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[school-discuss] Wireless network ambulance for classrooms w/o wired network connectivity



As we prepare to convert our elementary school's network to support LTSP/thin clients, one of the challenges we have is that due to construction (expected to continue well into next school year) we have several classrooms whose Cat5 wires have been damaged and cannot access the network. As a bandaid (and for future outages, or the possibility of portable classrooms needing access) we want to set up a wireless router in an adjacent, wired classroom, and then install inside the classroom a temporary Linux router with wireless NIC and Ethernet NIC, such that the Linux box is a wireless client of the router next door, and thus provides a network connection to the switch in the classroom and thence to the classroom PCs. Some of these PCs will be thin clients, and some (like the teacher's computer) will be conventional WinXP PCs. All are currently connected to a switch in the classroom. Wireless has worked with limited success in our school due to thick concrete walls, but the thinking is that we can use higher gain directional antennas if necessary since both router and client will be fixed in space.

We've looked at the ZoneCD solution http://www.publicip.net/zonecd/what.php, but their network diagram is different from what we're planning. Does anyone know if it can be configured (or if there is a better solution) to do what we want?

Thanks in advance,
Daniel



Daniel Howard
President and CEO
Quadrock Communications, Inc
404.264.9123 main
678.528.5839 fax
404.625.1593 cell