Slashdot Mirror
On Networking Two (Or More) Houses?
An Anonymous Coward offered this curious query: "A friend of mine lives four houses down from me. Of course, we're both flaming geeks, and have gotten it into our heads to network our computers over this distance. We've tossed around a few ideas, such as a few of the available wireless kits, or stringing up Cat-5 along with the phone lines. The problem is, we haven't found anything that can send a signal far enough, or else the process of connecting our houses together with wire would surely leave us electrocuted, and in jail. Anyone know of something that might work?" Interesting thought. Shaking my Magic 8-ball for an answer, it responds: "Possible, but solution may be expensive."
If you just want to bridge one network to the other, perhaps a card and a ethernet bridge is your solution.
The PlayaNet project has some good pointers on 802.11 hardware, including antennas, even though their focus is Burning Man and not your residential neighborhood...
Putting copper on poles is a horrible idea. Sticking it in the ground isn't much better. One lightening strike and you've fried both ends of the connection.
My company built its new office building right next to the old one. For several months, we were working out of both. As such, we had to drag the phones and network between buildings. Initially, we were going to pull a 600-pair cable between the building for the phones. (A big fsking cable, by the way.)
After a couple hours of talking it over and hearing horror stories from our telecom guy, we went with fiber at nearly double the cost. Living in Florida, the lightening capitol of the world, it made sense.
If it were me, I'd go wireless. Using 3COM AirConnect, you can get 11mbps at 300 feet and less at more. With fancy ears, you can get even more range.
Of course, if you don't go wireless, think about fiber in the groud encased in interduct. That will be more expensive but is far better than copper.
Your best bet may be generic ADSL with a VPN though I doubt that would be nearly as satisfying to your geek urges.
InitZero
First, measure the distance accurately. 10baseT has a 100m (328 ft) nominal distance limit. In the city, that would span 4 houses easily. Are you in the 'burbs? You could try pushing it a little if you use good-quality solid conductor cable. If you only need 2x, and can bury pipes, you could run 120VAC to the middle of the run and install a hub as a repeaer.
10base2 (thin-net, cheapernet) is readily available and has a 185m distance limit. (Note that even point-to-point, you MUST use a T-connector and a terminator at each end, unless you get a hub with built-in termination.) Again, repeaters are possible, although they're getting hard to find at good (mass-market) prices these days. 10base5 (old-fashioned thicknet) goes 500m. It's a pain to work with, and you need a good electronics junk shop to find the components cheap, but if you can find a long enough piece of the appropriate coax, you'll be cruising.
If you can't find 10base5 cheap (any high-tech companies that have been around for a long time might have a pile of components in a back room somewhere), then fiber is the cable of preference.
See what you can find, then ask a networking Old Hand how much you can push the specs. You can probably manage some. With low-loss well-shielded coax you can probably push 10base2 close to the 10base5 spec, since you don't have a bunch of intermediate nodes on the cable messing things up - it's just one straight clean cable. (Obviously, avoid kinks in the cable, get the connectors on the ends really well, and so on.)
Another alternative is to use a couple of DSL modems. That can go a heck of a long way over twisted pair. Although it's not as fast as ethernet or even some wireless solutions, they are getting pretty cheap. You can sometimes get them discounted from folks who want to sell you DSL service.