Considerations in Building a Hotspot Network - Discuss

We recently received this message board question from "Eric" -

"I have acquired a VSAT system here in Iraq. I want to set up a system for the troops located with me. We have about 500 folks here. Bringing the bandwidth down is no problem, but I need to set it up so that I have a radius of about 1000' (feet) and the ability to control who accesses our network. Any advice?"

VSAT is a two-way satellite Internet service sometimes installed for retail store chains and residential customers. (The sidebar photo illustrates a typical VSAT ground dish used by U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East.) Distributing Internet bandwidth among Eric's battalion can generally be done by connecting wireless access points to a central network switch, but several factors and some alternative implementation choices should be taken into account as discussed in the message thread. Similar issues generally apply to planning any large hotspot network.

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U.S. Troops Receive Broadband Internet via Satellite Dishes (Afghanistan, 2006) - Photo: John Moore / Getty Images