Slashdot Mirror
Parent-Friendly Wireless Bridge To Span 500 Meters?
GonnaBRichYeahYeah! writes "My dad lives down a dirt road 500 meters off the main road. The cable company will not put cable down his lane for any less than the ridiculous sum of $10,000.
And he cannot get phone line DSL since he is so far away from the central terminal, so he relied on painful 22k/sec dial-up for access to the Internet.
He got sick of it and relies on Hughes satellite Internet, at $60/month, but he still has to be connected to a phone line to upload to the Internet. It's not a good solution, but better than dial-up.
His friend lives on the corner of the main drag with his lane and has cable, thus hi-speed Internet.
I suggested that he get a wireless access point, and put it at his friend's house and then get a wireless card for access. The problem is that no wireless routers go that far (max range of -N is 200 feet) and WiMax is too complex for a 70-year old man. Any suggestions from Slashdot crowd would be helpful." Plenty of people make wireless links over longer distances, but often they're not suited for people who want simplicity and reliability. What's the best out there right now?
Supplies:
Hoe (one per helper)
500 meters of heavy duty conduit
500 meters of cable (recommend that you lay fiber at the same time)
Solution 1:
1a: Dig a long trench from the cable termination point down the dirt road to your father's house
1b: Dig a long trench from "the closest neighbour with cable internet" down the dirt road to your father's hose
Ensure that the trench is at least 18 inches deep, roughly 8 inches wide
2. Lay 500 meters of heavy duty conduit. Ensure that you are threading your cable through the conduit all the way along. Attempting to thread the cable AFTER the counduit has been completed may prove to be problematic.
3a: Call the cable company to connect the cable to the cable termination point. Begin paying monthly subscription to cable internet provider.
3b: If you've chosen to run the connection to your neighbhour's home, ensure that you don't piss him/her off. They are now your cable internet provider.
4. Profit $$$
WiFi by longshot?
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Just get a proper directional antenna to replace the one on the router. Do the same for your neighbor and link'em together I got one when I was living back Prague and connected with a 200kb/s link to an access point about 300 meters away (that was the speed of the connection - not the actual link). Actually, it's quite common for people to construct neighborhood networks that way (well at least in CZ)
"WiMax is too complex for a 70-year old man." At what age does WiMax dementia set in?
So why can't you just get a 500 meter long Ethernet cord? Is there a reason to insist on wireless for long distances?
I'd go with two APs with directional antennas configured as a wireless bridge. Hook up an ethernet cable to AP and its just like being connected to your friend's network. Albeit with a bit more latency.
If he needs wireless at home, I'd get 3 APs. 2 for the direct bridge, and another to broadcast at home.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/22/318-wifi-network-bridge-connects-two-locations-up-to-5-miles-ap/
Well, I suppose you could go out to your old man's place and install some high-power amplifiers, directional antennae, repeaters, etc. between your dad's friends place and his. Once the whole thing is setup, I've known it be fairly reliable
My blog
500 meters is about 1,640 feet. I do that to my parents place now. I just got two Linksys routers running dd-wrt and two good outdoor antennas. With dd-wrt I cranked up the radio output a bit and have no problem getting full throughput over about that same distance.
i would say hands down a ubiquity PowerStation or NanoStation if you can find it. They are dirt cheap for wireless links, very well built and have a great support forum. Configure once and walk away.
-Joe
Network Administrator for a medium Wireless ISP.
Check local legislation. Where I live, the government must provide electricity, water, and telephone service to any legal building built, no matter how far into the boondocks it is built. I don't know if the law specifically applies to high-speed internet access, but I'm fairly confident that a good lawyer could make it seem that way.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
I live near lax, but my building has really old wiring and i can't get dsl at this location, but i'm a mile from the office and once on the roof i found i had line of sight. I bought two wireless access points from ascendance, I bought the heavy ones cause i wanted to use the high performance radios so i can get 100mbit. (i work for an isp and i was able to just bring it right into my colo. But if you get http://www.ascendance.net/storefront/detail.aspx?ID=788 that should work two, you need two of them. Configuration isn't difficult, you set one as an AP and the other as a client, set your encryption and static /30 ip. and aim them at eachother. All done. On average with the standard radio you can get 20mbits up and down, and its solid enough to put voip calls over. The max range is just under 5 miles, that should cover you.
Hope that helps.
Linksys (I don't know about others) come with a standard antenna port. With a directional, high-gain antenna pointed at your dad's house from the neighbor's, you could probably make the connection. Worst case, you might need to get some custom firmware and turn up the transmission strength a tad. (I suggest Tomato.)
Look up "coffee can wifi antennas" on google. This will make it cheap and "easy."
