Setting up festival Wifi

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mackle

Active Member
Nov 13, 2013
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I'm on a festival committee, which holds an annual 3 day food festival in Massachusetts each year. One problem we have is that we're in a relatively poorly served cell area. We want our attendees to be able to use social media while they're at the venue, in part because it helps advertise the event.

I'm in the preliminary scoping phase at the moment, so pretty much everything is on the table. Googling/duckduckgoing for advice on the topic invariably leads to user-centric guides (i.e. "how do I use wifi at Glastonbury?!"), so I'd appreciate a discussion here and maybe it could also become a useful resource for others.

The organisation is small and has a Comcast business starter connection (16/3), with a couple of office computers, printers and a secured wifi network provided by a consumer grade DLink wireless router. The event itself is largely held under 2-3 large 80' x 40' tents arranged in an L shape around the main building, about 30 ft away. I would say at an absolute maximum we would have a couple hundred people on site at any one time, say during the lunch and dinner rushes.

We are very budget focused, because we're a non-profit and the event is suppose to raise funds, rather than be a money sink, so requesting capital expenditure (or canvassing donations for equipment) on this project is weighed up against other needs. Straight up we'll have to bump up the internet service for the month, as 3mbit up won't gain us many followers!

Off the top of my head there are a few areas that I am concerned about, listed below, but any point would be good to hear.

1. Security, such as the dangers (to both users and the organisation) of just providing an unsecured wifi service vs. the costs/complexity of using a more secured service.

2. Affordability - perhaps a hierarchy of options from the very cheap to the more expensive is something we could develop for others to utilise?

3. Third party providers - either wifi hotspot rental providers(?) or say using comcast's wifi hotspots [network lock in].

4. Rolling out something that doesn't interfere with the existing network topography. I could overhaul the current topography, replace the existing hardware with a pfSense box etc, but what we have now works for what we need 51.5 weeks out of the year.

5. Backhaul - i.e. from APs through to the ISP. The tents are at least 30ft from the main building and have power, but are high traffic areas so running additional data cables to them may be problematic.

6. # and type of APs - N150 vs N300. When price sensitive are more numerous cheaper N150 APs a better strategy for handling many users than fewer more expensive N300s? The ISP connection will be the bottleneck regardless of the APs used...

At this point I am leaning towards loaning a box for the weekend and configuring it with pfSense and a couple cheap APs (such as the TP-Link TL-WA801ND or the 901) so that it attaches to the network as follows:

Comcast
Modem --- Router ---- regular network / secured wifi
l___ pfSense box --- Wireless APs --- filtered public network​

Thanking people in advance for their input!
 

ultradense

Member
Feb 2, 2015
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You should definately check out Ubiquity Unifi. We use these in schools, dorms, local gornment and are now starting to implement these at outside teen-hangouts and playgrounds. Great price/performance/usability/managebility.
You might place one UAP-AC in each tent as they can manage over 150 devices each.
 
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mackle

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Nov 13, 2013
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The problem with festival planning is we only find out on the day what our requirements are! I'm thinking of working off a 200 concurrent peak user level, who mainly use mobile Facebook but also spend most of their time connected but idle (the big numbers come around meal time). At 200 users, an ISP connection of 75/25 would provide just shy of 400kbit down and 75kbit up per user (or the ability to each upload a facebook photo every other minute). Probably a little tight but as I said, we have to be budget focused!

Looking at those UAP-ACs it seems like our costs would probably be in the vicinity of $4 per concurrent user count range, largely because at 150 users per AP we'd be set for 300 users rather than 200. That's 30% of our total CAPEX budget, but probably in the realm of what we could get a sponsor to cover most of, in exchange for giving them naming rights in association with the free service...

With the APs, do you find that the number of users is limited by bandwidth or just the number of users per channel? My thinking is that we're in a clean WiFi zone, so we could run three of the cheaper UAPs over 2.4GHz. That would reduce our costs over a single AC unit by say 30%, or 70% off two of the ACs (taking into account extra cabling/infrastructure costs etc). If the UAPs are stable and not dropping connections at 66 users each, that should get us to 200 users total.

