[RE-wrenches] wireless routers for off grid

[Kurt Albershardt]

On 4/12/09 4:18 PM, jay peltz wrote:
> I"m wondering if there are any recommendations for wireless routers 
> for an off grid application.

The best firewall solution and the best wireless solution may not come 
in the same box.  I have a fair bit of experience in this area and can 
say with reasonable certainty that the combination of X-Wrt 
<http://x-wrt.org/> (a version of OpenWrt featuring a vastly improved 
web interface) and commodity consumer hardware can work quite well for 
basic office use.

If you need real firewalling with usable traffic shaping (maintain your 
VoIP quality even when several others are using the network) I think 
pfSense <http://pfsense.org/> does a stellar job running something like 
an Alix <http://pcengines.ch/alix.htm> board.  You can drop a quality 
mini-PCI radio (try Ubiquiti or Atheros) into one of these and have 
something that will equal anything available at any price on the 
commercial market.  The receive sensitivity of these is a good 10 dB 
better than the integrated Broadcom stuff in the commodity boxes and 
that (not to mention their 400 mW or even higher output capacity) can 
make a world of difference in marginal setups.


> I'm looking for something that A works, B efficient, and C isn't an Apple.

The little Linksys and related boxen draw about 4-5 W if I recall 
correctly.  My Alix 2d3 draws about 4-6W most of the time without 
wireless, probably closer to 7-8W if I were to drop a card in there.  
One caveat if you're looking at DC powering these:  Almost all of them 
max out at 24V input.  That means 24V, _not_ 25 or 26V (found out the 
hard way.)





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