Re: Ubiquity wifi access point

Ugh. I dived into the depths of comp.mobile.android and found the original posting:

Rod: You need to make some decisions before blundering forward. I'll make the big decision for you... you're going to use 5GHz, not 2.4GHz. See, that was easy.

1. Do you want your neighbor to see every machine and device on your LAN? That's what will happen if you setup a "wireless bridge". It's essentially a wireless ethernet extension cord. Everything that a CAT5 cable can do, you can also do with a wireless bridge. For larger systems and if you want monitor traffic by device, I would worry about it being a "transparent bridge" which sees each device across the bridge as a different MAC address. Most commercial wireless bridges are already transparent, while the do it thyself variety, such as DD-WRT are not. You don't have to worry about your neighbor sniffing your traffic with a bridge, but he does have to trust you not to sniff his traffic.

There are some tricky ways to isolate the traffic. The easiest is to bet your ISP for more than one routable IP address. You connect a modem and two wired routers (one per IP address). Unless someone taps the modem, traffic for each IP address is separate.

1. Are you concerned with traffic management? With a simple wireless bridge, you neighbor could conceivably suck all the available bandwidth without even realizing that there's a problem. If your unspecified model router has some traffic management or load balancing features, you might want to use them.
2. How is the line of sight? Any obstructions within the Fresnel Zone? Let's do the math: Distance is 150ft/5280ft = 0.284 miles Frequency = 5.4GHz

1 Fresnel Zone = 8.3ft at mid path (75ft). So, are there any obstructions within 6 ft of the direct line of sight? That includes the ground, pavement, dirt, etc if either antenna is mounted at less than 6ft height? (Note that if you're thinking of using 2.4GHz, which I do NOT recommend, you'll need 12.4ft of clearance).

1. What the slowest data throughput that you're willing to tolerate? That will determine the SOM (system operating margin) or fade margin, which in turn determines the reliability (hrs of downtime per year).

I'm late. More after you fill in the blanks.

Rod Speed,

You're in good hands with Jeff as he's a good guy, and he never says BS (although he'll deny being a good guy) :) ... where he's forgotten more about WiFi WISP networking than I ever knew.

All I ask is that you faithfully answer Jeff's technical questions, so that Jeff can get the answers you need.

His recommendations trump mine.

Good luck!

Jeorg, I don't know routers all that well, but "consumer" routers won't generally do a good job at 150 feet which is what Rod said is the distance.

I go about 100 feet, through walls, with a powerful radio to connect to my router, but that's pushing it, so, Rod Speed's 150 feet would be, IMHO, too far for one end to be a router.

I suggest to Rod that he "pair" a matched set of radios, one on his wall and the other on the wall of his neighbor. Each radio is fed by an Ethernet cable which supplies the 12 to 24 volts at about 1 to 1.5 amp POE which comes with each radio.

So the only connection to each radio is an ethernet cable which is presumably connected to a router on each end.

In words, the Internet would come into Rod Speed's house, and then it would go to his router, and from his router, he would run a short ethernet cable to the POE which is next to the router most likely, and then from that POE he would have a far longer ethernet cable (up to 300 feet) to the Ubiquiti radio on his outside wall pointing toward his neighbor at at least 6 feet off the ground (5GHz) or 12 feet off the ground (2.4GHz) to keep the first fresnel zone clear.

Note that the frequency and protocol between these two matched radios doesn't matter - so Rod can choose any legal frequency he wants. For example, my Mikrotik RB411/R52n-M can be set to work on any frequency, whether 5Ghz or 2.4GHz and to work in any of 200 countries.

On his neighbor's wall, there's a matched radio which itself has a long ethernet cable that goes to his neighbor's POE (which comes with each radio) and which then has a shorter ethernet cable that goes to the friend's home router.

Voila! Instant Internet transmitted from one house to the other. The distance of 150 feet is so puny that it shouldn't be a problem for Rod Speed no matter what Ubiquiti radio set he chooses.

I think Jeff and I recommend the Nanobeams/Powerbeams (I think they're the same thing, but with marketing changing the name from one to the other at a point in time).

