ‘around the mountain’ and ‘through the trees’ are the best ways to identify the issues that were encountered. Climbing mountainsides, trimming brush and trees and walking over all the properties to find the best signal and to determine the best locations for installation of the equipment was taxing, but rewarding. This report is to provide a map as to how to proceed with a neighborhood wireless network using Satellite connectivity if a community desires to do so.

Preliminary Planning

First we had to assembled a flyer describing the intent of the project, what was needed from the community residents selected for the demonstration project, what it would cost and, especially, what the benefits would be for participants.

Another issue that we wanted to address was liability concerns of property owners while on their property. Concern for our safety and fear of being arrested for trespassing was the reason for creating a simple disclaimer form for the residents. Below is the flyer created for informing the community and the disclaimer form provided to the residents.

Project Description Flyer

The Alliance of WV Champion Communities, Inc. and One Economy, Inc. is doing a test project to create a community broadband wireless network. Equipment has been provided to create this network using a Satellite system connection provided by NATCOR for an area surrounding 4954 Coal River Road, Tornado, WV. We are asking residents in the area to assist us in developing this community network to be used as a demonstration project for the creation of community networks throughout WV and beyond. This first of its kind effort is to bring broadband services into areas that have little or no connectivity, which in West Virginia are most rural areas.

What do we need from the residents?

There is no cost! We will provide a wireless broadband connection free of charge for your participation during the project.

· Access to the property for installation and maintenance, if necessary.*

· Access to electricity - minimal electric usage & cost, if necessary.*

· Sign release form for access to the property and installation of equipment.*

· Entire community will get free wireless broadband!

*Please see the disclaimer on the following page

Disclaimer Form

Disclaimer:

I __________________________________ resident at _______________________________________

give permission to the Alliance of WV Champion Communities, Inc. to access the above listed property. If necessary, I give permission for installation, testing and/or maintenance of network equipment required for the deployment of the Coal River Community Wireless Network. Notices will be made prior to any activity on your property. Permission, in writing, will be required for any installation or maintenance necessary for the network equipment. The Alliance of WV Champion Communities, Inc. will not be held liable for any damages resulting from the Installation, testing and/or maintenance. The property owner will not held be liable for any project related activity.

Signature _______________________________

Print Name ______________________________

Date ___________________________________

Description of Initial Outreach

The next step was to meet with the neighbors. We had 3 people (Resident w/daughter and a technician) that went door to door as a team with flyers and disclaimers in hand to inform the community about the demonstration project. First reactions were “we can’t afford to spend any monies”, “we don’t have a computer” and “why are you doing this for us?” “It was wonderful to reintroduce myself to my neighbors and get reacquainted with folks that I hadn’t seen other than in passing for many years” said the resident team member. We walked up and down the road, often mistaken as a religious team, meeting neighbors, dropping off flyers, explaining our purpose and collecting names, addresses, phone numbers, # of household members and if they used the internet. We learned quickly that evenings were the best times to get people at home, so we made our contacts after 6 pm. Eventually, we talked to most people within a mile or so of the building where the gateway was to be installed. This activity was fun and it didn’t take long for us to realize that the community was definitely interested in being involved in this demonstration project that may impact other areas in West Virginia, if proven to be feasible.

Equipment Selection

It is now easy for anyone to setup and install a wireless network for their neighborhood or apartment complex. Even better, you can share a single Satellite connection with 15 or so neighbors, reducing the cost per user per month to about $5. It should take you no more than a few days to do it, even if you consider the extent of your technical skills to be no more than turning on your computer and checking your email. The Meraki Mini solves this problem by spreading a wireless signal across many rooms and buildings - far beyond the range of a single wireless router that you might find at a computer store. The magic that makes this work is the Meraki Mini, a very low-cost ($149 indoor / $199 outdoor retail) “smart” box that can spread a single Satellite connection across multiple rooms and buildings. We say “smart” as it does all the work of figuring out how to route the wireless signals. All you have to do is plug it in!

