superczar wrote

A) Would a Pharos based setup in the layout be reliable enough for a CCTV NVR setup?

Yes, definitely. We use those devices for CCTV installations, too.

B) What would be the recommended set of products

For option 1) WBS210 with new antenna TL-ANT2410MO (coming soon) for omnidirectional coverage or EAP110-Outdoor if you don't want to wait for it.

For option 2) WBS510/CPE510 for the direct links between server room and cameras and above devices for distributing the signal wirelessly.

C) What is the realistic stable throughput I can expect

[FONT=arial]Difficult to say, but for direct 5 GHz links 70 to 90 Mbit/s should be possible (for all clients of a single Pharos station, including directional links), lower speeds for 2.4 GHz depending on the amount of other 2.4 GHz equipment interfering with your network.

D) Using the rooftops for the point to point, I can get near Line-of-sight but with a bit of disruption from a single layer of tree foliage- Is that not a major concern or should I look at using poles to the roof top to go above the treeline

If possible, yes, it would be good to go above treeline for the first fresnel zone. See [/FONT] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_zone

It's probably worth mentioning that this is located in the middle of a big city in India and we are surrounded by several tall residential towers so expect a lot of 802.11 noise and interefernce in the neighborhood

That's what influences throughput suggested above. Only way to find out is either with professional measurements or trial & error at the location.

superczar wrote

1) In order to keep the throughput high, I presume it would make sense to have a dedicated point-to-point backhaul for each block .
Thus in effect we install three separate antennas on the server room (WBS510?) each dedicated to a block
Each block gets 1 CPE510 - Is there any advantage to doing this? I presume this would help in keeping the throughput availability at peak in each block?

Yes. The WBS/CPEs have a data throughput of max. 100 Mbit/s (due to the Fast Ethernet IF) over the air. Wireless frames travel with up to 300 Mbit/s between the devices. Using three pairs for each block you could achieve 3x 100 Mbit/s, while with one at the server room and one in each block you would just be able to achieve 1/3 for each block.

Also, I am still not 100% clear about the difference between a CPE510 and a WBS510
Is the WBS510 better suited as the server side base station for a point to multi-point distribution?

It's just the antennas. CPE510 has built-in directional antennas, while the WBS510 can be used with directional sector or dish antennas. CPE's antenna beam width is 45°, while the sector antenna offers up to 120° (@6dBm) resp. 90° (@3dBm). If you use three pairs for the links between server room and the blocks, you actually don't need sector antennas, so 3x2 CPE510 would be best solution for three direct links, since they are much cheaper then two WBS510 with a sector antennas, which would be required to have one facing to block A and one facing to blocks B and C.

2) Within each block, I still need to transfer the bridged connection from the CPE510 on the rooftop of one house to the APs (EAP110) in the central area of the block
I can potentially run a wire from the roof to the ground and hook it to the EAP110
However, if I choose to use another pair of CPE510 (or CPE210) to bridge from roof to ground level AP, would that cause any real world issues?

Sure it causes issues: it needs AirTime in the frequency band. While at 5 GHz this is not critical, with CPE210 it needs 4 channels (@20MHz channel width) or even 8 channels (@40 MHz channel width) out of a frequency band which just has 3 or 4 non-overlapping channels (depends on WiFi b/g/n mode and allowed channels in your country). Since a CPE transmitting will silence all other wireless devices (CPEs, EAPs and even client devices), it is better to use cables from the roof to the bottom - this does not allocate valuable AirTIme and will avoid interferences between devices. Take into account clients connecting to the EAPs, they will acquire part of the total bandwidth, too! So wireless links just from the roof to the bottom are a waste of ressources (at least i the small and overcrowded 2.4 GHz band).

i.e. For one block: Server room -> CPE510 (or WBS510) -> CPE510 in Block A (rooftop on one house) -> CPE510 (facing towards garden)->CPE510 (sitting next to EAP110)-> wired to 1 X EAP110 on garden edge + 1 X EAP110 at diagonal edge of garden in extender mode

Note that the EAP110-Outdoor can't be used in repeater or extender mode. It's just an AP. If you need repeater/extender mode you should use a WBS210 with TL-ANT2410MO, only problem is that this omnidirectional outdoor antenna (with 360° beam width) is not available right now, but long awaited for. First omni antenna for Pharos OBS210 was announced long time ago, but it did made it into EAP110-Outdoor eventually and the OBS210 was completely dropped - it did never appear on the market. But soon the ANT2410MO will be available for WBS210 making it a fully replacement for the EAP110-Outdoor. This antenna for the WBS210 will allow to set the WBS to all modes supported by Pharos (e.g. repeater, bridge etc.). See http://www.tp-link.com.au/products/details/TL-ANT2410MO.html

superczar wrote

I wish I could buy you a beer! :)

Oh, buy your kids an ice cream instead and enjoy their smile. :D

So if I understand this correctly, the right way to go about it would be:

1 - Server to Block A-B-C rooftop
3 X pairs of CPE510 to get (hopefully) 70-80 mbps, max 100 at each block rooftop

2 - Rooftop to Garden omni AP (1)

Option A - Wired connection to one of the EAP 110s at one garden edge (preferred)

Option B - Another pair of CPE510 to try avoid interference in the 2.4 Ghz band (backup option- This would mean a dependency on the house owner + the adjacent house to be OK with running a visible cable along his walls - Not a problem for the block I am in but would prefer to keep this option open just in case

Yes, I would do it this way (but before doing final installation test it!):






Probably you don't need to mount the EAP110-Outdoor at the center of the garden - maybe you could mount it on the same pole as the CPE on the roof to also cover the garden. But this depends on the height of the buildings and distance to the garden. Do you want WiFi only in the garden or in the buildings around it, too? If in the buildings, why not equip them with indoor EAPs? Would simplify cabling, I guess.

