Cerro Gordo's Wi-Fi: Network Design for a Ghost Town 

I disagree about the shaft. I think a better solution is to run fiber to the 700ft level, and cat6 back up to 400 and 550ft level. This will provide some level of electrical isolation, reduse overall cabel length, make it easy to troubleshoot.

Man, please make the install video a super long one. I absolutely love these types of videos. I was hoping you'd replace the coax with armored fiber, but I understand price and time budgets. Good work, I'll be waiting impatiently for the install video 😅

Hey! Man, I love Crosstalk and GTL getting together! That 900ft condo is going to be even better! Heck, the whole town! Thanks for this! You guys are awesome!

Personally know the guy who set up the original internet for CG. He did it on his own time and paid for most of the equipment out of pocket. And didn’t do it for a video, just as a donation to the town. This is all well and fine to upgrade the current system. But remember he isn’t doing it out of kindness. The video was made, thus money will be made. There’s always a better way when you put more money into a project.

This is an absolute ton of 5Ghz equipment when the primary ISP is already backfeeding via 5Ghz. - What channel width is the ISP using and what channel spacing are you using for the PTP and the Omni to the outbuildings. Adding in all of the internal U6APs and Mesh APs is fine, but there is going to need to be a very very concerned effort to avoid stepping on ISP's signal. The Omni might feel like a nesiciary evil at first glance, but Omnis are horrible for your noisefloor and retransmission with that many outbuildings especially when paired with metal siding/reflections. You may want to use 2x 5AC Lite 120s to give a better coverage on two obscured faces and or different smaller channel widths. I would even go as far as to change the PTP feed from the ISP into the central location to a Gigabeam, just to try to get on 60ghz with 5Ghz backup. Move the extra nanobeam recovered to one of the out buildings... And now that your running constant upload from the onsite cameras speced --- this is going to increase the noise floor even with local recording. The omni should be reconsidered if at all possible. You can replace the RocketPrism5AC with Antenna with two of the lite 120's for less cost, and clean up a ton of the noise that the omni will create. --- speaking from a WISP provider standpoint.

Can't wait for part 2!

Honestly, being that the ISP's gear is a huge point of failure, that needs to be addressed first, before anything else is done. The second microwave hop is unnecessary, run direct burial fiber from there to whatever building that has reliable power is closest, then split it off with wireless tech from there. Or, skip the ISP entirely, paint the starlink dish to match the roof of the american hotel, and then split it off from there, which is way simpler and likely cheaper than the bespoke microwave link.

A good solution to the problem mentioned around 8:30 (double NAT) would be to put a UniFi switch in the solar cabinet and pass the WAN through as a VLAN. We have a similar situation at one of the non profits I volunteer at and the VLAN solution has worked perfectly. In UniFi, it would show the uplink as the bridge going to the UDM-SE and then obviously the ISP bridge’s LAN port would be the VLAN port.

Fiber makes a ton of sense for the mine data wise. There are options for a combo cable to do power and fiber as a single cable using an external power supply in the hoist house.

1. Use a Leaky wave conductor for the mine 2. Double NAT is not needed here, just disable in on the dream machine and put static routes in place on both routers.

Thanks Chris for posting this vid! Love these types of planning and setup videos!

Looks like an interesting project. I'm sure you already know, but it's pretty easy to program the Mikrotik to operate as a switch, and get rid of the NAT.

Awesome to see two of my favorite RU-vidrs teaming up!

Awesome you were able to get out there and work in Cerro Gordo.

Was actually waiting for this kind of video. Awesome stuff

love it! And funny thing, I watched the video that he was running coax and now you're there to fix everything! Love it.

Amazing video and a unique look at the limitations and methods to achieve the result for the client. Looked forward to seeing this video and didn't disappoint.

Were you not tempted with a solution involving the Ubiquiti F-POE-G2 and an hybrid fibre/24v power cable for the shaft part of this project?