I have a Nanobeam NBE-M2-400-US (which shows up as a Powerbeam M2-400 when I log into it, which is one reason I think they're one and the same (the other reason is that other people say that):

It's capable of connecting for 3 or 4 miles since that's what it originally was for before I replaced it with a Rocket M2 and then a Rocket M5 which is what I'm currently using (we have radios all over the place at all these houses in the mountains because it's like motorcycles - you keep getting more and more powerful ones each year where in the beginning you start with a bullet M2HP with a planar antenna, because that's effective, adn then you move to a dish antenna nanobeam/powerbeam, and then you want more power so you go to a rocket m2 but then you want noise immunity so you move up to a rocket M5, etc.

Back to your original point, I don't know ANYONE who would solve a 150 foot connection with a "router" alone, no mater how big you cantenna. The power of a home router is utterly puny compared to the EIRP of a transceiver such as the Ubiquiti radios Jeff and I are suggesting to Rod Speed.

Jeff also mentioned Rod Speed could use a $67 USD Nanostation Loco M5 which has a much smaller and nicer form factor, since 150 feet is so puny as to not require a dish and it still has what Amazon "says" is a 15km+ range:

But Ubiquiti says it's only 10Km+ range:

But notice that the 150 feet Rod Speed needs is child's play for any radio from Ubiquiti so the distance isn't the issue.

One advantage of the nanostation loco M5 is that it has a nice cigarette-pack-sized form factor, which allows for a window mount, so Rod Speed could mount them INSIDE the two homes although all Ubiquiti radios are weatherproofed as they're almost always mounted outside. (Some windows are almost impervious to radio waves, like mine on top of a mountain facing the sun - but Rod's may be normal glass for all we know.)

ROD: I think Jeff and I are both recommending the nanobeam/powerbeam (I think they're the same thing) but if you want a small form factor, take a look at the loco M5 that Jeff also uses (because he has lots of them).

I don't remember if that $67 is for two loco M5's or just one - I think itg's a set but I'm not sure, so that would make it half the price of the nanobeams/powerbeams, because we recommend a matched set (too much bad experience with non-matched sets).

Hope this helps Rod Speed.

Yep.

I see I didn?t make it clear that I don?t want anything at the neighbours end, just have a powerful enough AP on the end of my house that is closest to theirs so that any device they have inside their house can see my AP and connect to it like they would if they have a wifi router inside their house.

They are real technoklutzes that get me to do everything like that for them and are quite capable of connecting to any wifi service their devices can see, but anything else is getting too hard for them.

Yes, and is marginally visible inside the neighbours house. Not good enough for normal use, particularly with apple devices which they sometimes have.

They have nothing but devices, phones, tablets etc.

I'd prefer to have an access point there rather than a router. The medion wifi repeater currently under a picking bucket half way down their backyard works fine signal strength wise, just isnt reliable enough, needs to be power cycled most days. Its in a pretty rugged environment temperature wise, typically -5C to 45C most years with the repeater only intended for inside the house service.

A weatherproof AP on the back wall of my house would be fine with nothing at the neighbours place at all, just their devices.

Yeah, that?s currently what I do with the wifi repeater halfway down their backyard under a bucket. Main downside is half thruput since it cant receive and transmit at the same time. Better to have an ethernet cable and POE to the AP now tho.

Not when there is nothing but their devices at their end. I need to be able to support whatever devices they have and some of them are 2.4GHz only.

One of the locals has recommended the Ubiquiti UAP-AC-M

Looks fine, but maybe something else would be cheaper.

I've already done that but now see that I didn't say what I wanted clearly enough. Just a weatherproof AP on the back wall of my house that the neighbour's various devices can see reliably from inside their house.

Their house isnt a very big house and they can see the wifi repeater that's under a bucket halfway down their backyard fine. Its just not reliable enough and needs to power cycled on far to many days which isnt surprising given its only meant to be used inside and the temperature under that bucket varys much more than its designed to be able to handle.

Not practical because some of their devices are only 2.4GHz.

I'd prefer not, but it isnt essential that they can't, its easy enough to prevent access on those devices of mine although better if I don't have to.

They only need to be able to see my internet service.

Mine actually uses CGNAT. I can get a fixed IP but that costs more and I'd rather not have one anyway. I don't bother with vpn for torrents because of the CGNAT.

Nope. It would be nice to be able to monitor what they are doing just to see when things stop working for them, but I've got an unlimited net service.

Currently I can see if things are working for them because one of the house inhabitants listens to just on internet radio station 24/7365.25 and I can see that that still working from the router leds.

