Inexpensive point-to-point solution needed

Telcos only use fiber where greater data is required. The OP entitled his objective - "Inexpensive" solution. Fiber provides no additional advantages. If copper wire was so unreliable, then why did it connect to all buildings in every town? We even once had a phone in the woods - also used copper. Even it never failed. So why spend so much more money for same data rates and same reliability. The OP said "Inexpensive". Copper wire is more than sufficient as it was even 100 years ago - and especially for those slow data rates. OP is not asking for the gold plated solution.

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 10:14:51 -0800 (PST), Chrisjoy wrote in :

All Wi-Fi is bridging. That said, my own experience is that wireless routers tend to be cheaper than wireless access points and wireless Ethernet client bridges. Pretty much any wireless router can be configured as a wireless access point, but only some can be configured as a wireless Ethernet client bridge. See the wiki below.

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:55:07 -0800 (PST), snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in :

Can't say about where you are, but around here, fiber is being used more and more instead of copper. For example, some years ago remote terminals were all served over copper, whereas new installs are now server over fiber, even where copper capacity is not an issue.

In my experience the total cost of ownership (not just initial cost) of fiber now tends to be less than with copper.

Because the telco had lots of maintenance trucks? ;) There is copper maintenance on my street on the order of once a month, more when it rains.

Because reliability is higher, and there's much more future potential. "If we pull it they will come." :)

Who knows what might get sent over the cable if the bandwidth is there? I set up a basic networking system for some vacation homes, and they are now streaming hi-def video over the fiber.

I personally don't consider fiber to be gold these days.

you are not comparing like with like.

if you dig a trench at xx $ / metre, then the cost of whatever you put in it vanishes into the noise. Fibre makes sense cos it is more flexible - if you have power both ends.

but why is an overhead wire out of the Q? after all that is how a phone line would get strung thru a wooded area....

We are talking about wireless 802.11b/g and now you introduce Wi-Fi. Try to stay focused.

He cannot use neither access point nor wireless router in this setup. The alternative I was refering to is outdoor router + subscriber unit, which is far more expencive. If two access points or two wireless routers can be put up in bridge mode, either as a master and slave or two masters, they are bridges as they run. What it sais on the wrapping is not relevant.

Right, and that bridge functionality is what he needs in this setup to be able to drag out tp cable to a high point in the trees. Or did you find a client with an ethernet interface that is cheaper than my suggestion?

John Navas fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Despite my "explosion" earlier, John, that's what I'd determined earlier. His use of "Look, Boy" rather sealed it.

BTW... I may disagree with you, but I meant you no offense. Just him.

LLoyd

On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:30:18 -0600, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" wrote in :

Thank you, but please do your best to help keep the tone here out of the mire -- when we stoop to their level, they win and we lose. And please help me remember that too. :)

Sorta. One OC-192 or Dense Wave Division Mux system can replace plenty of copper. It's not unusual to see fiber used on the backbones, while copper (after a MUX or SLC) goes to the homes. I'm starting to see copper bundles replaced by fiber simply to because the maintenance on a fiber bundle is less than that of the equivalent copper bundle.

I tend to ignore such objectives. Everyone wants an "inexpensive" solution. When I see what numbers the OP considers to be inexpensive, then I'll take it seriously.

You've already mentioned wider bandwidth. There's electrical isolation, lower maintenance, water resistant, redundant (fiber ring), immune to lightning, and fairly cheap when you consider what it replaces. If there was a direct financial benefit, such as selling additional services, the telcos would go out of their way to replace copper with fiber.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the bums and deadbeats don't want fiber. It can't be melted and sold on the scrap metal market.

Oh, be reasonable. Copper was the best that could be found in its day. These days, the requirements for reliability, bandwidth, and low maintenance costs, makes fiber the superior technology. It will take quite a while until all the copper is replaced, but it will happen. New housing developments tend to be all fiber, including CATV service.

Also, are you sure copper is so great? See:

Yep. That a real telco office in Beirut Lebanon.

I had a coax drop between two 10base2 to ethernet converters. A nearby lightning hit blew up both. It's now fiber and is immune to such damage. You were lucky.

It's not really that much money. If all you want are 10/100baseT rates, ethernet switches with fiber backbones are fairly cheap. I have plenty of surplus multimode fiber that will work. Single mode is smaller and more difficult to deal with. What costs time and money are properly terminating the fiber. Figure on about $10 per connector. I like the 3M variety that uses hot melt glue.

I was going to post a photo of my box of surplus fiber cables, but forgot to take a photo when I made a token visit to my palatial office today. Maybe tomorrow.

For 300 ft, copper, coax, fiber, and ever barbed wire will work. Selecting the transmission media is not the problem. It's placing it or burying it where it won't get trashed that's the real problem. Once he has the conduit run or buried, the choice of media is fairly simple. My guess is 300ft of CAT5e would probably be best if buried in conduit. Much as I like fiber, CAT5e is still cheaper. There are some issues with going beyond 100 meters of CAT5. Please ask if interested.