Resistance is futile. Your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. You will become one with the morgue
You can buy or build a cantenna. They're illegal. But with a bit of work and patience, they function well. I dunno if a simple can-based setup can handle half a kilometer (and if it can, it's going to need a good solid connection to the house to keep it aligned) but I do know that a cantenna operated at the focal point of a used satellite dish will work fine up into the several kilometer range.
They're really cheap to build. You generally need to find reverse-polarity RF connectors to hook to the card in the computer. Digikey.com, newark.com, and mouser.com all sell reverse-polarity rf connectors. Traditionally people put n-type rf connectors on the antenna but that's a pain: I built mine using a bnc bulkhead connector on the can, and a rp-sma-to-bnc converter connector on my wireless adapter card, and just ran bnc cable from one to the other.
Mine only runs 40 meters through a couple of walls. Hopefully other people will correct this if it's the wrong solution for 500 meters.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Have you seen these? I think they would require LoS for maximum efficiency, but it's worth a peak. You could use two directional high gain antennas and point them at each other if LoS is nearly there... But bear in mind that nothing about their doc requires LoS, just that we all know it works better if there is.
http://www.hawkingtech.com/products/productlist.php?CatID=32&FamID=58&ProdID=133
2^3 * 31 * 647
Put old b mode and two directional antennas. I write this over such 11 mbps link over 3km distance
I suggest learning about antennas.
Wireless access point at each end, directional antennas, wifi goodness ensues.
I've done 1000 meters with simple patch antennas and wrt54g routers running dd-wrt to create a wireless ethernet extension. Only heavy rain will drop the connection.
Otherwise look up the laser types. there are hundreds of websites on how to do this simple and common task.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There is an article at engadget about this sort of thing. It requires line-of-site, but I'm sure you could manage that.
Link to the Article
Hope this helps.
Set up your own DSL.
Buy two modems (a CO and a CPE), set them to bridge mode, and use the existing phone line to call your neighbors modem from your modem, which is then hooked up to his cable.
Course there may be some phone line finagling, depending on the company.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I'm just about to the point where I hate wireless, but for a non-commercial shot like this, mikrotik should work well. You could get into it for 300.00 - 600.00 for a couple of units configured as a wireless bridge.
I recommend using Ubiquity sR2 or SR5 mini-pci cards...and ground everything especially well.
Mikrotik boards run Linux and are extremely roboust and feature rich. But you can follow this wiki and have a transparent bridge running in no time flat:
http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Transparently_Bridge_two_Networks
We use mikrotik a lot in a wireless WISP situation. If someone thinks they are going to throw a bunch of this stuff hundreds of feet in the air and make a lot of money doing wireless Internet, they are in for a wild ride...that ends somewhere between hairloss and a straight jacket...but I do something almost exactly like what you are wanting to do with your father using Mikrotik, and it has worked very well and wasn't super expensive.
Again, ground everything as best you can, and use directional, not omni antennas (cheap omni antennas often have grounding issues than can pop the radio card really easy).
See also: wisp-router.com
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
I know these look pricey, but they're worth it (aka: save yourself the trouble of cheap indoor access points in a box). They have everything you need, all in a rugged outdoor enclosure. And yes, they run Linux.
SMC2891W-AG Wireless Outdoor Bridge
Data Sheet
Manual
-Karl
A rock record: http://www.instarmusic.com/
Just a pair of gain antennas at WiFi frequencies should do the trick. (Gain antennas also keep the clutter down from nosy neighbors who discover the wifi channel and attempt to get their own free wifi.)
Free / cheap construction articles are available on the web...
Here are a couple links. The second link shows a test resulting in a wifi signal (although poor) going 1.2 miles.
Coffee Can antenna
Cantenna test
I've heard of people using Tin Cans at both ends as an antenna - really cheep with not too much work - Look at http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html Have fun
Purchase two cans of Pringles (tm) chips. Eat chips. Insert Wifi antenna on each end into cans. Line up cans. Enjoy.
Regular Wi-Fi might still be an option. If you've got line of sight, grab a pair of wireless routers and attach directional antennas to them. Even 802.11 signals can go quite far if attached to correctly calibrated antennas, as shown by the now infamous "Cantenna".
Buy an Access Point with a DETACHABLE antenna. Replace the antenna that comes with the access point with a directional flat panel antenna (14 dBi or so) On the client side: Buy a 802.11 card with DETACHABLE antenna, replace the antenna with a directional flat panel antenna (14 dBi or so)
If you gave a little more info. If you have line of sight then its no problem at all just buy 2 routers that can be flashed to DD-WRT. (I suggest the Asus WL-500G Premium or the Linksys WRT54GL I own both and they both work like a charm just make sure you buy the right connector Asus: rp-SMC/linksys: rp-TNC)
After you figure that out go to http://www.hyperlinktech.com/familylist.aspx?id=146 or where ever you want to get an Antenna.
my guess is your going to want to grab the 24db one seeing as how the 30 jumps quite a bit in price. after that mount them both with line of sight connect everything up and you should be good to go. If you don't have line of sight then its going to depend on whats in the way if its possible at all.