Some basic terminology

Network:	A group of computers that can talk to each other – in our case, wirelessly.
Gateway:	The Meraki Mini that is connected to the internet via a Satellite connection. A Meraki Mini that is not connected to the Satellite and “repeats” the signals from local computers and other nodes to the gateway.
Node:	A generic name for a Meraki Mini which can be either a Gateway or a Repeater.

Why Meraki?

This document grew out of our experiences researching and finally deploying a network for community networks in a rural mountainous setting. We had several requirements for the network:

· It must be affordable

· It must not require any configuration and be installable by non technical volunteers or residents with no training.

· It must be manageable by non-trained managers.

· It must provide a connectable signal indoors without additional equipment.

· It must be able to let people know when there is a problem (such as being unplugged).

The Meraki Mini supplied by One Economy, Inc. is the only system we were able to find to meet all of these criteria. Specifically, it is the only solution that works out-of-the-box without the need to configure (and understand) any technology. The only thing you need to know is where to plug them in, and that is what this next section is all about:

Basic Planning

Selecting an internet provider

Due to the rural nature of the Coal River Road, Tornado, West Virginian community to be served, we utilized a satellite connection provided by a community resident. We are providing a free wireless mesh network for residents in the demonstration project. Often Satellite connections are the only means of receiving broadband services and are more expensive than DSL or Cable connections. Satellite connections have issues with storms, rain, fog, snow, etc. The dependability of the connection and expected downages needs to be conveyed to the users of the network.

Picking a location for the Satellite Connection

A single internet connection feeds our mesh network. The connection is being provided by a resident of the community for this demonstration project to see if this type of connection is effective and efficient. The reason for this is that for each Repeater you pass through to get to the Gateway the maximum speed is cut roughly in half. So if most of your Repeaters have a direct (or single “hop”) connection to the Gateway, speed is maximized. The easiest way to accomplish this is to put your satellite connection as close to the middle of the area you want to cover as possible. Another way is to have multiple connections. If one connection were to go down, your network will switch-over to the other connection keeping your network up, if a bit slower. Plus, by having multiple connections spread throughout your network, you minimize the speed loss of “hopping” the signal over several Repeaters to get from internet to user. We have only one connection at this point, but may add other connections from other residents in the network later.

How many Meraki Minis do I need?

When are using the Minis in a rural residential neighborhood, we recommend that each house have its own Mini as houses are typically larger than apartments and yards separate the Minis much more than in urban settings. If the houses are especially large, we can add multiple Minis to provide excellent coverage in every room. The exact number of Minis, especially in rural settings, is trial and error. Until one is out there beating the bushes, it is difficult to determine the exact number. We are learning as we go and the simplicity of the equipment and its’ installation makes the demonstration project educational and fun.

Indoor vs Outdoor installation?

Indoor vs outdoor nodes? Some things we to keep in mind:

· Outdoor nodes are expensive to install.

· Often require an electrician to install power.

· Often involve getting up on ladders or rooftops (Long Ethernet cables need to be installed and secured).

· Additional power supplies are recommended (you’ll want 12-18v for POE).

· Lightning protection needed in many areas.

· Outdoor antennas and power amplifiers are expensive.

· Strongest signals are outdoors - weakest are indoors, the opposite of what you want.

So why were outdoor nodes used? Historically they were used as mesh repeaters which were expensive so you wanted to install as few as possible. This meant we had to use big antennas to both broadcast and be able to pick up tiny incoming wireless signals. Another need is creating point-to-point connections over large distances. The properties covered were large and required signals that we needed to carry greater distances.

What Meraki Mini model did we use?

Since we are installing in private homes to create a community wireless network, we used the Meraki Outdoor-Pro ($199) with Omni-directional antennae (~$20) for outdoor installations. We provided Meraki Mini Wireless Access Point Receivers ($149) for indoor installations to strengthen signals. We used the Pro series that comes with the Meraki Dashboard and allows for greater security and the ability to monitor usage. The indoor Mini and the power supply attaches to a wall and meet building codes / fire regulations.