If it does get tight then we could add a 5GHz unit or swap out one UAP for an UAP-AC in the following year. That would spread our costs over the two years and give us some real event data to work with before going in deep.

If our ISP connection is going to be the major bottleneck, I'd hope to limit costs by stretching out the users/AP, providing it didn't affect stability.
 

mackle

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Nov 13, 2013
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The festival itself isn't until September. But if it's something that would be of interest to people here, I could easily do a write up of how good/bad/terrible the wifi goes when set-up by a SOHO guy.
 

mrkrad

Well-Known Member
Oct 13, 2012
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I run 50+ devices off an airport xtreme. Could chain a few of those together as repeaters and sure it might get slow but it would handle the number of users :)
 

mackle

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Nov 13, 2013
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I guess makes me feel a little more confident about 3 UAPs!

My thinking is to wire each of the 100mbit APs back to a central Netgear GS105 Prosafe 5 or 8 port type switch sitting under the tents, using a combination of direct-burial and regular Cat5e where needed. From there back to the building/modem I'd use a single run of direct-burial wire. That way I avoid the need for repeaters. Need to look at how to get into the actual building though...
 

ultradense

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Feb 2, 2015
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I think the UAP-AC can handle those 200 light-usage devices without any problems. The specs say they can handle 200+ concurent users and I have no reason yet to disbelieve them. Since most of the devices are idle, I'd still opt for the UAP-AC since they are very capable of balancing the devices between 2.4GHz and 5GHz.
The normal UAPs are great for small offices (up to 20 idle devices with only about 5 active and up to 30Mbit).
When there are more devices and/or a heavy used 2.4GHz band, we allways go for the UAP-AC. It will save you a lot of stress when the event is happening.
I would try and offer your sponser some room for an advertisement message on the hotspot splash page and tell them you can provide a great WIFI-experience when they sponsor you the UAP-AC's. There name on a not-so-good wifi-experience will be less attractive...

And ofcourse you can mix and match UAP (office, entrance, etc) and UAP-AC (tents, open-field) since they work together nicely and offer very good roaming capabilities. However, remember to setup some server (appliance($$) or free windows-/linux-server) for them to provide the hotspot-page and be properly managed. It's a very lightweight JAVA application, so can use an old, but wired laptop/desktop for this.
 

bds1904

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Aug 30, 2013
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open-mesh.com

Om5p-an

Dual band, cloud managed, mesh, seamless roaming with no on site controller, rate limiting, private/public ssd support and cheap outdoor enclosures. A mesh node can even provide wired access for credit card machines.

Just remember that you don't want more than 2 or 3 hops to a wired node. If you can get a few wired nodes on the outside of a nearby building you can put more nodes in the tents to extend wifi.

The mesh defaults to the 5ghz first btw, really helps with speed.
 

nickscott18

Member
Mar 15, 2013
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TLDR: Even older Ubiquiti gear can handle a decent number of connections, and would probably suit this environment well.

I've just got back from doing a similar setup over Easter Weekend, doing a temporary network for staff at a large youth camp. The budget was essentially $0, and it was beg / borrow / steal with the gear. In low traffic areas we used WRT54GL access points (2x areas), and in the areas where there were more active connections, we used Ubiquiti Nanostation's (will have to check exact model later on, but they are one of the original nanostation's), with a mix of wifi, and g.shdsl back haul. Core router was a PFSense router on a stick arrangement (hooked up to a SLM2008 switch).

The WRT54GL's aren't really note worthy, as they were just used in areas with a max of about 10 connections, but one of the Nanostation's was used in an area with 100 peak users (round meal time), and it behaved flawlessly.
 

mackle

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Nov 13, 2013
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Thanks for the all the info - I poked around today and found that the internet gateway is DOCSIS 3 and has GbE ports, so that's one less area of concern I have for now.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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Maybe it's a stupid idea, but if your backhaul is a DOCSIS modem then your obviously working with a cableco...and if you are us based 85% odds that cableco is either Comcast, Cox or TW. All of them offer wifi services at 'no extra charge' (I'll never call it free...you still pay somehow).

Have you considered asking the cableco to just provide the wifi service for you? If you are non profit they might even be required to do it as part of their franchise agreement with the local government.
 