There are companies out there who will do a professional job of installing fixed-wireless from point A to point B.
You may want to pay your neighbor for a utilities easement to either run a cable down his property or install point A for fixed-wireless on his property. Then, pay the cable company as normal for them to connect Point A to their hookup. You will also need to get electrical service. The up-front costs won't be cheap but it will be a lot less than $10K.
If there are several neighbors affected, you may want to form a co-op or contract with a company who will own the easement.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Supplies:
1 or 2 Satellite dish(es)
Transmitter: A Wireless router at your house
Receiver: A Wireless router or wireless card with external antenna at your dad's place
A reasonable line of sight.
Place the antenna of the receiver at the point of the satellite dish where the LNB would be (lashing the antenna onto the LNB should do for a test). Aim the dish toward the wireless router at your house.
If you can't get a good signal, you can set up another dish at your house, with the antenna of the router mounted at the LNB, to point directly at the receiver.
For the distances you're talking about, this should work with the half-metre mini-dishes commonly used for TV and Internet access. People with giant C-Band antennas have set WiFi transmission records with similar setups.
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
All of the new Hugesnet installs have bi-directional to the satelight, so then you don't have to use the phone line. I think the up is 64kbps.
All of the Wifi sharing ideas are going to be against the TOS of the company that is being "shared"
If you've got line-of-sight between the two locations (or can acheive line-of-sight by mounting antennas on a mast), there's no reason why a couple of off-the-shelf 802.11 APs couldn't be adapted to provide connectivity. What you will need is a yagi (directional) antenna on each end of the connection, to direct your signal towards the other location while deafening the transceiver to other interfering signals. Yagis aren't cheap to buy off the shelf, but homebrew yagis can be made at a fairly reasonable price with parts from your neighborhood Radio Shack. Relevant info here.
You may only achieve 1-2Mbps rates, but it would be better than dial-up and satellite, and won't require the use of a phone line.
If you have line of sight between the houses, just connect some good antennas to standard wireless accesspoints (dishes for example) and put the antennas on the roof. You should be able to cross those 500m. Outdoor units would indeed help.
I did 1200m with two homemade can antennas (across a valley though). A few years ago, a suitable dish costs around $75.
What about getting one of those 3G-type cards that blackberry/iphone owners have? That seems to be a pretty good solution to this problem.
http://rftechnics.com/
Or build your own out of a couple Linksys WRT54GLs a DD-WRT flash and a couple beefy antennas...
Might save 10 to 20% of the cost that way, but this is weatherproofed and plug and play...
www.wildblue.com
It's 'old' technology (read: ebay), but for internet access, you could use two 10BaseT to 10BaseFL converters and a 500 meter run of fiber. The converter takes old 10 megabit ethernet and converts it to the optical medium and back.
You would need something to house it unless the cable is rated for outdoor use, but it wouldn't have to be expensive metal electrical conduit. The two biggest gains here are reliability and avoidance of differential ground issues.
The latter can be a killer in improper cable installations when thunderstorms cause the ground to get charged in different areas at several thousand volts with respect to each other. Equipment = zapped.
Research satellite dish antennas or cantennas. Both are cheap directional antennas (buy someone's used satellite dish) and of course you will want direct line of sight between the two antennas.
You could pick up a Proxim Tsunami QuickBridge 20. We use them on our campus, works great. They are good for up to 6 miles but do require line of site. You should be able to find on on eBay for less than $1000.
David
http://www.netscum.com/~clapp/wireless.html#results You could build yourself a directional antenna to span the distance...
~smith55js
Ordinary Wifi can easily go for quite a few kilometers if equipped with directional antennas (usually Yagis, what most people think of as "TV antennas") at both ends. If you get custom firmware such as DD-WRT for ordinary access points you can usually crank up the power closer to 100 mW (WRT54GL tops out around 80 mW from what I've read.) The legal limit in the USA at least is 1 W, so if you can get your hands on an access point with an amplifier (Belkin used to make them.)
The best of all is that the total solution ends up being pretty cheap. You *do* need line of sight between the antennas, however.
Buy two access points with external yagi antennas. Place one at pop's house and the other at the friends. Spend some time aligning the antennas. Secure the wireless connection using WPA. Start surfing.