Installation : Where did we put them?

We had our Satellite connection and our Minis had arrived. Now we needed to determine the best locations to provide the strongest signal over maximum distances.

It was determined that the Gateway should be installed on Marcel’s barn near the Coal River Road in order to get connectivity down the road because trees and mountains interfered with Line of Sight (LOS). The Meraki outdoor unit with a large omni-directional antenna was installed on a pole on the roof. We connected the unit to power in the barn and ran ~ 100 feet of Cat5 cable to a wireless hub in the Natcor building which is connected to the satellite for internet.

The Marcel house is 90m from the barn ‘up the hollow’ and signal strength was less than desired due to trees and obstructions, so we installed a Meraki Mini to enhance the signal in the home. This enhanced the signal and provided excellent reception throughout the residence. Download speeds of 4.8mps were maintained.

Our first consideration was to go west along Coal River Road. The Marcel’s barn site provides signal to 2 households, but the limited number of residences beyond them does not justify installing additional equipment to extend the signal at this time. If demand increases at a later date, revisiting the expansion of the network may be feasible.

We needed to move the signal in an easterly direction ‘down the road’. We determined the best LOS was a garage on Dolan’s property 112m from the barn, that would provide excellent 4 bar connection. We mounted the Meraki outdoor unit with a large omni-directional antenna on the front right hand corner of the roof of the building. Mr. Dolan provided a power connection for the unit. We later moved the unit up the gable of the roof about 7m to provide better reception to the Holder unit. This location provided LOS for several homes across the street and a 4 bar connection. This site extended the mesh to Marcel’s house 94m southwest. Download speeds of 5.6mps were recorded.

A Meraki outdoor unit with a large omni-directional antenna was installed on the Holder property ~ 2.5m up a tree 135m from the Dolan installation and 247m from Marcel’s barn. We connected with 4 bars and had LOS for more residences. Mr. Holder provided a power connection to the unit. We had to clear some brush and tree branches to assure LOS to the next repeater. Download speeds of 1.9mps were achieved at this location.

The next installation was on the Huffman residence. A Meraki outdoor unit with a standard omni-directional antenna was attached to an outdoor coach light and powered by a receptacle just below the light. This location extends the mesh network and provides connectivity for residents down the road. The location is 46m from the Holder repeater, 167m from the Dolan repeater and 279m from Marcel’s barn. Download speeds of 2.2mps were attained with strengths increased via the mesh configuration.

The Gillenwater house received excellent signal strength from the Huffman unit. We provided an indoor Meraki Mini to assure good connectivity throughout the home. This site also extends the mesh network. The location is 79m from the Huffman repeater, 105m from the Holder repeater and 243m from the Dolan repeater. Signal from the Gillenwater site extends ~ 70m ‘down the road’. Download speeds of .837mps were attained (~3 x’s dialup). Additional repeaters would provide ~1.5 x’s dialup speed which would not provide adequate signal for rich media.

We attempted to get signal ‘around the bend’ to a property further down the road. We located an optimum location, but power to site was a problem. We have good signal strength, but in order to get power we need to run several hundred feet of cable to reach one resident. A solar powered unit would resolve this issue.

Meraki mini units will be provided to residences within the network to enhance signals and to further develop the mesh network. Expansion of the network is possible in both westerly direction and in a very limited capacity in an easterly direction due to low download speeds at the end of the network. As we add more users to the system and get their feedback, we will move, add, or remove Minis as we proceed. The usage demands from individual users will determine what we need to do to make the network more efficient.

Here are some important installation suggestions:

· It will really help if the Satellite can be central to the area being covered. If you put it on the edge, you’ll likely find that users far away from the Satellite will have slower speed than the users close in.

· Make sure the Repeaters are as close to the Gateway as possible. Placing them on the wall facing the Gateway is good. You want to make sure they have a solid connection to the Gateway. This is very important!

