Sharing without sharing!

I'm in a "orphan" area on an island N of Seattle.   Sparse population and
antique POTS.   No chance of ever getting DSL or cable although cable
(4Mbaud/1.5Mbaud) is available 1 mile south in line of sight.  So three of
us want to connect and share.

 

The bridge is easy.  We're going to use  Senao NL-2611 CB3+ Deluxe AP's with
HyperlinkTech.com #HG2424G dishes per recommendations on Seattle Wireless.
I know the 40" dishes are overkill but they're cheap and why not. This
"main" bridge ends on top of a central barn and each home is within 200
yards.

 

Our confusion comes with what do we do from this bridge?

 

Two of us currently share a Starband link using a Linksys BEFW11S4 wireless
router at the host end and a Linksys WET11 bridge to another BEFW11S4 at the
client end but this results in a completely shared address space with each
of us having complete access to everything on the others net.  Not good to
begin with and much worse when we put in the new system.  Linksys says the
solution is to replace the BEFW11S4 with a non-WiFi router and have each
household come out of a different ethernet port and then to it's own AP or
router as needed.  I assume IP addressing with different subnet's would then
be appropriate (192.168.1.x for one house, 192.168.2.x for the other, etc).


 

How about applying this to sharing the cable.  If we used a router and four
AP's wouldn't all those transceivers so close to each other cause massive
collisions and terrible performance?  The four homes are well separated so
would it help to back each antenna with a grounded metal screen to isolate
them from each other?  

 

Seems like it would be "a good thing" to put each AP, including the main
bridge, on a separate channel but I read that there actually are only 3
non-overlapping channels (1, 6, and 11) so if we dedicate one to the main
bridge we have 2 channels between 4 users.  What's the best way to allocate
them?

 

Is there a better way to achieve separation/security?  Maybe one channel and
an addressing/routing plan with a more sophisticated router?  Seems like
ISP's and WISP's must do this all the time although they obviously have
bigger budgets.

 

I've been spending a lot of time reading but I just can't get a clear
picture.  Most people WANT to be connected to everyone else.

 

Any help gratefully appreciated!

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