Fascinating project! Love the creativity behind using point-to-point links to get internet access in such a remote location.

This was a really cool video. Can’t wait to see part 2!

Your ability to articulate things is epic, great video! Subscribed

Personally would go for fibre in the mine at least to some extent, as others have said, and I do wonder how far a wifi signal will travel into each level from the mineshaft - my bet is 'not far'! I would be planning for at least 2 wired APs for each level, not just one. For main infrastructure I also question so many radio links when it is practical to bury 30-50m cable for a wired link and be much more reliable especially in the snow & rain. I bet Brent has the capability of digging the trenches inhouse so the only issue would be ensuring the cable wasn't broken by future construction work. If you go with these proposals, definitely add some sort of local UPS to shore up local power at many or even most of the PTP link sites; I get the feeling the quality of mains power will leave things to be desired! Also, adding a larger solar battery at the main radio, with possible small (18" dia?) wind supplement, will help keep that link alive in the winter. Finally, if you made the Hotel the centre point rather than the Store you're in a new-build anyway & in a place residents may well expect good network service in a way they wouldn't in the older parts of the town. I'm not sure, but it is also possible the hotel has better visibility to the mine house because it's farther from the spoil heaps, and as a building it's taller.

It's wonderful to see you helping Grant out. So many RU-vidrs have stepped up and helped. Thanks, Chris. Great video

YYYYAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!! Great crossover video!!!! It is one of my favorites!!!

I've been watching GTL for quite a while... This colab is not only exactly what they need, but is going to be awesome to watch unfold

Interesting project. Kinda wish I had a project like this, having grown up in a mining community. I might have missed it but.... Be cautious of the quality of power. Make sure you're allowing for low and high voltage surges. The power may not be clean and could damage equipment. In the very least I'd consider power conditioners. UPSes would be better but then you have to consider the temperature extremes with regards to the batteries.

This is EPIC, thanks for sharing!

Been a follower of Cerro Gordo and you for many years. This is a very cool collaboration. I was hoping it would materialize into something after your previous video on their wireless.

Oh I've been waiting for this colab

Oh, good thing you uploaded a new video on 23rd april because I forgot I wanted to see this internet update

not watched this yet but will do shortly - Never thought these two channels that i watch would ever do a video together haha :) this is going to be great - looking forward to part 2

I would do some aerial fibre, needs less power than wireless and you can bandwidth through. Especially on anything backbone. This will allow the town to develop a long term network solution and easy to carry VLAN's without remote management issues. Camera's can be on VLAN's. Visitor WLAN, staff VLAN. Point of sale and management can be on its own VLAN. I like a central network idea and can build from that. Leaky wifi cable is how many commercial mines to it today. Sure maybe on some levels you want a more robust solution but fibre is great. Remember high up exposed = lightning attraction, some fibre isn't exposed too.

Solid choice of AP gentlemen. As a low voltage tech who's been up there, this video tickles all my fancies!

I commented on the underground wifi GTL video that this would be a good colab with Crosstalk Solutions and here we are a couple of months later!

I love how so many network engineers and admins have chimed in on this. So many good observations and suggestions. I won’t add my 2 cents, as after working with an extensive amount of Unifi equipment in an enterprise environment for 3 years has pretty much made an ENEMY out of me, but I do hope for the best for the project for Brent’s sake.

THE TEAMUP WE NEEDED!

LOL The colab we needed!

Hey Chris! The Nanostation AC is can powered from standard poe, no need for 24 v converters its the only compact client thets support 48 volt.

What an awesome video!

You may already know this, but the phase issue with the sound for the first scene is due to having both mic tracks playing back simultaneously. If you mute one of them it will sound cleaner. Thanks for another cool video!

Great video. The UK-Ultra could be a compelling option to control cost for some of the buildings. They can be mounted outside. They can be painted. They can be meshed, reducing the need for Airmax equipment. Dedicated Airmax links can always be added where and when it's needed. This would also improve the outdoor coverage, simplify inventory, and consolidate equipment to a single management panel.

