Price Estimate of A WiFi Station
In this price estimate, the investment cost is restricted to WiFi equipment only. It doesn’t cover any cost on the tower, the grounding system, the supporting equipment such as GPS etc.
Assuming professional Grade Equipments, we are looking at an estimated investment for the Access Point complete equipments in the range of:
Access Point US$62-130
Pigtail US$30
Coax US$90-130
Sectoral Antenna US$500-800
Omni Antenna US$150-240
Total Investment US$330-1100
Please note that in addition to the above equipment, we need dedicated Internet access as well as various software and equipment, such as, tower, lightning arrestor, bandwidth manager, mail server etc. It is basically a mini Internet Service Provider (ISP).
At the client side, we are looking at
PCI Card US$50-105
Pig Tail US$30
Coax US$90-130
Directional Ant US$100-250
Total Investment US$280-480
You need PC running NAT / Proxy software. Alternatively, you may use US$70 Access Point & set it as wireless bridge / client to another access point. Thus, significantly reduce the investment cost as well as operating cost.
For those who dare to use home made equipments, the investment cost can squeeze significant low. Homebrew antenna is normally used to reduce the cost significantly. Some of us finds used heliax coaxial cable significantly cheap about US$ 3 / meter. To reduce the cost significantly, we normally put the equipment on top of the tower and run the powered UTP cable (Power over Ethernet) up to the top of the tower and, thus, removing the need to have a long coaxial cable run on top of the tower.
Investment cost for the Access Point, assuming we put the equipment on top of the tower.
Access Point US$70
Pig Tail US$30
UTP cable US$30
Homebrew Antenna US$20-30
Total Investment US$150-160
We are looking at about US$200 investment cost difference between homebrew and professional grade Access Point equipment.
At the client side, the investment cost would be something like,
PCI Card US$50
Pig Tail US$30
Coax US$30
Homebrew Antenna US$20
Total Investment US$130
We are looking at about US$150 investment cost difference between homebrew and professional grade Access Point equipment.