I'm a bit of a newbie to this topic so please excuse my ignorance.
We live out in the boonies - no cable, no DSL - only internet access is via satellite. For various reasons (not the least of which is cost) we do not have a satellite hook-up ourselves. However, our neighbors just up the hill (about 300' through the trees) do get satellite internet. On occasion, we can actually get a weak signal off of their wireless (with their leave) - but only certain dell laptops are able to even pick it up (my
On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:17:11 -0800 (PST), JJ wrote in :
Trees are a problem for Wi-Fi, which needs _clear_ line of sight.
Are you totally averse to running a buried cable?
Did you try a directional antenna or reflector to see if that would solve the signal problem?
A wireless router won't connect to another wireless router -- you need a wireless _client_ bridge at your end.
That's asking a lot for cheap -- cheap, fast, reliable, pick any two (at most).
The straightforward solution is a wireless Ethernet client bridge with a directional antenna pointed at your neighbor, connected to a wireless access point for your house, probably with a standard omni antenna. Think of your house as a boat, and see .
JJ fired this volley in news:a23e2e57-389c-42df- snipped-for-privacy@v15g2000vbb.googlegroups.com:
I have only a few months' experience with this item, but I recently did exactly the same setup to get access from our home to our barn -- about 400' away. I wanted a little 'overkill' to make sure it would be a dead-on solid connection.
The Ubiquity PowerStation-2 bridge setup (ubnt.com) from HD communications works great, and so far, it has been perfectly reliable.
The whole setup, including two bridge devices, the masts, and your own made-up cables should run you under $450.
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It runs on POE, so the installation is easy, and the configuration is pretty simple.
Caveats -- use HDcom's instructions for setup, instead of Ubiquity's. The former is simple, the latter overly-complex for the task. Also, be sure to set the "Station" at your friend's house where IP leases are issued, and the "Access Point" unit at your place. (no, it won't double as an AP while in the bridge mode-- sorry)
Just out of curiosity where do you live? (approx), in northern idaho i had problem during the spring/summer with leaves on trees, and during the winter with snow... Had a similar situation (rural, 10 acres, sat only at my place, no cable or dsl) turned out the neighbor and i where on the same leg of a power transformer and we were able to use powerline networking, and later turned out that there where mountains nearby and skynet put a wireless node on a mountain (a wisp) I was able to connect to it and lose the sat, able to do voip (no nasty sat latency) and make free ld calls too (made sharing expenses with the neighbor much easier, he had grandkids)
at any rate, costs nothing to click below and see if there is anything in your area.... see
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and click on your state
as for powerline networking, no idea if your power would be conducive to it, but read about it here....
In HDcom's setup manual, doesn't it say just the reverse? That the AP should be "located at the site of the network infrastructure that you are looking to associate to"?
I'm still a bit confused. Would one of the two boxes replace my friend's current wireless access point?
JJ fired this volley in news:4eaa17b0-a8db-4de8- snipped-for-privacy@v39g2000pro.googlegroups.com:
That's what it says. That's not how it works. I confirmed with UB's tech support that they could manifest the "problem" (that they've never seen before ).
No, not unless HE doesn't need wireless access. It would be a substitute for wiring directly from site to site.
It's actually quite a bit less expensive to do it with the PS-2s than with wire, once you figure the ditch, the pipe (or direct-burial cable), the surge protection on both ends, and the labor.
"Power over Ethernet". You don't have to run power directly to the PS-2 units -- they get their power through a "POE injector" back at the router end of their ethernet segment, using spare pair(s) in the cable.
That's a good point, John. You can get a two pair outdoor mm fiber cable for about $1 a feet in any length. No need for pipes, but should be placed under ground frost to extend lifetime. In addition you need two fiber converters, $100 each, and a couple of weekends of work. You will end up with a silution where your day to day concern is what to use your bandwidth for, and not whether or not it's working, If you can avoid wireless, do!
Chrisjoy fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@z6g2000pre.googlegroups.com:
John's quibble is acknowleged. Yours still results in a link that is quite a bit more expensive than the wireless solution. (roughly $600 vs. under $400)
Yours benefits from having a higher intrinsic bandwidth. That assumes you have the bandwidth to use it, though.
As far as reliability?... The PS-2s over that distance (400+ feet) are rock-solid. At their rated 5 miles, they might be twitchy.
You aren't going to be concerned with up-time with either configuration at that distance, unless you include hardware failures.
I bet they can come up with something, sharing movies and music for instance. Is there anything else you need bandwidth for?
Rock-solid my ass. I have built some wireless networks in my life and when it sais watchdog it means software routine, and when it sais water proof, it means you need to put it inside a bucket that is acit proof unless you want a router (or antenna) if plastic cracks and suck in water, and if it sais lightning proof it means it won't put your house on fire, but destroy your equipment it will, and if it sais peak voltage proof, it doesn't mean a circuit that will reset the =B5C when voltage drops under a certain level like in equipment made by reasonable man, oh no, it means your router at best wil reset to factory settings. Don't you dare tell me that cunsumer product, here under wireless is any good. I know it's shit from long experience. Shit that needs daily care. My clear experience with wireless points in one direction. If you don't want to use alots of time fixing problems, go fiber. It's the best way, specially if you're doing an electronic potentional separation with a good local ground, and if you live in lightning area, a good lightning deflector. If you got bad voltage, which often drops, then you may want to go -48V with batteries function as a capacitor. Then you may get something close to rock solid. Just make sure you got that fiber to transport data unless there is impossible.
lol.