Mine is a 100/40 service so that's not a problem either.

Pretty decent, just some branches on some trees in their backyard.

Almost anything that will still deliver internet radio. Some browsing in addition to that by they did fine over my previous 8/1 adsl2+ service using the wifi repeater that halves the thruput.

OK. You just constrained the solution by a lot.

My assessment is below, but anything that Jeff says trumps what I say.

With that caveat, no matter which device you put on your wall, you will have no problem whatsoever painting the neighbor's house from your house.

Once you paint their house from your newly installed outside-wall access point, their hand-held devices will see your 2.4GHz access point that you put on your back wall, without any problem. At their house, the signal strength you paint them with will be huge, for example, something like

-35dBm or something huge like that.

They will have no problem "seeing" your access point.

The problem will be that you need a good antenna on your side to pick up their weak iDevice signal and you'll need a radio with good sensitivity to pick out that weak signal from the noise level.

So you're gonna want to find the least noisy channel, but at 2.4GHz, you'll be limited (as I'm sure you're aware). Let's hope it's not noisy where you are.

Jeff knows that stuff far better than I do, where in my loose experience, the sensitivity of any Ubiquiti receiver is pretty good, like in the 85 dBm to 95 dBm range (yes, I know that's a 100 fold range).

In your case, with just one access point on your house wall, since it greatly matters, you'll want to make your decision based on two things.

1. You want a really good antenna to receive their puny signal, and,
2. You want good sensitivity in your radio (to pick it out of the noise).

Given that, I'd recommend at least the nanobeam/powerbeams that Jeff had recommended. You could even do with the Rocket M2 that I have but that might be overkill since the dish is about 18 inches wide as I recall.

To summarize, here's what you do.

1. You buy a radio with a good directional antenna & receiver sensitivity.
2. You plug the POE into the wall outlet near your router.
3. You hook a short Ethernet cable from your router to the POE.
4. You hook a long Ethernet cable from the POE to the outside wall.
5. You mount the radio outside at least 12 feet high (if you can).
6. We can show you later how to set up that radio as an access point.

That's it for what you do.

As I said, you'll be painting them with -35dBm so they'll see your AP without any problems. The problems are that their devices don't have a lot of power to get back to your radio, so your signal strength will be asymmetric. It will be great going to them, and lousy coming back.

Obviously if you want it to be great coming back, you put a paired radio on the neighbor's wall - but if you don't do that - it "probably" will still work if you get a good radio with a good antenna and receiver sensitivity.

Looking up the specs on my nanobridge M2 "NBE-M2-400 US"

The Antenna gain is 13dBi to 18dBi (note that my Rocket M5 antenna is

30dBi) where every 3 dBi is a doubling of power (and a narrowing of the beam).

In your case, you don't care how narrow the beam is, so you can go from the

18dBi antennas to a 30dBi antennas. You can even hook a cheap Ubiquiti Bullet M2 to a planar 20dBi antenna if you like. But most people like the integral radio/antenna units like the nanobeam M2.

Remember that the puny iDevices in your neighbor's house have to go the same 150 feet to your back wall. You have to receive that puny signal over the noise, and then amplify the heck out of it.

So you want antenna gain (from 18dBi to 30 dBi would be good). And you want good receiver sensitivity (dunno - maybe 90dBm to 95dBm).

Here's my summary which Jeff can trump at any time. a. If you put matching radios on both houses, it WILL work. b. If you put only one radio on your house, it "probably" will work.

Go for the most gain in the antenna and the best sensitivity in the radio. (Remember every 3dBi is a doubling of power received.)

10x range

That should be ok, they don?t currently have any problem with the puny little Medion P85019 (MD 86977) wifi repeater halfway down the backyard which doesn?t have any external antenna at all.

Nar, its pretty decent, very little is visible on apple devices, still only a total of maybe 6 visible on the most sensitive androids.

Nothing in the way of crude remotes that I know of.

Actually Rod, I'm already doing EXACTLY what you plan on doing.

In fact, I already have three access points in the basement for all the iDevices and Android devices that anyone wants to use down there where the grandkids play.

Here is a picture of all three of them.

1. LinkSys WRT54G router acting as a wired repeater & as a 2.4GHz AP
2. Ubuquiti NBE-M2-400 acting as a 2.4GHz access point for mobile devices
3. Ubiquiti Rocket M5 acting as a 5GHz access point for mobile devices

So that's 3 different access points you see in that photo I just took for you (plus the T-Mobile femtotower on the left for the Cellular Signal access point).