Where are we talking? Must be old.... Last 3 houses i owned, including large acreage places (10+acres), never had telephone poles... Even my families places don't have phone poles... Utilities were along the road (usually in trenches/conduits) with feeders running underground to the houses...

On Dec 18, 1:55=A0am, John Navas

What is it with you and those two words, crackpot? Are you religious too?

On Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:19:49 -0800 (PST), Chrisjoy wrote in :

I did not write that material. Be more careful with your quoting and attributions.

Chrisjoy wrote in news:4d589527-3cd9-420a- snipped-for-privacy@a26g2000prf.googlegroups.com:

I think you were mistakenly thinking WiMax.

And note....all *802.11x* is bridging. There are other systems that are routing and not bridging, that also operate in the 2.4GHz band.

different countries seem to vary.

here (UK) BT the incumbent telco likes stringing cables via poles for the last 100m or so to each house.

however - the OP mentioned going thru a wood and not wanting to put in a duct, so stringing a cable thru the trees seems like 1 possible alternative.

On Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:09:39 +0000 (UTC), DanS wrote in :

As my late father used to say, "There are none so blind as those that will not see." ;)

Reason I wondered, but unfortunately didn't mention the other piece, many subdivisions have roads and cables underground along the road (pre done for later sales/building, or to be weatherwise), and feeders are run into each house.... Along with power ((can possibly be used for/powerline networking)) run underground, along with phone/water etc, there are sometimes extra pairs in to the home phone cables that the phone company can let you use to have 2 or 10 based t networks on already existing wires (t = twisted pair, phones only need 2 wires but they usually run 4 wires to a house, extra 2/10/t stuff is usually real cheap... if the central office plans/has/sells dsl forget it, that usually uses the 3 and 4th wires, but if they have no plans for your area, ask about direct connect like for intercoms/alarms/etc, things that don't need to go to the central office, you may be pleasantly surprised, what they hay, asking is free)

I appreciate all the discussion of the merits of cable Vs. wireles. I totally believe that a cable would provide a much better signal, but really, a cable is just not going to happen, buried, strung up, or just lying on the ground.

So, back to wireless signals. I looked more closely this morning at the tree situation, and what I noticed was, that by sheer luck, the desk where the dell laptop sits that gets wireless reception just happens to coincide with what is just about the only decent line of sight from anywhere in our house to the room in my neighbor's house where the wireless router sits. Just one scrawny bare ~3" trunk in an otherwise unobstructed 6-8' wide swath - and I'd happily cut that sucker down. Everywhere else is fairly crowded, so the antenna location would be pretty obvious.

Another question about obstacles though. What about the walls of the house? In this case, on our side, there is no window, just a wall. On their side, a sliding glass door. With all this talk of Fresnel distance and obstacles in the path, etc, what's up with the walls? How much signal am I losing by going through the walls? If I put my power-station 2 (or whatever) inside the house as opposed to mounted on the outside, how much of the signal strength am I really losing? Are trees more of a show-stopper than the walls of a house because they contain water?

Thanks.

-J

Of course fiber is routinely installed here because telcos must carry massively higher data rates. If telco data rates do not significantly exceed 3G phones, then telcos are out of business. Copper would only provide same data rates - which is much higher than the OP wants. Fiber is cheaper when data rates must be so high. Copper is inexpensive, reliable, and more than sufficient when the OP only want those low data rates.

Meanwhile a directional antenna experiment also may be fast enough, less expensive, and requiring less labor.

Which is why all new network cards and all hardwires networks in buildings use fiber optics? Oh? Why is Ethernet routinely installed in copper - not in fiber? Why is the next generation network - Cat 6

- in copper? Because fiber optic cables are too expensive and provide no advantages for such slow data rates. Where do telcos install fiber? Only where significantly higher data rates are required - ie television, telephone, and internet all on once cable.

Why do all fiber optic (FIOS) installations route copper from a FIOS interface box? Why does it not use fiber to every computer and television? Because fiber is too expensive and provides no advantages. More expensive fiber does not even improve reliability.

Why do network cards use copper interfaces - not fiber optics interfaces? Again, fiber costs too much and provides no advantages.

Meanwhile, a solution that costs the OP less than fiber or copper AND requires less labor features a directional antenna. Fiber being the most expensive solution that provides no advantage over copper. Even telco fiber optic installations instead use copper for those slow network data rates. Fiber is installed only when data rates must be significantly higher.

JJ fired this volley in news:049e72f5-afe7-4eea- snipped-for-privacy@m22g2000vbl.googlegroups.com:

At the distance you're talking about, the PS-2 units would probably work through two walls, but why? They are (despite our most-wise commentor's statement) built to be weatherproof, and have proven to be (so far) through several strong side-ways-blowing thunderstorms we've had here.

They aren't 'consumer crap', being at least a couple of notches higher than that on the quality-of-construction scale.

Also, John or Jeff are more knowlegable than I am about obstacles, but my sense is that a single 3" trunk in the line of sight will not prove to be much of a limitation, unless it were smack up against the antenna. I think that the 6'-8' width of your corridor would be more so, but I still think you'll be fine at that short a shot.

LLoyd