How do I set up a WIFI LAN in a small school

While the economy model routers and DD-WRT is certainly cost-effective, the 3rd-party firmware would void the Linksys warranty on the routers and comes with no inherent support itself.
I'm not saying it couldn't be made to work, but in my mind there's no sense buying new routers and then immediately voiding their warranty (i.e. if you decide to go that route, just get a 6 or 8 used WRT54G or WRT54GS routers off ebay for $20-$35 each... 4 to deploy and 2-4 for backups).

Is the play area outside?

Anyway, I recommend the D-Link DWL-3200AP for indoors. http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=396
It's business class, but affordable. e.g. $140 each at newegg - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127164
Metal cases, lockable mounts, controllable from a central location with the AP Manager software.

Outdoors I would go with their DWL-7700AP - http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=376 - Those are about $800, but they're nearly bulletproof.  Another way would be to mount one of the DWL-3200AP's indoors and just its antennae outside using RP-SMA extensions.

Oh... here's a source for RP-SMA male to RP-SMA female extension cables - http://www.wifi-link.com/product.php?class1_id=225&class2_id=262&class3_id=325

Folks,

First of all, thanks for such excellent responses. My special needs son just started in the school and I really appreciate your input.

The school have 4 routers at the moment albeit only 1 in use. They have two Linksys models WRT610N (B,G&N), plus an older linksys unit with 2 antennae (B&G) and a Belkin unit also with 2 antennae (B&G).

It seems to me that I could use these units perhaps supplimenting with additional unit(s) for the outside play area. I am not sure however how to connect the units to a single cable / modem. Is there an article you could reference that would help me with this?

Thanks all.

The problem you will run into with that method is those reouter they currently use willnot suuport the features to bridge them together to create one wireless network.  They will probably work for the wired connections if there are enough ports available for what you need but you will end up with 4 different wireless networks and people will have to choose which one to use and will have to lose their connection to connect to another network if they roam outside the range of the router they are connected to.

You may be able to re-use the linksys units if they support adding the third-party firmware (I will find out if they support the third-party firmware) that gives you the wireless bridge option or if the stock firmware (maybe the WRT610N, again I will find out) has the option to support it but I am pretty confident the Belkin will not work like this (although I have no experience with belkin routers so we might want to look into that).

Either way I think you should be able to get away with 2-4 routers depending on how much the walls impact the signal.  I am not sure what you mean by cost-effective but even if you had to buy all new routers at $70 each, $140-280 (plus whatever arrangements you have made for doing the work) spent to give the entire school reliable wireless access is pretty cost-effective to me.

I just did some looking and it looks like DD-WRT does support the WRT610N models so that may be the way to go if you feel comfortable changing the firmware on the routers to use them in this fashion.

FYI...I have been running this firmware on my WRT54G for over 2 years now and have not had a single issue with it and there are a lot more options (nothing like taking a $50 router and converting to compete with $200+ routers).

> willnot suuport the features to bridge them together to create one wireless network.

If they have cat5e running to all of them, none need to use bridge mode. Just put them all on the same SSID, lock the 2.4GHz channels to 1, 6 or 11, disable 40MHz-wide channels on the WRT610N's, and there shouldn't be any problem having one big roam-able wireless network.

Personally, I would not care to be responsible for voiding the warranty on the schools routers. If you want to buy routers for them and void the warranty on those that you buy, that's different.

brownoaks97,
If you could open the layout in Paint (Start->All Programs->Accessories) and indicate thereon the approximate current location of each router, we could give better advice on channel allocation and optimum locations for additional routers or access points.

I agree that if you are worried about the warranties then this is not the way to go I am just giving a "cost-effective" solution that will work as asked.

Also as far as I know (I could be mistaken but if so then why would they have a specific bridge feature) setting them up on different channels and giving them the same SSID will not make them roam-able because the network connection on the system is setup to talk to a specific SSID using a specific channel and therefore will not connect properly to the other routers without disconnecting and reconnecting the to the different setup.

As I previously stated, buy your access points, set them the same SSID and on channels 1,6,11, overlap each of them 10-15% and your done. Buy whatever access point fits your budget, just try to buy the same brand and if critical and can spare the cash keep one for backup.

Folks,

Thanks again for your input. The Wifi is set up in the school and working well. Based on your input I was able to connect the various routers very effectively.