MikroTik

Dear All,

I help to run the IT department for a large HIV care program in western Kenya. We have installed basebox2 and wifi access points at 24 remote clinics to support an electronic medical record system which connects to our headquarters via 3g connections over sstp to a CCR1036. We have become huge fans of mikrotik products.

Due to unstable power at our sites, we installed small solar stations to support our wifi network. However, many of the clinics we work at have buildings that are far apart (up to 1-2 km). We'd like to provide access to the EMR but we do not have the funds to install solar in every building for which we need access. A few questions for this community:

1. What is the maximum distance over which we can use POE? Let's say we installed RB951Ui-2HnD (or is there a lower power device we should use?) at the buildings and tried to power them over POE from our solar stations.

2. Is there a mikrotik project that we could mount on a pole at the site of the solar to provide wifi access to buildings 1 - 2 km away? Which product might work for us? Is it likely to penetrate through the cement walls of a clinic building?

3. Any other ideas for how you might construct such a network?

Thanks for your help.

1. What is the maximum distance over which we can use POE? Let's say we installed RB951Ui-2HnD (or is there a lower power device we should use?) at the buildings and tried to power them over POE from our solar stations.

You are limited to 100m, more than that and Ethernet becomes troublesome, if it even works at all. You'll also have quite a nice voltage drop over that length, so the supply needs to be higher than what you require on the other side - or you need to use thicker cables.

2. Is there a mikrotik project that we could mount on a pole at the site of the solar to provide wifi access to buildings 1 - 2 km away? Which product might work for us? Is it likely to penetrate through the cement walls of a clinic building?

Plenty. Pretty much any outdoor device will work over those distances. 1 to 2 km, is definitely not long distance

Thanks @savage. Two follow-up questions:

1. Would you recommend 60 degree, 90 degree devices? Or the omnitik? I'm looking at the OmniTIK 5 PoE ac, SXT SA5, mANTBox 19s. Any specific recs?

2. We will be using tablets in the clinics to access the wifi. Do you think we will have issues from the device side in terms of being able to send data to the mikrotik?

Thanks again.

You'll want something like this: Internet -50m- PtP))) ---2km--- (((PtP -50m- AP))) -50m- (((WirelessClient

Your wireless clients (tablets, laptops, etc) will have very short range (possibly a single room, depending on building construction).

If the remote clinics have power (even if it's unstable), maybe a UPS would be a better option. Mikrotik devices don't draw much power, so a medium sized UPS could power one for many hours. Unfortunately there's no product that will reliably provide WiFi for clients 1-2 km away. Even under perfect conditions, client devices lack the antenna gain and output power needed to make it work.