[tech] [ucc] Minutes of Meeting 6th May 2011

[Patrick Coleman]

Cheers,

Patrick

On 11/05/2011, at 23:51, David Adam <zanchey at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> wrote:

> On Fri, 6 May 2011, Conrad Pogson wrote:
>
>> UCC Committee Minutes 06-05-2011
>> Meeting opened at 17:08
>>
>> Present: [BOB] [LOL] [TPG] [ASH] [DJA] [CJS] [SZM] [EDO] [AHC]
>> Apologies: [MRD]
>>
>> General Business
>> ----------------
>> - [DAA] wants to purchase TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND wireless N AP ($75)
>>  - [AHC] claims this is 'actually pretty shit' and the 'range is crap'
>
> [AHC] actually recommended this model in a thread on committee@, but all
> intelligent people change their minds from time to time.
>
>>  - Will apparently work inside the room, but not much more.
>>  - Difference between this and the old AP, is that OpenWRT wont run on our
>>    current AP and it's faster. We will be able to do byte counting on the new
>>    AP.
>>  - More discussion on tech@ would be good, deferred.
>
> OpenWRT runs on our current AP. What does not run is a wireless driver
> that supports RADIUS accounting i.e. the easiest way to keep track of how
> much traffic people use. So if keeping track of this is important to the
> committee, we need a wireless AP that supports this, which includes many
> (but not all) devices that run OpenWRT, specifically those that use the
> hostapd toolkit.
>
> The TL-WR1043ND has the advantage of having a Gigabit uplink available,
> which means that under ideal conditions the full bandwidth of the 802.11n
> specification would be available.
>
> Other options include the Cisco Aironet 1040/1140-grade kit
> (probably around ~$500+)

If enterprise kit is an option, consider the Aruba Instant range,
which is their new thick-ap (they were previously thin only). Unsure
on pricing, but there wouldn't be too much change from $1000.

You would however get dual-band gigabit 2x2 MIMO, and all the RADIUS
accounting/guest management whatever you can poke a stick at, built
in. They have some really cool tech (the controller-based models will
do full spectrum analysis so you can spot interference, plus track the
physical locations of users, and spoof deauth packets to neighboring
APs to prevent your users associating), though I'm not sure what you
get in this model. Possibly just RADIUS with guest captive portal.

If ctte is seriously interested, I can ask our sales rep if a discount
or donation might be an option for UCC. Let me know.

-Patrick