Eager to watch the installation video

Watch out for mains glitches caused by the pump starting up(assuming it doesn't run constantly) you may need to add some hefty electrolytic capacitors near the PSU on the DC side down there if that happens. If you do this watch out for inrush current caused by these too - you may need a 2 or 3-stage inrush resistor to the capacitors with relays bridging the resistors after a couple of seconds once the capacitors have charged OK. Othewise the PSU may crowbar if the capacitors are too fat. Long pump cable runs tend to be very "saggy" and this really shows up when the pump starts up and that's a long way down to troubleshoot random glitches.

American Hotel should have at least two APs for redundancy and signal is never as good as expected. Overall this whole things seems to be both overkill and missing the most obvious solutions. From the solar relay station you put in a fibre link to the UDM and to the mine. It's a 1 time fixed cost to run a ditchwitch and you save yourself days of headache getting all these links to work reliably, heck add in a power line up to the solar relay and remove a serious failure point as well. VLANs over fibre are easy and would not overly complicate the scenario and cuts out a LOT of wireless links. In the mine you only need power at ground and 700ft since the rest of the levels could be fed 100m from the top or from the 700ft location via PoE with 700ft being a fibre link back to the surface. Overall points for creativity but you need more physical rather than wireless links for stability. Heck, drop in a few more fibre links around town as a star or loop with some media converters and you've got a solid base to throw APs and cameras on.

Fun project to watch

I was actually just thinking about this recently, I have been following Brent on his channel since the beginning and I was thinking they need to get you out there for their networking and wifi, glad it is actually happening!

The collab I have been waiting for!! 🎉

Re the double nat. I would say just chat to the isp ... that can probs setup a routed network down as its easy on mik. Also, overall just upgrading the batteries and solar at 2 sites would give you stability during a snow storm ... over starlink that varies.

Cool video it’s was a lot interesting things and information I love it

This is a WiFi nerd's dream. What a fun project, and glad Brent got back to you! * The American Hotel, since it's new construction, could also have Cat 6 to the office/front desk and to each guest room, and that'd open up more flexibility for cameras, APs, and guest entertainment. * If that outhouse ends up having the PTP pole on top of it, I'd laugh if you threw in another mesh AP for some sick coverage for anyone using it 😂 * Knock on wood, but I hope there's not frequent lightning up at that elevation zapping the gear. Maybe throw in a dozen Ubiquiti ethernet surge protectors? * I hope that fancy GameChanger cable for the ~500 foot run works as advertised. Otherwise just run some armored OM3/OM4 cable and SFP modules, but that'd require either fancier switches or $100 in a pair of fiber adapters (I use a pair of Trendnet gigabit in production right now and they're stable.)

Best collab for me

Why not Game changer from the top to 200m down shafts with POE (drop for each level) Fiber down to where the pump is and then 200m in either direction where needed with POE??

Can you explain why fiber isn't a consideration? Is it too expense? I was thinking maybe a fiber connection from the hoist house to city wouldn't be too crazy of an idea.

This is fantastic, I love these kinds of network puzzles. I look forward to seeing all of this comes together.

It would be so cool to have a town of XGPON for inter connectivity. You could have dual wan from dual OLTs for each building.

The thing that I would worry about is all the L2 noise on those PtMP connections with all of the APs in bridge mode. L2 is full of useless communication on PtMP and PtP wireless links that eat bandwidth and increase latency. This is the main reason WISPs use the cheap routers, to break up those broadcast domains without breaking the bank. Convert the primary ISP MikroTik router into a switch. No double NAT and it doesn't lose its IP address for management if you perform the steps correctly. Unless it is not managed by Cerro Gordo.