Also, pray that the cable/dsl provider at your friends doesnt find out because their terms of service include not offering bandwidth to other residences.
If all the neighbors are nice, run a 1000base-LX link. Get a couple of media converters, and you have 10km worth of distance available. Just be sure to get any grounding correct so a lightning strike at one end doesn't fry everything at the other end (some direct burial fiber has metallic cores for strength).
When I first moved to my city, DSL and cable were not available. 6 years ago I started a job located about 4 miles away from my home, and they had a T1. Turns out my condo had radio line of sight to work. What I did was set up two Linux boxes on peer to peer wireless using Orinico cards since they had the jack for an external antenna. To those I hooked up the appropriate pigtails and LMR-400 microwave cable to the parabolic grid antennas on the roof of each location. After configuring Linux to handle the routing, bam I was the first guy in my city with broadband. Actually, I'm still running on it though cable and DSL is now available.
Now granted this was the old school way of doing it. The other problem was that I was using 75 feet of LMR-400 cable on each end to bring the signal from the antenna to my card. That's generally not a good idea since long runs of cable attenuate the signal, so it's always best to have your network equipment as close to the antenna as possible. But back then that type of stuff was hella expensive - Just between the grid antennas, the cards, the dongles, and the cables it came out to about $600. You don't even want to know what the network equipment would have cost, which is why I ran it on the cheap using Linux.
But now this stuff practically grows on trees. There are kits around that let you do long distance point-to-point hookups, but I don't know where to get them off the top of my head since I haven't researched it in awhile. You might want to start with Radio Labs to get an idea of the type of equipment that's out there. Bottom line is that if I can get a decent wifi signal from four miles away with a non-optimal configuration, you should be able to do 500m as long as you have line of sight. I think you should be able to get away with it for around $500 or less.
-R
We have a farm with a satellite set up at one of the houses, and a microwave wireless connection connects the other house. The system is "line of sight", and the other house is about 1500 yards away. I can't seem to remember the set up being all that expensive - certainly less hassle than running a wire all the way to the other house.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Sprint or Verizon offers it. I live in the country away from cable and DSL. I have a CradlePoint MBR1000 access point, a Novatel Express Card with EVDO Rev A and a directional antenna pointed at the nearest cell tower. Without the antenna, I get zero to 1 bars. With the antenna, I get 4 out of 5 bars. The house shares the connection and everyone downloads their YouTube videos and what not with no impact. The cost for unlimited with Sprint is $60 a month. I am EXTREMELY satisfied with the setup. An added bonus is that with a power inverter, I can take a road trip and power the MBR1000. Everyone in the car has high speed internet access while we drive. IT is an AWESOME solution.
Just use a pringles can to redirect the wireless signal.
BAM. It works.
http://www.g4tv.com/screensavers/features/40546/Pringles_Can_WiFi_Antenna.html
With his current satellite setup, the "phone line for upload" thing hasn't been true for years unless he's on an ancient plan with ancient equipment. For the same monthly price he can upgrade to the newer 2-way system if that's the issue.
If you have :-
:-)
1) Clear line of sight.
2) A soldering iron (and know how to use it *properly*)
3) Basic metalwork skills.
4) Spare time **LOTS**
http://ronja.twibright.com/
"Ronja is a free technology project for reliable optical data links with a current range of 1.4km and a communication speed of 10Mbps full duplex."
10 Megabit free space optical complete with designs & pcb layouts.
Can't get more DIY than this
My first suggestion would be to contact your local armature radio club. Someone there will be familiar enough with 802.1x to help you. Directional antenna's shouldn't have an issue reaching that distance, especially if it's line of site. As far as building your own antenna, you can find many options out there on the internet. I would suggest the N-type connection over a BNC connector (less signal loss at that frequency =) ) I'd be happy to help as much as possible, if I you require more from me: feel free to message me... ~ 73 kd7tag
Why not use a wireless modem from AT&T or Verizon? http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneDetail&selectedPhoneId=3324
Let A = cost of beers for able-bodied friends
B = cost of equipment (free because you already have it? Power tool rental?)
C = cost of submitting a request to the county
D = cost of cables, conduits, etc that gets buried.
If A + B + C + D $10,000 that the cable company is quoting, then it's a good deal. If it gets a permit and is all done to code there's nothing the cable company can sue about... especially since he'd just basically extended their infrastructure at no cost to them.
There's always inviting a cell tower to be built on your property. In such a case the cell companies would wind up buring some kind of infrastructure anyway to support it. When that happens, call again and all of a sudden, wouldn't you know it, you've got cabling all up to practically your doorstep.
