extending Adelphia/Comcast cable to my new WIFI hub

Are you wanting to extend the cable as well as the internet? Trying to extend the cable via a wireless link may give Adelphia some heartburn. I am thinking a repeater, but that is probably why the cable company wants to extend the cable in the street, the cable loss to get to the studio would be excessive, hence they want a direct shot from the main cable If it is just internet, you can probably get a directional antenna use on your wireless routers.

Why would you think there will be a large bill for installing the cable in the house where you want it?

Cable is often installed for free, and usually has no more than a $100 installation fee. Geting the cable to your building is not usually part of the cost. Either service is offered, or it is not.

What about the initial installation? Did you want it connected to house B in the first place? Did a tech connect it where it was easy to do, instead of where you wanted it?

Sorry, I was unclear. The 'cable' is internet ONLY. I have no interest in cable television programming. The cable tech has indicated the cable in the street will need to be extended "further down the street closer to the studio" with a "new heavier gage cable" and my guess "a new street box at the terminus". This would shorten the run from the cable box in the street to the studio.

I am unfamiliar with the "directional antenna" you refer to. How would this interface with my cable modem and the router?

Clarance, the original HS internet cable installation was in House A and was requested in House A. House B is of no importance to this question. The issue is whether I can employ a inexpensive technology as an alternative to paying for extended street infrastructure needed to access the studio. The Belkin wireless router located in House A can only produce a fair to weak signal to the studio. I want the studio to be the media center for the entire site and hence I want the wireless router in that location. Street box to house A is about 200ft. Street box to House B is 350 ft. Street box to Studio is over 500 ft. By extending the street box further down the cul-de-sac the distance to the studio will be reduced to an acceptable level, probably around

Basically you would need a wireless bridge to connect the two buildings. A directional antenna offers more gain than the Omni antennas, while Omni's pretty much give 360 degrees of coverage, directional antennas concentrate the energy into a given direction. The only bad thing is most wireless routers from say Best Buy do not come with the option for directional antennas. You can go to the linksys website and look at the WAP54GPE Wireless-G Exterior Access Point to see what you need. The built in antenna has an 8dBi gain, while not great, should work for your 300 feet distance. Remember you would need to get two, one on each end of the link. And you would want to place security on the link to prevent people from easily sniffing your traffic, or gaining access to your link. The proper security is built into the boxes, but you must enable it. Their should be instructions, or some local radio shop/computer shop should be able to assist. If you have like a best buy/circuit city , they also have techs inside to assist.

Depending on how much you want to spend, there are many options available. Your existing wireless router should have an extra lan port you can hook another wireless router up to. So here is what you do. If your router does have the extra port, go out and get a wireless router with a directional antenna WAP54GPE from linksys is an example of what you need, and you would need two. Connect each one on the two buildings in question so they see each other. The one on the main building with the cable company cable modem gets hooked up to that wireless router you already have in that building. The other router on building B gets hooked up to your network in the second house. I have been in Best Buy/Circuit City, and some smaller computer shops, so if you have any of those in your area, they usually have people who know what they are doing and can help you out. But a solution does exsist and probably for under 500 dollars.

Probably.. How does the studio get it's power? At my 5 acre place in ID the workshop was about 1000 ft from the house, but the electric power came to the house (and meter) first, and then went on to the outbuilding. Used netgear powerline networking, they have 2 different speeds (54 and 85, soon to also have 200 at

Dana, That sounds like a very doable approach. I will check this out.

I will check this out also. However, I attempted to use this technology on another device and it failed when extended to the studio, and I am not sure why.

Dana, thanks. My Belkin Pre-N router has 4 additional Lan ports. I will investigate this further.

Just out of curiosity, where are you located at? I should add that I tried the wireless route first, but during the winter there was lots and lots of snow, and the wireless signal didn't work when it was snowing, now when the snow on the ground (usally a few feet of it) to the outbuilding.. That's when I gave up the wireless idea and went with plan b, the powerline networking...

Why would you think there will be a large bill for installing the cable in the house where you want it?

Cause he doesn't want it in the house where it's installed currently, he wants to install it (for free) in the studio which has no existing cable and is outside the range of the street connection...

And when I wanted cable installed in my house, some nice guys came out with a lift truck, installed some equipment out in the street, then ran cable to my house, crawled under the house, ran cable into the room where I wanted it, and installed my cable modem. For free.

They install the infrastructure, they run the cable. They apparently service the neighborhood. Why wouldn't they service "house b"?

So instead of _possibly_ paying a cable installation charge, he's going to engineer a wireless solution with components that have to be purchased, may be unreliable, and rely on an internet connection that exists in a building where he doesn't want it.

Was the distance around 1000 feet that you mentioned eariler. A higher gain directional antenna would have probably worked. We are using 22 dBi gain antennas with a wireless bridge from Cisco, that goes around 6 miles and gives us at least 11Mbps at the far end. The wavelength of the wireless router is about the size of a rain drop, hence rain and snow will attenuate the signal to a degree, hence a higher gain antenna for 300 to 1000 feet would probably make the wireless link work. Plus if it was mounted on a pole above the roof line would be even better.

Cool, just giving some extra options/ideas

And he has that. Now he wants a second building on the property 300 feet away have internet access, and does not need to have the cable TV part.

A lot of companies will not charge for the main building, but may charge for time and material to wire up a second building.

For only 300 feet, he can do this with store bought equipment, I.E. Best buy/Circuit City. The prices here will not be to bad. Now if you are going half a mile or more, yes unlicensed wireless devices can do that, but the cost starts going up.

He pays for service in house a, and wants it free in the studio... Your whole stuff is based on installing and paying for service at one place...

Obviously it would just make sense to cancel house a, and have it in the studio instead, but he wants it in BOTH without paying the monthly fee for the second, and the studio is in a place where they will not provide service.... (remember, some places are on big peices of property, his studio is 500 ft away from the house, and that's beyond normal wireless range)

Yes, the outbuilding is about 1000 feet away, HOWEVER, wireless will absolutely not work year round.. We got about 4feet of snow this winter (think fresnel zone clearance), and the buildings have metal snow roofs on them (aka wireless signal blockers).. This was in the Pacific NW, and if it was raining or snowing outside, you usually sit inside and play on the computer.. Unfortunately, that's exactly when wireless dies around there..:(