Hi I am very happy you are back again because I really love your show and making old towns that is very nice of you to do that for the people holl die there I will always praying 🙏 for you and your family and your friends so you will be safe and please be careful out there ok can you do more new show for all of us please we will be waiting for you ok you have a wonderful day and have a good night and day ok love Lorilee xoxoxoxox

This video is intersecting my interests extremely well. You have my sub! I'm eagerly awaiting part 2.

Just out of curiosity, how much room does the elevator take up in the staff? Could you point a U6-Pro at the top of the staff, pointed down to the bottom of the mine, and have a mesh AP at each level?

With the Hoist House/Mine, could a WiFi mesh network be used? Using a directional Antenna at the top of the shaft, beaming a signal down and then Mesh access points at the levels you want extended sideways coverage. It would be interesting to know if this would be doable, and the Pro/Cons of such a setup.

I second the fiber optic cable. It's cheap and easy. Use a 12 strand and splice a strand at each level of the mine. That would future proof the data network for 10Gb. Electrical power can be added later.

The nanostation ac's run both 24v passive and at poe and will pass-through whatever they are being powered with. So you you can eliminate the inline converter

Note for 11:40: if it’s a NS-5AC, it’ll just pass through the voltage that it’s powered with. The NS-5AC can be powered with either 24V or 48V, so if you just change the POE injector to 48V, you could use a U6-Mesh.

Glad he didn't ghost your 2nd attempt to reach out and y'all were able to make this happen.

Is there a list of the products that you used in this setup? There's a few little options there that I'd love to look into that (like that 1U ups or the little 4U rack you picked)

Curious why not go fiber to the 700 ft level? I suppose that special CAT6e works, but seems like fiber would be more reliable.

Could you have used aerial or underground fibre in the town to reduce the overall number of point-to-point connections? Then each building in the town could have a full 1 gigabit symmetrical link back to the UDM-SE in the store. Could possibly explore getting fibre up to the hoist house too?

how extactly have you improve the solar power the microtek router situtation, it's still there still nating? so if it was such an issue why is it still there with no changes?

avesome video watched it to end without pausing waiting for next part

I'd address the double NAT problem putting in bridge mode the mikrotik or doing some dynamic routing between the Mikrotik and UDM router ... I was hoping to see a bit more L3 routing in this "mini-Campus LAN"

Not an ideal solution for getting wireless to the hoist house, but could you put up two point-to-point stations on the rock pile with solar/batteries? One that faces the General Store and the other facing the Hoist House.

Curious what make/model NEMA enclosure you used? I'm setting up a similar scenario on a 40 acre compound.

So glad you and Brent were able to get together. I'm a big fan of both channels

You mentioned @5:17 using a pair of poe injectors as a makeshift switch can you please explain? it looks like 2 poe injectors wired in series.

i think instead of the double poe injectors use a flex switch and the same for the solar tower than you will not have a double nat. and get rid of the switch ultras in the mine and use flex switch . or use under ground fiber to each building

Nice intro by Wendell and Emmett Otter. I hope their Jug Band is a success.

Wow, can't wait for the second part for the implementation.

Anywhere you're using 2 poe injectors I would suggest using 5 port PoE switches, so that you have the option of connecting local devices to Ethernet, or for further expansion.

How hard would it be to have ac outlets at every level, since there already is power going down the shaft? With AC power at every level it would a simple job to put in a switch, camera, access point. As for the data, you would run fibre down the shaft, or run ethernet from level to level since we are talking about 100 feet between each level.

you could do point to multi point on the mine shaft

Perfect Video - may i do a similar thing for my friends in Nepal (born in Nepal as a Sherpa^^) ....

Locking yourselves into Ubiquiti equipment is hurting you more than it's benefiting you, especially on the mine shaft. Patton Electronics makes some incredible Ethernet Extenders that will nearly work over barbed wire fencing at 900 feet 🤣 They have both POE and Non-POE varieties. I can vouch for them after dozens of installs over several years, they dont fail.