Listen boy. Distance when it comes to wireless is ONLY a fading concern. If your fading margin is great enough to for all the weather in your district, distance is not relevant. Other than this, longer distance got no magical property that makes it less reliable. Power is sqr distance. Twice the distance screams for four times the power, neither more nor less, to get the same fade margin.
On Tue, 16 Dec 2008 18:31:00 -0600, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" wrote in :
2.4 GHz Radios aren't even close to "rock-solid" without clear line of sight (including fresnel zone), and this run is through trees, how tall we don't know. Even with clear line of sight, interference can easily degrade a link or take it down entirely.
Such assumptions are the mother of all disappointments. Generally speaking, wired will be significantly more reliable than wireless.
John Navas fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
GLASS would be. Wire certainly would not be in my part of the country.
I agree with and acknowlege some of your points, but you miss the point that I have the very setup, trees and all, at almost exactly the distance the OP needs, and it IS stable in all weather, and with all _available_ local interference sources. This is the deep, rural country, after all.
Besides, when was the last time you tried trenching through a stand of trees.
True. With all the advances in technology, the high-speed devices, the fibre-optics, petaflop processors, we still haven't come up with a cheaper way to dig a ditch.
Within my budget there is no way a trench will be dug to lay any kind of wire across this terrain. Lloyd, It's nice to hear of a solution that is actually field tested under similar conditions - that is a much stronger recommendation than "this should work". This is not a critical gov't system, so if it flakes on occasion and needs to be jiggered, no big deal. I'm not expecting miracles, just something that works right most of the time.
Who wouldn't agree that wires are more reliable? Still, this is not a critical mission, and nobody gets hurt if it's down 3% of the time or whatever.
Over a couple of years of using consumer grade wireless in a local network, I've had minor niggles with client devices and Windows, but really, wireless bridging does work. As for wired, which I always try to implement first, yes we've had one fail that was somehow nicked a year after installation and was a bear to track down. I'm cautious when installing, but over hundreds of meters, things happen.
When wireless fails it's about dealing with the endpoints (or interference) When wired fails, it could be anywhere. I get nervous when one of my wired clients has a problem. Usually it's at the endpoints as well, though.
That said, for 300 feet of forest, wire is the way to go, if you have access.
If not, try to get some Nanostations up above the treetops. Since your neighbor is up the hill from you, his end may be easier. In both cases, the house is a good place to start for getting altitude, but doesn't always serve you. In that case, to get the wireless device up high without installing a tower, I put the device on a long pole then lift it into the tree using my tallest ladder and strap it to the tree, which provides extra altitude and support. If I have a 20' pole and a 16' ladder, then I can get 35' -40' of height that way. Wind is sometimes a problem with this approach, but not too bad in our case, with wide beamed antennas. Line of sight is more imporatant. Run your ethernet wire from there to the house and throw a cheap AP/ switch/router on the end of it.
It's just impractical to try and lay a trench through the trees - and going around via the road would be thousands of feet. Plus, I wouldn't ask my neighbor to dig up his property. Laying some kind of tougher wire overland or suspended is not an option for other reasons. Getting up above the trees is also not practical. At 40' is just where the foliage (hemlock needles mostly) is thickest. The first 20' or so is mostly scattered bare trunks. So unless I'm going up 60-80', it's better to go low than high.
As I originally stated - I can get a weak signal right now, as is, with no special equipment. That's what gives me the most hope of success. A dell laptop in our house can access the internet (though often not much faster than dial-up) from our neighbor's wireless router sitting in their house. Macs consistently get nothing though. Given that I can lock up on the weak signal with certain computers with the current setup, I'm hoping that some beefed up wireless relays (such as the ubiquity products discussed above) plus a standard wireless router in our house will get respectable coverage in our house for any wireless device.
I'm going to give it a try anyway. I looked at the ubiquiti products and am not sure which model to make the attempt with though - either go all out with the Powerstations (more expensive but presumably a higher chance of success) or try with the nano-station or loco, which could work just fine because, as noted, we can already get a weak signal with no booster.
Do not screw around with rediculous ideas such as fiber optics (since copper wire is more than sufficient for those who needs much higher reliability such as your telco).
John Navas provided better alternatives in a first post that asked important (and ignored) questions. Get a directional antenna. These will work even through obstructed environments. The problem is not so much line of sight. Interference many times is due to reflections (also seen as ghosting on a TV).
Two types of antennas are yagi or helical. Yagi are most often available. To eliminate ghosting, helical would be a good choice. Simpe router modified to connect to a directional antenna is a best (inexpensive) solution. Easy to test. Setup a router with directional antenna. Test using a WiFi computer that also measures signals in dB (don't even waste time with '5 bars' signal strength). Learn how far that antenna and router can be located from the computer.
Otherwise install a copper connection between both buildings. Other facts (that every telco uses) makes the copper solution perfectly acceptable.
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