· Each Meraki Mini can cover an area that is roughly a 50-100 foot “sphere” indoors, depending upon the number of walls and their construction. You will want to have the edges of these spheres overlap so that each Meraki Mini can talk to at least one (and preferably two) other Meraki Minis.

· For multi-story buildings, you’ll want to think vertically as well. If you have 2-3 floors to cover, placing the nodes on the second floor is a good idea as they will mount near the floor (at power-plug level). This keeps them centered between the floors where they can provide coverage above and below. If you have more than 3 floors, then repeating the installation on every other floor will usually do the trick.

· If the building has brick, cement or stone on the outside walls (or lots of fireplaces indoors), your range will be significantly reduced. In this case, you may want to keep everything (all Repeaters and Gateways) indoors to avoid having to penetrate the stone walls.

· If you are installing in an apartment complex with internal hallways, we HIGHLY recommend putting the Meraki Minis there. There are a few reasons for this: First, as this is common space, you’ll have access to it without disturbing residents. Secondly, placing the Minis down a long corridor means they can all see each other without having to go through walls. This maximizes the signal between the Minis and minimizes potential “hops” that will slow down the network. You’ll want to use the “wall plug” option so that the Mini’s are in a secure case and don’t look like something valuable people should steal. Note that the wall plug version of the Mini will only cover one plug of an outlet (required by most building and fire codes).

· Be prepared to cut wide swaths of brush, tree limbs and etc. The better LOS that you do from the beginning, the less maintenance you will need to do later.

Getting Ready

Before you install the Meraki Minis in individual houses or hallways, it is a good idea to write down where you are planning to put each one. This is so that later if you get notification of an outage, you’ll be able to know where that particular Mini is!

We like to plan before we install and write (using a Sharpie pen that can write on plastic) the location on each Mini before we go out to the installation site. So we write the number of the unit on the back of the Minis we are going to install. This makes sure we get the right one in the right place.

Create our Meraki Dashboard Account

Next, we added our network to the Meraki Dashboard. It is a simple process since Meraki has a simple “wizard” that will guide you through the basics.

The first step is to create a Meraki account. Go to dashboard.meraki.net and click “Create New Account”. You’ll see a form that asks for your name and address information. You’ll use the email address you enter here to login to Meraki Dashboard, and they will email you your password to this email address.

Once you have this information, go to dashboard.meraki.net again and enter your email and password and click “sign in”. You should see a page that suggests you run a “wizard” that will help you setup your network.

On this first page, enter the “Network Name”. This is used ONLY inside Meraki Dashboard to show you which network you are looking at (Meraki Dashboard lets you have several networks in one account). Next, it asks for the “Network SSID”. This is the name of the network your users will see on their computers when they try to connect. A good selection here is the name of the apartment complex or neighborhood. It is also helpful to put something like “Free” at the end so users know this is really an open network.

Our network name is Meraki and our Network SSID is Meraki.

The second page asks you who can access your network and how much bandwidth (speed) they will get. The networks we deploy are always set to “Everyone (open)” as we want people to join with a minimum of hassle. The next question asks if you’d like to set the maximum user bandwidth. You can think of your internet connection as a pipe and this as a faucet that will turn down the maximum speed users will see. Setting this to “Yes” is a VERY good idea as otherwise one or two very heavy users can easily consume the entire available bandwidth making it very slow for everyone. The default values are a good starting point that you can adjust up or down as needed.

The third page allows each Meraki Mini to be manually added using the “Add Individual Node” section. We did not have an order number, since One Economy, Inc. donated the equipment. We entered MAC Ids and serial numbers for each node. We added: Marcel Barn (Gateway), Marcel Home (Indoor Mini), Dolan House (Outdoor Mini), Holder House (Outdoor Mini), Huffman House (Outdoor Mini) and Gillenwater House (Indoor Mini).

