Mobile Long Distance Wi-Fi

[ralber]

I've got a contract to outfit about two dozen shuttle vans that with wireless broadband. All of the vans will be traveling within an area that's roughly circular with a 3-mile diameter. There will probably be about 5-10 gigabyte of data moving to or from the shuttle vans to our main server each month. The vans need to be connected and transferring data while moving.

Is there a long-distance wi-fi solution I can implement or hire a service provider to set up for my needs, or do I have to buy and pay the monthly $50 fee for two dozen wireless broadband cards from Sprint, Verizon or T-Mobile? If I can save $1200/month in card fees I think I can afford to invest in infrastructure if there's a wi-fi solution that might work.

Thanks!

[M/Q]

Without knowing the physical environment, required security, reliability, and budget it is hard to make any kind of comment.

Personally I love the telco data cards, they work well and work just about anywhere. I would be extremely lost without mine.

Also what happens of your contract required an expanded area in the future?

[umdivx]

Honestly you'd be better off going with a sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile solution. If you need absolute coverage for the intended area your looking at it would cost you 10 time that, if not more to get 100% coverage in that 3 square mile range. Its going to be extremely hard to get 100% coverage with that kind of coverage in that large of an area, and on top of making sure you get always on constant connection.

Even with an evdo or hsdpa card its going to be hard to guarantee 100% coverage/connectivity while moving.

You'd end up going with a Mesh type hardware, so that you don't have to hardware each AP, and then with that mesh hardware you looking at hardware every 1/2 mile maybe less depending on the terrain, buildings, ect...

I'd say work with Sprint, or verizon, and get a group business account.

The money you would invest in hardware to get 100% connectivity, the money to support it, and on going misc costs you'd be surprised that the evdo cards from sprint start to look better and better.

Look at cops, sheriff, state troops, UPS, Fedex, ect... they ALL use a sprint, verizion, or ATT card of some sort for their connectivity, it is just too hard to setup a network to get 100% coverage/connectivity.

- Josh