Broadband service for a medium size residential complex

[acesea]

Hey everyone, new member here. Joined thanks to the friendly and helpful responses I just ran across and hoped that maybe some of these folks might help me out :)

As the title points out, I need to somehow establish a system that will supply 24 apartments with broadband speeds, and a commercial office with very high speeds.

I have not decided whether to do wifi, or since I can still run wires, wired may be easier to do. I have never worked on such a large project hence I am completely unfamiliar with the type of equipment that I would need in order to properly manage this.

What I am figuring is to run something along the lines of a T3 to the building and then allocate a certain amount of bandwidth that is specified by me for the up/down of each apartment, the rest of the bandwidth would goto the office.

This is all the info I have and am working with so if anyone's got any ideas, please share. I've been doing a bunch of research on the net to no avail, at least nothing that seems to be of any assistance.

Thanks!

[YeOldeStonecat]

A bit of shopping around you have ahead of you. Gets a bit above the type of networks I typically do...but I'd first shop around with some bandwidth providers. Prices vary considerably...but for economics, I'd get a package that has room to add bandwidth..but start off with a fractional chunk. Maybe start out with a 20 meg pipe. Play the game ISPs play..you need max bandwidth for every client you have...you go by the rule that not all of them will be online all at once. That is, unless you have money to burn. Say you wish to give them all a 2 meg allotment of bandwidth...you don't need 48 megs of bandwidth.

I would go with wired...since you mention you have the chance (assuming construction is not completed yet). Nice and reliable...never have to worry about "Will the signal make it to the corner apartments?" Or taking calls from frustrated tenants that can't connect because they seem to have a problem with their wireless. Just..for ease of support..wired works!

Managed switches that can do port based VLANs and cap bandwidth to each port. Decide on how much bandwidth you'll give each client..like say..2 megs per. That way individual users don't go sucking it all up and having the others suffer. Port based VLANs...assuming you're running 1x data run to each apartment...make each apartment its own VLAN...keeps neighbors from snooping into each others computers, keeps worms and trojans from spreading...keeps your network nice and clean. Especially to keep them out of your commercial office...have it on its own VLAN.

[acesea]

Great, thanks for the info. Perhaps could you be more specific as far as what type of port based VLANs you recommend, or maybe you may have already worked with some in the past?

Also, I have just started doing my shopping for bandwidth providers. I will keep you posted how that goes.

Thanks.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Great, thanks for the info. Perhaps could you be more specific as far as what type of port based VLANs you recommend, or maybe you may have already worked with some in the past?.

It's something most managed switches support....say you have a 48 port switch...router uplinks to port 1. You have...say..your 24 apartments...and your office...office might have say 6x network drops in it. So you plug your 6x office drops into ports 2-7...you make VLAN1. Members of that VLAN are each port 2,7, along with port 1. Now..your first of the 24 apartments...plug that into port 8...make VLAN2..members of VLAN 2 are port 8, and port 1. Take your second apartment..plug it into port 9..make VLAN3..members of VLAN3 are port 9, and port 1.

Each VLAN..will be unique, have it's own members, plus port 1 to the router.

As for brands...I've been using the Linksys/Cisco SRW series of their business switches lately..nice web management.

[acesea]

Just spotted this particular switch and am curious how well it may work for this application-
http://www.fida.com/products/xp3241.htm

Also, is it possible to get a fractional chunk of a T3 connection?

Thanks.