In addition to using those three radios each as access points, I also have a radio on an upper floor hooked to a desktop computer Ethernet port where the antenna is just sitting on a box, pointing straight down. It acs as a WiFi card connecting to the router two floors down (which is the opposite of what you're trying to do).

This radio acts as a powerful directional WiFi card for a desktop computer where the radio it plugged into the Ethernet port of the desktop computer (which is the opposite of what you're doing - but still a powerful radio connected to a weak router).

1. Mikrotik RB411/RB52n-M acting as a WiFi card for a desktop computer

And, of course, I have a rooftop WISP radio that connects to another one that is three or four miles away as the crow files (20 miles by road).

1. Ubiquiti Rocket M5 acting as my WISP transceiver for Internet service

It's a mixmash, but all of us in the mountains have so many radios that we use them like you would spare pens and pencils whenever we need to paint an area with signal.

So, to summarize, I'm doing exactly what you're doing which is I tied two access points to a router so as to extend my signal to the puny iDevices which weren't picking up the signal that the Android devices were getting from the Linksys router .

Now everyone is happy, but the distance is only about 50 feet that the iDevices are from the radio's you see in that photo. There's a wall since they're inside, which is thick concrete (since this is in a basement), so I never tested how far it can go.

You have the same setup - only you need it to go 150 feet both ways. Mine certainly goes 50 feet both ways but I didn't test it further than that.

See this picture I just snapped for you in my basement.

It's doing almost exactly what you want to do.

The only difference is that it's not my main router (I have three routers spread throughout the house so this router is an old Linksys WRT54G acting as a wired repeater).

But other than the fact it's not my main router, what I have set up in that picture is EXACTLY what you plan on doing. Notice I have both a 2.4GHZ access point (the smaller nanobeam) and a 5GHz access point (the larger Rocketdish) connected to the router, where you'll only have one 2.4 GHz access point.

You might ask WHY I plopped all those radios down there, and the reason is very simple and has all to do with Android versus Apple devices.

There are multiple walls downstairs, and with the Linksys WRT54G router, the Android devices never had a problem but the iOS devices (mostly iPads and one iPhone 6) just couldn't get any decent signal back to the router.

So I popped in those two dishes, and from then on, the iDevices were plenty happy. I never bothered installing them because they're really not an inside solution, so I just propped them up pointing in the same direction so the people in the far room (separated by a thick concrete wall) would have not only the Android devices working (which were fine with the Linksys WRT54G router 2.4GHz access point), but also those crappy iDevices which now are plenty happy with an 18dBi and 30dBi antenna beaming signal at them and receiving their puny signal.

It's a mixmash. But it's EXACTLY what you want to do.

The only difference is I'm going 50 feet through thick concrete walls to the Android and iDevices, and you're going 150 feet through the outside air to those Android and iDevices.

You are correct that all the access points will be plenty weatherproof. And they will be far more powerful than any router you'd typically buy.

Here is a picture of exactly what Rod wants to do, only the two dish antenna access points you see in that photo are inside the house instead of outside the house.

What you see there is an ancient Linksys WRT54G acting both as a wired repeater and as a 2.4GHz access point for the Android devices, which are mostly located 50 feet away behind a thick concrete wall.

The iPads and iPhone 6 wouldn't go anywhere nearly as far as did all the Android devices I tested, so, I first hooked up the 5GHz access point (which is the larger 30dBi dish you see in that photo) to the router, and then the iDevices *finally* could get on the network from 50 feet away behind thick concrete walls.

Just for fun, I also hooked up the 2.4GHz access point (which is the smaller 18dBi dish antenna you see in the photo) for the iDevices to connect to the Internet behind that thick wall 50 feet from the router.

Now everyone is happy in the basement.

Upstairs, on the top floor, I had a desktop computer that had no wifi card, so, since I had a spare Mikrotik RB411/R52n-M radio, I hooked it to the Ethernet port of the desktop, and pointed the ~15dBi antenna straight down through two thick floors, to one of the routers inside the house.

Yeah, it's hokey, but the point is that it all works just fine.

I also have a rooftop radio which connects a few miles as the crow flies to my WISP feed which gives me my Internet from another mountaintop across a wide valley (at least 20 miles away by driving).