Once you have entered your Order Number and/or Network Address, you can click “View Summary” to see the results of the wizard. You will see all the nodes entered and can make any corrections if necessary.

Next, you’ll enter a Meraki “Network Handle”. This is a unique identifier for your network that others (such as our servers) can use to retrieve and analyze the network data. These handles are case sensitive, so remember exactly how you enter it here.

Only one step left: Go to the Meraki Dashboard Map View page and “drag” your nodes into their exact position on the map. The map page can be found under the “monitor” tab, then “map view”. All your nodes will be shown roughly at the address you entered, and you can now drag them into their true position by clicking on each one and dragging it to the correct location. Make sure you drag the right one to the right location. If you click on each icon on the map, you’ll see some tabs appear on the left. The first tab is called “Summary”, and you can see the “hardware address” and “serial number”. Since you haven’t deployed your Minis yet, you can look at the location you wrote on the back of each Mini to make sure you move the right one to the right place on the map. While you are there, it is a really good idea to give each Mini a name, too. We used the Resident name. The addresses we entered we not very accurate on the mapping. We had to bring up the map, locate the mini for each resident and moved the icon to the map using the satellite map. We placed the icon directly on the house or area of the units themselves. This was relatively simple and produced the 2 charts that are below.

Testing our network

The easiest way to test your network is to take a laptop around each outdoor mini location and see how well it works to browse the internet.

The first thing to do is to set the laptop to look for an SSID of only “Meraki”.

For the purposes of this test, we wanted to make sure it can’t connect to anything except the SSID you set so remove any SSIDs that appear in this list by clicking “remove” until the list is empty then click “add” to add “Meraki” (or again, whatever you set in the Meraki Manage Wizard, above). Next click on “OK” twice to save and close these settings.

Now we were ready to test!

It is important that as you wander around, you turn off, then on the wireless adapter on the laptop (most laptops have a switch for this so they can be used on airplanes where wireless isn’t allowed). As you enter a new house or hotspot that you want to test, turn the wireless switch to the “off” position, wait a second or two, then turn it on again. It will usually take a few moments to find the network again and once it says “connected” in the taskbar (if you are using a Windows Laptop), then you are ready to test. Meraki wireless networks default to an SSID of “Meraki”, so this is what you’ll want to be looking for, or whatever you changed it to in the Meraki Manage Wizard, above.

Why did we have to do this? Wireless adapters in computers like to stay “locked” onto the wireless access point (in our case, one of the Minis) unless the signal gets really bad. Since you are wandering around, and Meraki networks have many such access points, if you don’t switch off then on your wireless adapter, you’ll get false results as it may be trying to talk to a Mini that is now farther away then another which would have a better signal. Users typically don’t wander like this, so by turning off then on your wireless, you’ll see what a stationary user would see.

At each location, it’s a good idea to refresh a page with lots of graphics a few times. We used Yahoo.com as it has several images. You should see each page load in less than 5 seconds with no missing images if it is working well.

If we had some areas that didn’t work or didn’t work well, we moved the closest Mini to a location closer to the Gateway or added a Repeater Mini and retested.

Or, if you’d like to make certain your network is working well without having to manually test each location, you can use Meraki’s Dashboard “Monitoring” site to gain a clear understanding of how it is working and setup alerts if something goes wrong. This is the best way to make sure everything is working well. We used both the on-site method with the laptops and monitored the network on the Dashboard. The Dashboard is very intuitive and can be learned very quickly. The monitoring site allows you to see if there are any problems on the network, identifies who is on the network, when someone is on and how much information was downloaded.

Below are examples of reports created by the Dashboard that really makes monitoring the network very easy. The first chart shows usage data such as date, time, the amount of information transferred and the user devices attached to the network. The charts are very easy to understand and provide the information necessary to see what is occurring on the network 24/7 from anywhere you have internet. The second chart identifies the status of the equipment, if the units are active, how many people are using the network and at what download speeds.

