Temporary Wireless Network Installation

Ashton was recently approached by Holden Forests and Gardens to create a temporary private wireless network for the Holden Arboretum’s annual Woodland Twilight Benefit. This benefit typically attracts 400-500 attendees, and is the organization’s largest benefit of the year. While the space itself is not overly large, and the installation not complex, it was important that volunteers have a wireless network for two purposes; processing transactions for the silent auction (“silent auction tent”) and displaying videos during dinner (“dinner tent”). For this year’s event, it was not necessary to have a separate public network as no auction bids were taken electronically.

Using the Arboretum’s existing internet connection and working in conjunction with our data cabling partners at Neletech, this was a one day job. We temporarily installed Ubiquiti wireless networking hardware (Ubiquiti AC Pro access points and Nanobeam point to point antennae), which included mounting the four point to point connections (beginning on the existing structure’s rooftop, then moving to each of the two tents) and four wireless access points (two in each tent). Fortunately, we had good sight lines and no trees needing pruning (as we’ve seen at LaureLive) to create those P2P connections. While Nanobeams can make connections for points measuring miles apart, we only had to take into consideration spans of 200’-300’.