In summary, I have exactly the setup Rod Speed wants to set up, only I'm going just 50 feet through concrete walls inside while he wants to go 150 feet through the air outside.

I also have the opposite of what Rod Speed wants to set up, which is a powerful radio connecting to a router access point.

And, I have the original plan that both Jeff and I were suggesting to Rod Speed would be the best performance, which is a rooftop radio matched to another radio miles away, which gives me my Internet feed from another mountaintop.

In case you're wondering why the mixmash, in these Santa Cruz Mountains, we change radios like you city boys hail taxis. I have a half dozen radios lying about at any one time (Jeff probably has a dozen or more).

Ok, we'll start over. That's going to be difficult at about 150ft. The problem is not the choice of AP (access point) but rather the choice of antenna. You'll need some antenna gain to deal with the distances involved and with penetrating the unspecified construction of their house. It can probably be made to work under ideal conditions (line of sight, no obstructions along the path, no walls to go through, no interference for other wifi system, etc), but I would have my doubts that it will work if any of the aforementioned are lacking.

I can do the calculations if you want, but I need to know a few things.

1. What is the horizontal beam width required? That the angle from your added AP that covers all of your neighbors house. For example, if the house is 50ft wide and at 150 ft range, the angle would be about: 2 * arc tan(25/150) = 19 degrees. Therefore, any directional antenna you put on your AP must have a horizontal beam width greater than 19 degrees (plus a few degrees to deal with aiming errors).
2. I tend to favor sector antennas that have a wide horizontal beam width (typically 90 to 150 degrees) but very little vertical beam width (usually less than 10 degrees). This provides the maximum gain as any vertical radiation will be wasted going into the ground or into the sky. Something like this: However, with only 19 degrees of beam width required, a cheaper and smaller panel or patch antenna will probably do as well. This looks usable:

15dBi gain, 30 degree beam width, $67 delivered from Canada. There are plenty of similar patch or panel antennas with similar gain and beam width available. I can be more specific when you supply the radiation angle.

1. That type of construction is the neighbors house? If there's window glass, is it Low-E coated? Any metal in the outside walls, such as chicken wire or aluminum foil backed insulation? All these will have a big effect on the signal level and is the major reason why I don't think this plan will be reliable.

1. Any particular model wireless router/AP? If it requires a power cycle to recover from a signal loss (or from interference), it's not a good router. This is one reason why I donated my pile of WRT54G routers. Any of the Ubiquity that are made for outdoor use should be better and not have this problem. Also, make sure it's really a temperature problem and not a condensation problem. If it craps out every morning when the sun comes up, it might be condensation.

No problem as 2.4GHz goes through walls better than 5GHz. However, it does not go through holes and perforated obstructions. It also requires more Fennel Zone clearance. There are also dual band AP's which work quite nicely. The problem here is that it's difficult to provide a dual band antenna with anything more than a few dB of gain.

I'll take that as a "No, I don't want the neighbors all over my LAN". The sloppy way is to setup two difference IP address blocks, one for you and one for the neighbor. Then use the subnet mask to separate the traffic. This offers no security but is good enough to prevent accidents. Another is to setup a VLAN (virtual LAN) for the neighbor, which sends everything on that VLAN to the Internet. Once I know what type of equipment you'll be using, I can provide more detail.

That probably does a 1:1 match with a non-routable IP used by your USP, and the few available IPv4 addresses. I don't have any experience with this beyond reading the literature. I think you can get a 2nd routable IP but that will need to come from the ISP, which will no doubt charge for it. Under the circumstances, I don't believe the expense to be justifiable.

I suggest you reconsider. If your neighbor gets infect with a spambot that spews spam all over the internet, it's YOUR responsibility as the system owner. How your ISP will react to such situations varies. One of mine just pulls the plug until I fix the problem. Monitoring the traffic is also a good way of determining what is normal traffic, so that if anything changes, you have a reference point. If traffic suddenly increases, it could be a spam bot, a Windoze update, or a visit by the neighbors grandchildren.

Is "some branches" one, two, three, or twenty? Are they little branches or big branches? Do these branches support leaves or needles? Basically, anything that is full of water will block the signal. If you're using vertical polarization, and have horizontal branches, it will block more signal than if the signal and branches were the same "polarization".

