Forum

We want to expand our wireless signal out from a central location to buildings surrounding. I think about 100 yards but strong enough to receive signal inside other buildings, from central location.
Where and what do we need to look at as far as hardware.
We would like to be able to secure it and throttle.

http://www.wirelessforums.org/how-tos/wireless-101-day-one-65311.html

http://www.wirelessforums.org/how-tos/wireless-103-long-link-67730.html

Are you looking for a wireless bridging solution? If so, I've used Tsunami Quickbridge products with pretty good success. You'd need to do rate limiting at layer 3, but they do encrypt the data between the bridges.

How many connections will you need to support, and at what level of throughput?
What types of devices will be connecting to this WLAN?

I'll try to answer both here....
We have one DSL, per area, which could go to SDSL or higher.
Bridging? I don't know, cost and effectiveness(throttling and security)
In one section there are 380 condos.
I am guessing we'll need repeater antenna.
Most of the condos already have the normal OTC(linksys...) wireless, this is something else we need to know.

If you want to cover 380 condos x multiple areas, I will highly recommend getting a professional wireless consultant involved. It might be expensive, but so is spending many thousands of $ on hardware that doesn't do the job!

If you post your location, someone here might be able to point you towards a consultant in your area...

I think the biggest problem you are going to run into is the clients trying to transmit back with a very weak signal inside, outside you should be pretty good. McNulty makes a great point, it's not so much the equipment as it is proper deployment. I have seen apartment complexes spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and not spend a dime on a professional and the result is shitty performance, coverage and reliability.

If you have 380 condos, then you'll have to plan for capacity carefully. Also, if the tenants have their own Wi-Fi then you'll definitely have co-channel interference to deal with. These are not easy problems to solve, especially when there's no way to enforce a policy without offending or even losing the business of your tenants.

I second the call to bring in a Wi-Fi professional -- preferably one who is certified in the CWNP program. There is a job postings section on this website.

Check Ruckus.

I have successfully deployed their mesh solutions and I am very happy with performance, plus they have some very neat solutions for condo type installs. The mesh works great and the beamflex really does give remarkable performance, I was very surprised.

Disclaimer - I am nor in any way associated with Ruckus or any other manufacturer :>)