More Twoson than Cupertino
You can buy a couple of Tranzeo TR-SL2-15 Radios for a little over $300 and be done. Range~3-5 Miles line-of-sight. Check out rflinx.com for some commercial radio options. It's where I buy all my stuff. Though, I also live only 30mins from them, so I can pick up to skip out on shipping charges.
Use a political trick (right of way) worked for me!
Cable companies need to cut across property sometimes that they have no municipal rights to do without compensation. Othertimes they desire to erect and maintain radio towers on land that they do not outright own.
I had the SAME problem, 15,000 to 10,000 to run a line to one house in the middle of 40 unserved homes.
But we knew the people that had a soon to expire lease that Comcast Cable in Michigan needed to renew and offered to PAY them to say "no, not unless you also run a line down that street"
It worked!
Nothing else would have worked.
maybe a verizon broadband access card? they sell it in usb format too... 5GB monthly cap is kinda small though so it might not suit your needs.
https://tranzeo.com/
For 500 meters, you can use the 802.11a or 802.11bg ( TR-5a series and TR-6000 series respectively ) without too many problems, as long as you have good line of sight. If there are a few trees, then the 900MHz stuff might be a better idea, but if there's a forest or a lot of buildings between your friend and your dad, you're boned. Just make sure that regardless of what kind of radio you get ( and regardless of what manufacturer you buy from ), use an antenna with as narrow beamwidth as you can get, ESPECIALLY for the 900MHz. For a point-to-point install, omni antennas are not your friend. Yagi or dish antennas might be a bitch to setup, but you'll have very little noise or interference.
Disclaimer: yes, I work for this company, but I really don't give two hoots if you use our stuff. Just make sure you get the right equipment ( ie: NO OMNI ANTENNAS ). I can't believe how many people think that omni antennas are a good idea ( especially for 900Mhz, ouch ).
God is dead -- Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead -- God
Zombie Nietzsche lives! -- Zombie Nietzsche
Check out http://www.connexwireless.com/Q-Bridge/about/
I've been using the Q-Bridge for over a year now without any issues. I use it to bring the internet to an outbuilding just over 1 mile from my house. It was very simple to set up.
If your Dad and his friend have line of sight and if your Dad is willing to spend a little money, I recommend Trango radio's. I worked for a company in town that did rural broadband with Trango radios and they are stable.
http://www.trangobroadband.com/
I would recommend getting in touch with Trango and talk about the hardware needed to pull off this job. I'm pretty sure, with the distance, you would need the Atlas FOX model radios.
New radios can be pricey, so be sure to hit up EBAY.
Good luck!
http://www.allometry.com
...but I can't even parse the first sentence.
Does anyone proofread anymore?
Get 2 Linksys WRT54GL rounters, one for each site, and replace an antenna on each with a Hawking [HAO14SDP] directional antenna, and align them to point at each other. Might be best to roof mount the antenna, but aligning them will be the hardest part. You might only need to buy one of the directionals and get an omni for the other antenna at the other site, and rely on the directional to make the connection. I own one of the directionals and it is in my "travel kit", i.e., whenever I go on the road, I have a laptop, a WRT54GL, and the 14dBi directional and do a quick scan around where-ever I am so I can get on the web for a quick fix if the hotel/friend/etc., doesn't have a network connection.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
build a small building at the edge of the property to house the dmarc from telco. use solar power and battery to run the dmarc router.
bury fiber optic cable from the dmarc building to the house and run ethernet over the fiber. multimode should be fine.
The guy who serviced my house had what looked like a big pizza cutter on a stick. It buried the cable about two inches deep.
Conduit is neither required nor used for cable and phone in a residential setting. If you break it you patch it. This is simple and low cost.
Talk about timing! This was announced today! Basically outdoor wireless access point with built-in hi-gain directional antenna. $358 is more than many people are willing to pay, but last I checked it was a lot less than $10,000 ;-)
Or at least there used to be. Hawking used to sell a line-of-sight wireless bridge with a 1.5 mile range. I recall pricing it out at em around $300 to connect to a friend's home, but we never did it. They are about the size of a milk carton. Just connect them to a wireless router, and a range extender, and you are set.
It's been said; but, just so that it rises above the noise... Get a couple of good directional antennas, and a couple of decent wireless routers and your set.
Maybe a 300 year old cottage? Just asking...
Just put several access points along the way, hook them up to a solar battery.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
... is the answer. You could easily build a couple of directional reflectors with cheap USB WiFi dongles and common "cookware". Here's a link: http://exe64.com/mirror/wokfi/
SeqBox
I used microwave link style setup for almost 3 years and it worked rather well. The cost is rather reasonable usually. It was 25 a month for 1.5mbit/384kbit. Just might save the headache for you and the old man ;)
Hughes has a bi-directional setup. We bought and installed one at my parents' house during Christmas. I think it was $300-$400 for the equipment and is $59 a month.