Cost Analysis

One of the goals of the demonstration project was to determine if this idea would be cost effective. We wanted to calculate the costs for the entire project, including the satellite connection, that would be necessary for an effective and efficient wireless network.

Equipment expenses

Satellite Expenses: $75.00 per month w/equipment costs of $350.00

Meraki Equipment: 3 Mini outdoor units with large omni-directional antennae $219.00 x 3 = $ 657.00

1 Mini outdoor unit with standard omni-directional antenna $ 199.00

6 Mini indoor units $149.00 x 6 = $ 894.00

Total $ 1,750.00

Labor expenses

Labor: Volunteer Labor ~ 24 Hours x 2 people = 48 hours

Coal River Road Neighborhood Network

Potential Households on the network 15

Equipment costs per household $ 1,750.00 = $ 116.67 per household

Satellite costs per household $ 75.00 = $ 5.00 per household

Satellite equipment per household $ 350.00 = $ 23.34 per household

Verizon Broadband Services $ 30.00 per month 768Mps/128Mps (only service available)

Coal River Road Neighborhood Network

Verizon Broadband connection $ 30.00 x 12 = $ 360.00 per year

Satellite Shared connection* $ 5.00 x 12 = $ 60.00 per year

Household Savings $ 300.00 per year

Satellite Equipment Costs* $ 23.34 per household

Meraki Equipment C** $116.67 per household

One time outlay $140.01 per household

Equipment Payment Plan $140.01 = $ 11.68 per month for one year

12 months

Neighborhood Network Plan $ 16.68 per month First Year ($11.68 equipment plan + $ 5.00 broadband)

5.00 per month Thereafter

Utilizing current costs to create a neighborhood wireless network such as we have installed would indeed be affordable. If this plan were to be implemented on a shared cost basis for the households in the network, the initial outlay ($ 140.01) would be recouped within the first 6 months if the household were to have to pay $30.00 per month for a 768Mps connection. By using a monthly payment plan to share the cost of the satellite equipment, the monthly cost ($ 16.68 per month) is almost one-half of the available broadband service for the community and after the first year the broadband service would be only $ 5.00 per month thereafter. Creative ways of financing the equipment costs could reduce the monthly fees even further to make it even more affordable for the households on the network.

*Satellite equipment & connection supplied by Natcor.

**Equipment supplied by One Economy, Inc.

Conclusion

The demonstration project is a work in progress. We are currently monitoring everyone within the network and are seeing increasing usage of the broadband service. Distribution of some of the equipment will take place to assure maximum coverage and adequate download speeds on an ‘as needed’ basis. The network Dashboard is working flawlessly and has already helped to identify a power issue at one of the Mini’s location. An apparent short in the outdoor wiring attached to the circuit caused the unit to fail affecting another Mini. The system alerted me of the failure, what units were affected and how long the units were down. I was able to see the problem from my office, pinpoint the problem and get the network up. I will be fixing the short for the resident as soon as it stops raining.

The interaction with the neighbors has been a wonderful activity that I hadn’t expected. Everyone is so supportive and they are anxious to take advantage of the network. Wherever we needed power for the outdoor units, the neighbors ran extension cords and cabling, let us trim bushes and trees, let us walk all over their properties, and complied with whatever we asked of them. Generally, communities like ours, come together to help in time of need or disaster. It has been great to see a community come together to provide affordable wireless broadband in such a big way. I am sure that our community is not unique and anyone seeking to create this type of network will surely get this kind of support.

The cost analysis indeed shows that by cost sharing of satellite and wireless equipment that the affordability issue for broadband can be addressed. Computer usage should also see an increase because low cost of broadband services would not hinder the household from either obtaining an older computer or purchasing a new one. Now that the network is up and running, part of our services is to make the community aware of what the internet is all about and how they can take advantage of its’ benefits. We can help our neighbors move West Virginia forward.

Respectfully submitted,

Marcel J. Fortin

Coal River Road Neighborhood Wireless Network