Bill Zinn
Occasional Visitor
Although I'm supposedly "retired", I just got a call from an long-standing client that I 'helped' some five or seven years ago with his requirement to implement a mesh wifi network that fairly well covered his 125 acre commercial campground in the foothills of the Rockies (Colorado Springs area). At the time, we accomplished this with OpenMesh repeaters and APs connected to the only method of accessing the Internet in the area, which was 'bonded DSL' thru CenturyLink (we installed two bonded DSL modems at opposite ends of the campground acting as 'gateways' to achieve something resembling a shared 40MBs download speed, connected thru wireless-AC Openmesh APs and repeaters - arguably not the spiffiest but it worked relatively well, considering the limited means of access to the Internet and the 'terrain' involved). As an aside: it took us nearly two years working with CenturyLink in this rural location to get this system to a 'tolerable' level of performance and "dependability" (and yes, you did hear me snort on this term) which we could "live with", and while not terribly speedy, it did function acceptably (IMHO).
Problem is NOW he has only recently been contacted by the firm that acquired OpenMesh / Cloudtrax in 2016 (Datto Networks), when they informed him that his existing system was gonna disappear in December of this year. So I'm here looking for input on what to suggest to him that he can begin to contemplate for next season. My initial research and reaction to this situation is that Datto can go take a flying leap 'cuz their 'suggested alternatives' leave this guy in a poor situation. Nothing they've suggested to this point is either 'affordable', 'reasonable', or 'acceptable'. This relatively small campground is "family owned" and operates only from mid-May to roughly Labor Day, so not much of what Datto suggests is reasonable or in any way 'affordable'. But unless I miss my guess, it looks like a full-out replacement of all that he has with something that might still use this bonded-DSL Internet connection.
So.. like I said: looking for input from people who might make reasonable suggestions.
Problem is NOW he has only recently been contacted by the firm that acquired OpenMesh / Cloudtrax in 2016 (Datto Networks), when they informed him that his existing system was gonna disappear in December of this year. So I'm here looking for input on what to suggest to him that he can begin to contemplate for next season. My initial research and reaction to this situation is that Datto can go take a flying leap 'cuz their 'suggested alternatives' leave this guy in a poor situation. Nothing they've suggested to this point is either 'affordable', 'reasonable', or 'acceptable'. This relatively small campground is "family owned" and operates only from mid-May to roughly Labor Day, so not much of what Datto suggests is reasonable or in any way 'affordable'. But unless I miss my guess, it looks like a full-out replacement of all that he has with something that might still use this bonded-DSL Internet connection.
So.. like I said: looking for input from people who might make reasonable suggestions.