If you ever watch internet radio (e.g. Pandora), it's NOT a continuous slow audio stream. It's a short burst of data before a song ends, that sends the entire next 5-10 minutes of music as fast as possible. The media player then plays the 5-10 minute tune at audio speeds with no downloading except at the end, when it loads the next tune. If you slow down the traffic so that it take more than 1/2 the length of an average tune to do the download, it will screw up badly because the next tune will not have sufficient time to download.

50 minutes. Enough for now...

Corrected version of the above:

No problem as 2.4GHz goes through walls better than 5GHz. However, it does not go through holes and perforated obstructions as well as 5GHz. It also requires more Fresnel Zone clearance. There are also dual band AP's which work quite nicely. The problem here is that it's difficult to provide a dual band antenna with anything more than a few dB of gain.

I forgot to ask, can you run 150ft of direct burial CAT5e between the two houses? That would greatly simplify the problem. The official maximum for CAT5e is 100 meters.

If that approach doesn't work out, or gets more expensive than you'd like, you could also consider:

• have the neighbor buy a repeater / access point for wireless coverage on their property; then you only need a good signal between it and your stuff, rather than between all their devices and your stuff;

or maybe use cable for the property-to-property part:

• Places like Monoprice.com have good prices on Cat 5e, 6, 6a, etc. cables: . "direct burial" Cat 5e bulk cable (-0 for 1000ft) . pre-made 100ft Cat 5e cables ( each, *2)

• Lowe's (possibly in stock) has a box of 500ft Cat 5e indoor/outdoor bulk cable for .

Then, as before, have the neighbor buy their own wireless router or access point. :) -WBE

Jeff Liebermann wrote

80' would be nice, but it isnt essential, 40' would do fine.

What we call brick veneer, a single layer of bricks on the outside, what you lot call drywall on a timber frame on the inside, no metalised reflective insulation sheet between them. The house has its long axis facing me, something like 50 % windows.

Nope, normal single glazing standard glass. The bottom half isnt glass, a form of weatherproof composition board.

Nope.

But the Medion P85019 (MD 86977) wifi repeater with no external antennas under a bucket half way down their backyard, next to a metal fence that's 5' high works fine

Medion P85019 (MD 86977)

Its not a router, it's a very basic wifi repeater/access point used in wireless repeater mode.

Yeah, that's why I am changing to avoid the need for the power cycling.

Nar, its definitely not a condensation problem. We routinely see 10 days over 100F most summers and the daytime RH is routinely in the single digit % and it can feel like you're standing in front of an oven even just checking if there is anything in the letter box and the washing hung on the line can be dry by the time you finish pegging out a single load in those conditions.

No it doesn't and there isnt any obvious pattern to it.

But the Medion P85019 (MD 86977) is 2.4MHz only and works fine.

Sure, happy to stick with 2.4GHz.

Its not that absolute, but easy enough to do.

Yes, that's how it works.

They don't appear to offer it.

I don't either given that I would have to pay for a vpn as well with fixed IPs.

Sure, but that would be quite acceptable to me.

Sure, but my router does that fine.

I do those manually, every few years when a problem shows up.

Sure, but given it's an unlimited plan, I don't care what they do and since I get about 110/45 I wont even notice whatever he does. Even if they somehow win the lottery and start binging on netflix etc, I wont even notice.

Neither really. That photo is taken about where the AP will be, just higher, and you can see that there isnt much at all.

Leaves only.

This is a talk conventional radio station in our state capital, hundreds of miles away from where we are.

This radio station doesn't work like that. It has its own android and iOS apps.

2SM in Sydney Australia, tho that may or may not be visible in your respective app stores.

Works fine with no pauses over the Medion P85019 (MD 86977) which is half duplex and only 300.

Jeff Liebermann wrote

Not easily and I'm not keen on the lightning damage risk with that approach.

Sure.

Winston wrote

Sure, or just give them one I no longer use.

Not keen on that approach due to risk of lightning strike damage.