I know there are cost considerations, it's remote and everything, but I'd do my best to hardwire/fiber everything as much as possible. It shouldn't be that hard to bury some armored cable in between the buildings at least(maybe it is, idk)

I love me some point to point WiFi, but if reliability is the number 1 concern would a few direct burial fiber runs be the best solution, unless the soil is nothing but a big rock. (Sorry Floridan here and we don't have mountains, hell we don't even have hills and everything in the ground is dirty or limestone)

Crossover i didn't know i wanted

Star link works great for me in the Canadian wilderness ,

Is this one of the modeled locations in the Ubisoft's Ghost Recon Wildlands game? (game was not located in the US but sure looks the same))

Idk man, I like most of the plan, but not setting up VLAN between the solar station to keep one single network was just lazy. I think the separate NAT'd networks will cause more confusion and potential issues in the future than a simple VLAN config would have. You could have also eliminated the double NAT issue with a VLAN for the incoming WAN.

There is an interesting product from microtik that clould help with the long runs in the mines, the GPeR (Gigabit Passive Ethernet Repeater). According to microtik it can be used to extend ethernet by up to 210m (~690 feet) to another GPeR unit and be chained with multiple units up to 1,500m (~4920 feet) and it passes through PoE. There is also a IP67 (edit: it is actually IP68 certified even though the name says IP67) enclosure as an accessory.

I like this.

I would use fibre to drop down the shaft and have usw 8 150 switches. Solid data connection, leave the power for the electrician

Wouldn't the ubiquity fibere hardware work way better for him there? I have a question for you about my internet issues? I just got fiber to the modem internet in my area and I have almost 2gbps speed down and a little over 100mbps up but it only goes to my modem with that out of the modem it only gives me 251mbps down and 31-41mbps up. Now the ping is anywhere from 45-85ms sometimes I get 22ms for a brief time. But I was wondering how I can get my actual speed out of my modem to my devices? Most of my devices are wired with cat 7 ethernet I have 10gig router and switches. I know what I'm doing for the most part with networking. But this is beating me I can't figure it out and my isp won't help me at all because they dont provide support for 3rd party equipment only theirs which the problem lies with their equipment. It is an xfinity gateway xb8 I need that so I can get unlimited data with them for free instead of extra money and it has a 2.5gig port on it. Thanks

what a cool roject

i hate the uap-m. better with the U6 Mesh with a new cable, Not much effort to install an additonnal wire, imo. Great experience to go there and great job on the design!

Ui products, even tho not ipxx rated for most products, actually is really relaible in exposed weather. I have old ap's and switches outside where i dont care if it breaks and after a few years in the Phoenix sun/heat, they are all still going strong. The only equipment i found that doesnt like the phoenix heat/sun is rhe G3 Flex cams. They last about 3 years when in direct sun (facing south) ones that are not in direct sun and on east/west sides where it sees sun for just a few hours a day, last forever. The sun seems to destroy the cam sensor and burns it out.

Given the extensive use of Ubiquity equipment, could you get Ubiquity to sponsor the town improvements, or this project, to show off more of its abilities for remote, and large-project infrastructure? Maybe they could use it as an example site and maybe they'd be willing to help with costs of running fiber from the demarcation location to each of the buildings as well rather than relying on wireless bridges? I can't help but think that given the IP cameras, and the hotel's Surveillance, Security, POS, Entertainment, Communication, and other network needs, they may need more infrastructure within the hotel as well.

Persolany i would have changed the P2MP with a P2P to the UDM SE, no mikrotik router, direct "public IP" to the UDM SE, and continued with your curent setup 👍 i also dont like the double POE Injector, but if it works for them, it's all good 👍

I think you guys should put an access point in the 500 foot level of the shaft by running ethernet back up from the switch at the 900 foot level

The INS-8023af-I is not gigabit ethernet rated and was designed for the Airmax-M line. Also only puts out 18v. You should be using the newer INS-3AF-I-G for airMax-AC products.

I have to ask, why not 2x starlink dishes in a dual wan setup that does load balancing?