Deci

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Feb 15, 2015
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If it's a toss up between the cheaper unifi 2.4g (non ac) and the ac version the non ac version is starting to hit it's usable limit at 50ish users. So unless the ac version is more than 3x the cost you are better off with them.

I have a setup with 35+ access points and during peak times is serving 700+ clients, with clients limited to 1-2mbit a 75mbit internet service is plenty on the back end for what you are planning as long as you rate limit the users, there is always a few that want to abuse it and ruin it for everyone else.
 

xnoodle

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Jan 4, 2011
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+1 to PigLover. For a back up, contact Comcast, you can get either a indoor wifi hotspot (tied to your Comcast account, probably give you another DOCSIS modem+ap), or a public xfinity wifi hotspot. That'll give a nice fall-back option for people to use WiFi on.

Internet FAQs, Information on Comcast Business Internet - Comcast Business

Note, you need to be a Brighthouse, Cox, Optimum, TW or Comcast customer to use hotspots provided by the CableWifi initiative. I don't work for Comcast. :)
 

mackle

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Nov 13, 2013
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Def not stupid - I was planning on getting in touch with Comcast to see how they could partner with us. Even if its just bumping up our service over the weekend, as that will be two to four tiers above normal and OPEX we could do without having to spend. One of my concerns with getting them to provide the wifi is I know they have their comcast wifi service, and I don't want it to be limited to comcast users.

I'm comfortable with 75 down, its the 15 up that I'm less sure of, especially if we're encouraging people to help spread the word by uploading content to social media. I think the difference between the AC and non-AC is 280 vs 65, so more than 4x more expensive.
 

mackle

Active Member
Nov 13, 2013
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A quick update on progress.

I've attempted to get in touch with Comcast about seeing what they can do about a community partnership. Their customer service centre is for residential only, so that was a dead end. Calling up the business line customer line wasn't any help either, as they could only direct me to the corporate website. Unfortunately, the corporate website doesn't seem to outline how I could actually contact them about it (and the CSR wasn't able to be more specific). So unless there is anyone who does work at Comcast(!) I might be limited to how much we are prepared to stump up for a month-long speed boost.

When I called the business line, the CSR also said that the fastest non-enterprise service (150/20) wouldn't be fast enough for the numbers I'm projecting. He said that is good for a max of ~20-25 users. I feel is kinda low? That said, 20-25 probably wouldn't be too far shy of the sort of numbers I'd expect to be actively using the connection at any one time (with the remainder idle - they have to eat after all)...

The other piece of news I have is we're going to add a network port to the outside of the building as part of a wiring upgrade we're doing. So I won't have to use wireless repeaters to get back into the building - just connect up the network jack to the switch for the weekend.
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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150/20 for people on their phones and only 25 users is DEF ENOUGH, in my opinion.

Just go UNIFI and be done, no?

Unless it's a networking, pc, gaming festival I guess :) LOL!! I think you said it was food or something else though.
 

TuxDude

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Sep 17, 2011
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A 150/20 connection will be plenty - Comcast is just trying to sell you more bandwidth than you need. Comcast will always respond with "you need more", unless it is the FCC changing the minimum definition of broadband again in which case Comcast will say that no users need anywhere near that much. Don't even bother trying to deal with anything related to customer service/support, they won't be able to help you. If you can find someone in sales/marketing they may be able to hook you up with something at a discounted/free rate in exchange for publicity at the event.
 
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T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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A 150/20 connection will be plenty - Comcast is just trying to sell you more bandwidth than you need. Comcast will always respond with "you need more", unless it is the FCC changing the minimum definition of broadband again in which case Comcast will say that no users need anywhere near that much. Don't even bother trying to deal with anything related to customer service/support, they won't be able to help you. If you can find someone in sales/marketing they may be able to hook you up with something at a discounted/free rate in exchange for publicity at the event.
This. Find someone who makes business decisions. Marketing or B2b growth in this instance probably best bet.
 

neo

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Mar 18, 2015
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The 120 downstream probably won't be your bottleneck. I would focus more on the upstream as users attempt to upload photos to their social networks and such.
 
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