It seems to work fairly well (no tech calls from them since it was installed). They no longer have a regular phone line since it was only used for dialup.
-JM
If you're going to pull 1500ft of cable as suggested by a few others, you can can get fairly cheap HomePlug powerline networking devices that can use that to carry a decent signal. I've connected 2 of the the old rev 1.1 devices through a pair of copper leads 400m long and they still had about 2/3 of their nominal throughput.
Also, getting 2 wireless ethernet clients that support adhoc connectivity and connecting them to Yagi antennas pointed at each other would be fairly simple.
If you have line of sight and you're one to tinker at all, there's also an optical link like RONJA
For cost and ease of setup, I'd go with the wifi. The wireless ethernet clients can be found at various retailers as can the yagi antennas. I'd imagine you could get away with spending less than $100 at each end, and once configured you shouldn't have to mess with it again. ZCom makes a Marvell based ethernet/wifi adapter that is rebranded by many companies. Runs off 5v which you could probably sneak down the unused pairs of your ethernet if you were so inclined.
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
I did this at my in-law's house. It involved running two Cisco Aironet 1410 wireless bridges (802.11a) with directional, parabolic dish antennae (21dB each.) The speed maxes around 54 Mbps, but that's more than enough for a DSL line.
dd-wrt running on WRT hardware (preferred buffalo WHR-G125)
2x router devices
directional antennas (point to point setup)
external mounts if needed
www.dd-wrt.com
latency is going to suck (100-200ms)
so you wont be able to get over 1000k a second, but definitely enough speed for any cable / dsl internet
Just run phone quality twisted pair (cat 3) if you have adjacent land or can get permission from any adjacent land owners. Just buy low cost VDSL Ethernet bridges, they can be obtained for less then $200. Also 2000 ft of cat 3 can be obtained for less then $200 (just bridge two 1000ft spools vdsl doesn't care).
Then go aerial, affix the cat 3 to a wire (for support) and put a 10 ft pole every 10 meters or so. Aerial is most likely the easiest to install, maintain, and upgrade. It also allows for the running of coax for a future cable tv install that will require additional amplification to reach your fathers house.
The nice thing about running cat 3 is vdsl has a nice upgrade path to 100 mbps and beyond.
When you're running conduit, it makes sense to run a string through it at the same time. That way you can pull another cable (and another string) through later if needed.
Or you can apparently do this....
I Cringley article on hopping a wifi signal over a mountain.
I did this exact thing with my own dad (who is 92) and lives about a mile away, not exactly line-of-sight (some trees in the way), but still no issues with access. Purchased parabolic antenna and LMR-400 cable from Fleeman Anderson & Bird (www.fab-corp.com). They will also crimp the required connectors for you. Used DLink 2100's for each end of the bridge. Has worked without interruption (except for occasional power loss of course) for almost 4 years. I've used the DSL/Cable speed test from either end (he shares my cable connection) and there's no difference in download or upload speed. Cost about $800 at the time (2 antennas, 2 50ft cables with connectors, 4 2100APs -- I wanted wireless access on both ends for laptops), but he's covered the cost by now from a cable connection that he would only use occasionally. Oddly, the 2100APs as access points don't work that well (compatibility, and a microwave oven that killed 2 of them), but as bridge ends, they've worked perfectly (out in the garage in the cold, heat and dust) for years.
K.
Chinese cookware and a USB WiFi will do the trick:
http://www.usbwifi.orconhosting.net.nz/
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
get a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54, burn dd-wrt on it, and one of those antennas:
http://www.hyperlinktech.com/productfamily.aspx?id=295
(of course, to get 30 miles you need a pair)
You should look into Wild Blue satellite Internet access. It is a two-way satellite connection with 1.5Mbps download speed. Much better than one-way with dial return. http://www.wildblue.com/
If you have line of sight from roof to roof or from a TV antenna mast on either side: Buy 2 old linksys WAP11 v2.2 on ebay, 2 RP-TNC to N pigtail adapters, 2 flat panel or yagi 2.4GHz antennae and some 1" PVC pipe and elbows. Set WAPs to bridge mode. Disable unused antenna port on each device and connect antennae. Use some 1" white PCV piping to construct a basic antenna mount for each house unless you have a mast of some sort. If you use flat panel antennae, make sure you pay attention to the polarity markings and orient them the same on each side. You should be able to do all of this for about 150 bucks and have a reliable link for up to a few miles if you have clear line of sight. The high gain directional antennae are the key. Binoculars are handy when adjusting the antennae. All this does is "extend the wire", so as long as you hook the link into the 'router' on the broadband side, your Dad's PC will be directly connected his friend's network. The bridging mode makes it transparent and keeps it simple.