Another idea worth of consideration would be to mount the EAP110-Outdoor on the outside walls of the building, then for best coverage you would most certainly need two of them on either side of blocks B and C. Do a quick test with an EAP110-Outdoor to see wether it covers the area if mounted on the wall. You just need to supply power to it and then walking around with a laptop/smartphone equipped with a WiFi Analyzer (free app in Google's play store) to check for coverage and signal strength. You could alternatively use more sophisticated measuring software such as heatmap generators from Ekahau (Windoze) or Netspot (MacOS and Windoze). Those tools are not free, but very useful. There are even some free heatmap apps appearing on the play store, too, but I have not tested them yet, so cannot say wether they are worth a try.

If you can manage to get CPE510 hardware version 1.x or - if allowed in your country - CPE520 any HW version, they have two Ethernet ports and PoE pass-through. So you could connect the EAP110-Outdoor directly with the CPEs and power up to two devices with one PoE injector (the one from the CPE). This would require just one cable running along the wall to a power socket/plug.

Note, that the CPE510 HW V2 have only one Ethernet port and no more PoE pass-through, what means you would have to deploy two cables and connect them at the PoE injectors to connect EAP110-Outdoor with the CPEs.

Forum member Carat1 did post a very nice picture of such a setup here: http://forum.tp-link.com/showthread.php?99961-CPE210-or-EAP110-Outdoor&p=214435&viewfull=1#post214435

3 - Garden Omni AP (2)

Such a shame - The problem is running a cable from the first AP to the second is going to be very difficult since it would require digging up the pathways
One possibility i can think of is to use a pair of cheap indoor AP (set to bridge) housed in an IP66 box next to the first and second AP (keeping them in 2.4G band ) and connect them wired via a switch (i.e incoming to AP 1 goes to switch first - then to the bridge AP and 1st EAP110 while the second bridge goes wired to second EAP110) - I understand this would affect throughput on the 2nd AP but the area is not going to be covered well by a single AP on the edge

Are you sure the area is not covered by an EAP110-Outdoor alone? Did you try it already? If using 802.11n mode, mostly free LoS you should be able to cover an area at ~100m distance to the EAP110-Outdoor giving a 200m diameter around it.

I also would first try mounting it on a wall of a house before considering to place it in the center of the gardens. Of course, an additional directional link to the center of the garden or its edges would be possible, too, but then I would use WBS210 and TL-ANT2410MO, which hopefully will be available soon, since it can be set to client mode with an AP (it's repeater mode) connecting to an EAP110-Outdoor set as an AP. Just exchange the roles - AP at the edge of the garden, client on the other side. Doesn't matter which one is AP or client for a wireless link.

I guess there are no other alternatives really other than using this inelegant hack..
Or are there any other Omni APs or outdoor mesh products (non TP-Link) that I should keep in consideration?

Yes, there are some alternative variations which come to mind - for example an antenna pole at the edges of the area near the houses with free LoS to the server building for the CPEs and the EAP110-Outdoor near the ground or in only little height.

Regarding mesh networks: I played around with 802.11s mesh a little, but never had it in production use, can't say anything about it. Maybe another forum member can add something to this, but you certainly would need a transfer network (often 5 GHz) and an user network (2.4 GHz).

PS: I am on the managing committee of this gated housing cluster (CHS or Co-operative housing society - as they are termed here) - As is often the case in such setups, the co-operative bit is almost an oxymoron and it's pretty much a thankless job :p

Just tell them they are responsible for the last mile. :)

That's why I am hoping to get the design right upfront and hence all these questions :)

Yes, but do tests before installing a final setup. Often there are alternatives coming up when testing which could not be planned before b/c of wrong assumptions. See, I once could manage to set up a radio link between a cheap, old-fashioned WRT54GL from Linksys with 7dBi high-gain antennas and a TL-ANT2424B 24 dBi antenna with a SOHO device on the other side over 600 meters with the WRT54GL even mounted indoor behind a window. I never would have believed that this works if told so, but it did. Small throughput only - 12 Mbit/s -, but it worked. Now imagine CPEs and EAP110-Outdoor - they will have significantly better throughput and coverage at 250x80 meters than any SOHO device!

So, just try with two or three devices to get practical experience and then continue planning the whole installation. That's what I would do.

superczar wrote

Based on your experience, what is the vertical beamwidth of the EAP110 - and what would you think be the appropriate placement location for the EAP110s?

Unfortunately there are no antenna patterns published for EAP110-Outdoor, but we cover a RV park with one CPE510/EAP110-Outdoor combination on the roof of a 2-story building (about 8-9 meter height) and another combination on an antenna pole of about 2.50m height in a distant blind spot 150m apart. Both WiFi cells cover an area of ~250x150 meters at least, partially overlapping. Works fine so far.

On your photo above there are street lights in the garden area. I bet that there are cable ducts for power. Wouldn't this be an alternative for cabling as a last resort?

But anyway, I suggest to first try to place the EAPs at the locations marked in your photo above.

superczar wrote

A) a CPE210 in wireless repeater mode mode to cover blind spots (although I wonder how would a CPE210 do it - given its directional nature would mean it would anyway point towards the area where the coverage is coming from

B) CPE210 as bridge to connect another EAP110 to cover blind spots

Are you using CPE210 for the directional link? Wouldn't recommend this. Use CPE510 instead.

CPE210's directional antennas have a beam width of 65° (H plane) / 35° (E plane), not well suited for omnidirectional coverage. Also keep in mind that repeater/bridge modes will cut maximum bandwidth by half. Personally, I avoid repeaters at all, we had have too much troubles with it.