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Wireless Dilemma at Newton's House?

Posted by Cliff on from the tricky-networking-techniques dept.

netean asks: "Woolsthorpe Manor, Lincolnshire, Uk (Birth place and Family Home of Sir Isaac Newton) has an interesting problem that may also be facing many historic buildings around the world. 4 Buildings less than 100 metres/yards apart. All are built from stone or brick and they need to be networked together, somehow. Ideally wireless looks the least disruptive and best option, but it is a Grade 1 listed building and that means no external antennae or high gain aerials are allowed anywhere visible. So will any wireless solution ever work in such situations?"

"The alternative approach just seems silly:

Proposed: Add another 128k ISDN line and 2 ordinary phone lines in one building (for office use) install 2 phone lines in another building (for other use) and continue using the existing 128k line in another building (used for free public internet access) - the network option would come from using the Internet and a VPN (the 4th building wouldn't be connected in this scenario). Hard line (cabled) ethernet cannot be used as it will be both be too expensive and involve digging underground which is not allowed.

Being a charity, The National Trust (the owners) aren't going to invest in some experimental wireless kit that might not work. But surely someone out there in the Slashdot community can help to ensure that it will. It must be possible, surely?"

8 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. Better do some homework first. by Matey-O · · Score: 4, Informative

    If a half dozen cubicle walls can drop WiFi to background noise, I have _no_ _idea_ what stone walls would do.

    Can you beg borrow or steal a 2.5 Ghz cordless phone and see how well it works?

    As far as exposed antennae, 802.11 basestations get along with 6" antennae. My unit works a good 1500 feet out the back of my house (wood structure) the unit sits on top of the Fridge, and there are quite a few windows on that side of the house.

    Place the basestation on somebody's desk with a good view of the other buildings. I'll bet it'll jump the gap.

    A card is less than $100, a Basestation is less than $180(us), have some fun running aroung the campus with netstumbler, it's good for a few days exercize.

    --
    "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
  2. In the rooves! by Chmarr · · Score: 3, Informative

    On the assumption that you can't concentrate a 802.11 signal strong enough to punch through the brick walls...

    I seriously doubt the roof is made of brick, too :) Assuming that the rooves are slanted, it would be no effort to put a high-gain (directed) antennae in the roofs to point to one or two other buildings. It might even be possible to use omni-directional antenna, and cut down on the number of antennae needed.

    There are also 802.11 amplifiers available. In the US, you're allowed to pump them up to 1W before the FCC come knocking. That should be plenty, even with an omnidirectional rather than directional amtenna.

  3. Read the posting, dumbass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Digging is not allowed.

  4. Re:Dry Pair DSL by jimmcq · · Score: 3, Informative

    Unfortunately, digging underground is not allowed.

  5. Re:Meters or Yards which is it?? by Zwack · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually 1 Metre is 1.09 yards... Close enough for a rough estimate.

    Britain (not just England) uses SI units for most things...

    Though for beer we still use pints... And not those American 16 ounce pints, but real imperial 20 ounce pints. And speed is usually in Miles per hour... and distances in miles...

    Z.

    --
    -- Under/Overrated is meta-moderation, and therefore is Redundant.
  6. Easy! by mstrebe · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is an easy problem. 2.4GHz sees through Windows like they're made of glass. Just get a pair of linksys WAP11 WAPs with the stock dual antennas, configure them in bridge mode, and place them in the windows of the various buildings such that they have a clear view of one another. These devices run about $170 in the U.S., and are trivially easy to configure. I've used them for building-building at distances >100m without external antennas and had no issues.

    --
    aka Matthew at SlashNOT/!
  7. I live in Lincolnshire and have this to say... by wackybrit · · Score: 4, Informative

    If there are existing phone lines, is it not possible to set up some sort of VPN over DSL that does not require the addition of more phone lines?

    MWAHAWHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWAHWHWWA HWA WHAHWA WAHWHWAH WAHAWHWAHWAHAW HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

    *wipes the tears from his eye*

    DSL in Lincolnshire? You MUST be kidding right. Anyone who wants broadband in this farming hellhole has to pay $1500 to get satellite installed, and then a nice $120 per month to BT for 512kbps downstream and 256kbps upstream!

    That said, Boston, Louth and Sleaford have DSL in the town centers, but that'd be like only Dallas and Austin having DSL in Texas.

    To put it bluntly.. BT are a bunch of cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life,snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless,hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sacks of monkey shit who couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery.

    --
    mogorific carpentry experiments
  8. Re:Pictures of the house, a solution... by hughcharlesparker · · Score: 2, Informative

    We had a similar problem, linking two buildings just over 100m apart, one of which is grade 1 listed. We linked them using 802.11b, using Cisco Aeronet. On the non-listed side is a yagi and on the listed side is a small flat aerial inside a window. It's been in for a couple of months now, and we've had a solid 11mbps connection for the whole time.