Get a pair of cisco 1200's on ebay.
(You should be able to get them under 60.00 each)
Get a good pair of outdoor antennas.
Should be good to go.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
Put in 2 cables while you are there. If the first breaks then you hav a second. More money up front but less if it breaks. Consider this as an insurance premium.
Firstly, Hughes no longer requires a phone line for upload -- I have HughesNet right now and use it for up/downloads.
I tried extending my service to my neighbors -- I found that 900mHz radios worked better than the usual 802.11 frequencies but still had trouble penetrating trees and foliage at about 150yds let alone the claimed 1mile. Almost anything works fine if you truly have line-of-sight but otherwise look for 900mHz equipment. Good antennas help but are not a panacea.
You can put in your own DSL link. The costs for the modems is much higher than for the usual telephone DSL but a lot less than $10,000. You can then use one- or two-pair wiring to make the connection. Another option is using coax.
Wh7y would the cable company sue? He said nothing about violating contracts by reselling access. One house, two connections. One just happens to go an extra 500 meters away, but that's on the customer side of the hookup. One contract, one household.
The cable and conduit would carry some costs, but probably not $10,000.
Doing a quick search for "2.4Ghz horn antenna" will turn up a number of inexpensive to buy, or -very- inexpensive to build horn antenna designs. For a fixed installation like this, a horn is a better bet than a Yagi and more effective than a Cantenna.
.5M apperature horn across several miles to a standard AP. It just takes a wireless network card with an external antenna adapter.
For a 500M shot, a cheap access point and a good antenna should have you covered as long as you've got a reasonably clean line of sight.
You can do it with a single antenna, or go for even better signal and use one at each end of the link. I've routinely been able to get decent link speeds with a
Total cost:
Cheap AP - $50
Built horn - $15 - $50 (each)
Bought horn - $50 - $500 or more.
Now, using a high gain antenna is technically against FCC regulations, but unless someone actually complains it won't matter. Given the situation, it's unlikely the FCC would do more than say "please take that down" even if they did get a complaint.
Cheers,
Bagheera
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
A couple of WiFi access points. Make sure they have the little "rubber ducky" antennas.
Build four of these:
http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/
and apply to the antennas...note the increase in signal level when properly aligned!
Important thing here is the parabolic shape and metal film (I used foamcore and aluminum foil)
If that doesn't work well, the trench is a lot of work, but will be worth it in the end. Ditch Witch is the only way to go here. Conduit is good. 1500 feet is a long way to go for ethernet, but since you will be using full duplex, there won't be any collisions and you'll be fine.
Just use a half decent router (a hacked linksys would be nice, so you can play with the xmit power settings), two can-tennas (buy for 20 bucks or make them yourself, no great skills necessary) and line-of-sight (could put the antennas on the rooftop, or up on a mast)
A company called Trango Broadband manufactures radios that broadcast at 900mHz. These radios work very well for non line-of-sight wireless connections . I have personally seen these radios establish a solid non line-of-sight link at about 3 miles.
least the stores that have tool rental.
Does he have cell phone service at his home? He could purchase a fixed wireless terminal and use the cell phone network to connect to the internet.
Granted this won't be as quick as broadband, but it can reach speeds around 200kbps with a GSM/Edge based cell network, it's doubtful that he has 3G in his area yet.
Then all he would have to do is get a SIM chip and pay the cell phone company for a plan that includes unlimited data transfers.
has anyone suggested setting up a Cantenna yet?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Didn't we see a similar story recently?
Yup, right there.
I mean, I know this is slashdot, so the editors can't be asked to screen stories. But couldn't the audience do a little looking?
To answer the question: Get an EVDO adapter. The speed is reasonable. If he can get Cable Modem access 500 meters away, chances are he's within a cell phone tower.
500m should be fine over single mode fiber. Not exactly the cheapest solution... but way cheaper than 10k.
I used to do this for a living. Our longest stretch was about 11 miles. You need to have LoS (Line of Sight). If you don't there are other options too.
For LoS: www.tranzeo.com - look at their 2.4GHz line
With mild obstruction: www.tranzeo.com - looko at their 800Mhz line.
Hope this helps.
Check out tranzeo or peplink, they do wonders. I have used tranzeo before, and it is one of the best, but peplink has some good equipment.
Your Dad's out in the middle of know where.
This cable is only going to be in place 5 maybe 10 years max.
I'd just run it across the ground. To hell with the regulations, odd's are no one will ever know or care.
I have also found that lawn mowers will pass right over an Ethernet cable, and lawns will absorb them so they sink into the ground a bit and after a year are almost completely vanished.