I put radios (and weather stations) on mountain tops. We don't get much lightning in my area (US west coast near Monterey Bay) but enough that lightning protection is a good idea. Some possible solutions:

1. Use an ethernet surge protector or ethernet lightning protector. Plenty of others available: None of these will protect against a direct hit. What they will do is protect against a ground hit, where the current through the ground presents a substantial voltage difference between the ends of the cable run. I've had this problem a few times, where the devices at both ends get blown to pieces, but everything else survives.
2. Install a sacrificial ethernet switch at each end. Nothing fancy. Just a cheap 5 port 10/100/1000 switch. If you get hit, the switch blows, but the more expensive routers and AP's stay alive. I had one that switch that I simply walked the cable from port 1 through port 4 as they blew up.
3. Use fiber optic link. These are getting very economical. I'm installing these on mountain tops if possible. Well, that's not quite right since I'm no longer doing the actual installs. Let's just say I influence what gets installed. Can't ask for better lightning protection. I don't really have any favorite hardware at this point. Mostly, I use 100baseT to 100Base-FX media converters such as: Fiber connectors are SC or ST depending mostly on customer politics and not technology. Making the fiber cables and terminating the connectors requires a bit of skill but are not impossible. 3M makes a hot melt glue system where you cut and trim the fiber end, slide on the connector, dump it into an oven, extract, cool, polish, and you have a connection. Like this: Polishing is the hard part. Or, just buy pre-terminated fiber cables.

Anyway, think about the wired or fiber alternatives to wireless.

Sorry. I should have anticipated that. The term "beamwidth" is an angle, not a distance, but that's not obvious and easily confused. However, I can work with the distances:

2 * arctan(80/150) = 56 degrees 2 * arctan(40/150) = 30 degrees

That antenna I initially found: Is a tolerable fit for the 30 degree "illumination". For 56 degree, something with less gain and a wider beamwidth would be better.

This one is actually a sector antenna: Gain 15dBi gain. Horiz beamwidth 60 degrees. Vertical beamwidth 15 degrees. Yeah, that will work.

I couldn't find an antenna that has about 60 degree beamwidth and decent gain because it's 11PM here, very hot, I'm very tired, and my brain doesn't seem to be fully functional. I'll find some better antennas tomorrow or Sunday and then the necessary fade margin calculations to see if the connection will be reliable.

That doesn't looks better than I expected. Most of the loss will be in the brick. By veneer, is it a full size brick 225 x 112.5 x 75 mm or one that has been sliced thinner? We have both types in the USA. "Reflection and Transmission Losses Through Common Building Materials" See losses at 2.4 and 5GHz on Pg 9. There are other charts that are probably easier to understand. Regular red brick is about -4.5dB loss. Drywall is about -0.5dB. I won't count the wood studs because

2.4Ghz will go nicely between the studs and fire blocks. So, the loss is -5.5dB which means about 1/4th of your power is lost in the bricks, which equates to cutting the range in half. Not good, but I think the antenna gain will compensate for this loss. Math tomorrow.

Both good. Uncoated glass is very RF transparent. Composition board isn't very lossy.

You win.

Except for the disconnects. I'm not familiar with Medion but will look over what's available on the internet. I really don't like repeaters, but this is not the time for an anti-repeater rant.

You can build your own VPN. Many home routers now have the ability to terminate a VPN. If your neighbor's traffic is all inside the VPN tunnel, they won't see your traffic outside the tunnel, and you won't see theirs inside the tunnel. I use these, which have the VPN feature. with this alternative firmware: "Advanced OpenVPN client and server, based on code originally written by Keith Moyer for Tomato and reused with his permission."

One of my customers has a 25Mbit/sec cable plan. The husband fires up his Roku box and streams Netflix (in HD). His wife watches stuff on YouTube Red. The two daughters are on their various iPads and older MacBook streaming kids cartoons from somewhere. I get a call asking how to improve performance. I get them to increase their speed to

50Mbits/sec. That worked for about 6 months and now they're out of bandwidth again. Your neighbor might start with just background music, but I'm sure will graduate to something more consumptive.

The trees in the photo look good. Even if the big branches sprouted leaves, they would probably not be in the way. I think you're ok with blockage problems. Just try to keep the AP antenna at your end as high as possible.

No need for an app. Looks like they support every conceivable type of streaming audio: AAC via VLC media player plugin for Firefox works for me: VLC shows a bit rate varying from 30 to 50 Kbit/sec which is trivial compared to your available bandwidth. As long as that's all the traffic, it won't be a problem.

That shouldn't be a problem. Your 2SM stream does NOT work like Pandora. It's a continuous low speed stream, not a high speed burst.

I think you're ok but I want to grind the numbers to be sure. Give a day or two to get some other stuff done first and bug me if I forget.