And at a $150 replacement cost for the whole 500 Meter run (if you use good 100Mbps 8 Conductor Cat 5), who cares if it wears out or gets damaged.
If you use 4 conductor 24 gauge phone wire for 10Mbps Ethernet it's more like $75 for 500 Meters.
https://www.allelectronics.com/
Although at 500 Meters your getting near the limit, you may need to put a router 1/2 way between and run 12v to it. To act as a signal repeater. The router could just be stuck in a paint bucket with brick on it.
Hey it ain't pretty, but it will work.
The old 50 Ohm Coax RG58/U 10Base2 cables also work great too for this sort of thing, back in the day we had the storm drains & fence lines wired up with the stuff bringing 10 Mbps internet across our neighborhood in 1987!
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
Here's something I've always wanted to try, which I believe in theory should work, but I've never gotten around to testing.
Step 1: Hit up some buddies or a college or a dumpster or something for old DLS modems from previous installs which nobody is using anymore. Get two of the same make/model.
Step 2: Put one DSL modem somewhere with an ethernet connection, like plugged into a hub at a buddy's house.
Step 3: Put the other DSL modem somewhere where you want an ethernet connection.
Step 4: Run a plain-old low-tech copper pair from one location to the other, terminated the way a phone line is, and plug the two DSL modems into each other.
Step 5: Power everything up and see what happens.
As I understand it, you should have a low-budget homebrew point-to-point SDSL connection. But as I mentioned, this is all theorycraft, I have not actually tried it yet (though I have finished step 1).
He's 70. If he's Republican, tell him terrorists deleted the Internet. If he's not Republican, tell him the Republicans did it.
What? He's gonna argue with you?
You CAN make reliable antennas that work well out of a pringle can. Here is the link http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/448 However be aware that these are FAR from weather proof. Weatherproofing them should be relatively cheap, and if you don't want to do it yourself then I would recommend a directional antenna.
I would recommend (*)a pair of Lucaya M1214 wireless routers. About $250 total. They have a bridge option that should be pretty easy to configure, without using all the fancy StarOS routing features. I use this equipment in my WISP business, it is very good.
http://www.staros.com/store/
(*) my recommendation is based on assuming you have at least some LOS (line of sight) between the two spots. At 500 meters, a few trees should be OK. If it is dense woods, you would need 900MHz gear which costs more, and still might not work. (chainsaw?)
Oh, and why even mention WiMax? You know all the wimax gear out so far is in licensed frequencies, so it isn't something a consumer can get into. Plus the fact that the base station side costs at least $10,000. Really the wifi gear is very good, unless you are trying to support hundreds of customers off one tower.
Well, if each helper is getting a ho, the hoes might help dig if they're paid enough. It's hiring them that'll be the problem:
Ho, "Wanna date?"
you: "Well, yeah and help digging a ditch. How much for both?"
If the ho is an undercover cop, though, it may be not only illegal, but a problem with the police union - so beware!
Shit! It's hoe with an 'e'. Dammit, my reading comprehension has gone to shit!
I've done just this (wireless bridges about this length) several times for clients. I've used D-Link DWL-2100APs in bridge mode, and used D-Link ANT24-1400's mounted on masts on the roofs to provide the linkage. Unfortunately I don't think D-Link sells the ANT24-1400 any more, but it looks like NetGear has one that's functionally identical, see NETGEAR ANT24D18 ProSafe Indoor/Outdoor 14 dBi Patch Panel Directional Antenna http://www.provantage.com/netgear-ant24d18~7NETW01E.htm
"A gun is a tool, Marian. No better, no worse than any other tool. An axe, a shovel, or anything." Shane (1953)
Look into Motorola canopy. If you have line of sight, it's the best way to go. Little pricey, but the performance is worth it. Can get roughly 10 miles range if the LOS is clear.
Long ago I setup a two mile link between my work (a six story building) and my home using two 14db yagi antennas that look like two foot long by 3 inch PVC pipes with mounting brackets. These were connected to Lucent Orinoco Silver 802.11b cards setup in bridge mode through PCs. It worked GREAT.
These days, there are a lot of solutions out there. One he could try is to setup a router at his friends house and aim a Wifi radio through a yagi at his house from his friends roof. At home he needs a PCI card with external antenna jack that can be placed not too far from a roof top mounted yagi pointed at his friends house. Even expensive coax will eat up the antenna db gains in cable losses so the radios really must be close to the antennas. His best option might be to buy commercial outdoor ethernet to WiFi bridges designed with hi power amps and which come with Yagis or flat Phase Array antennas that place the radio right next to the antenna.
But for any of these options to work there must be line of sight between the two antennas with minimal foliage or buildings between them. If there are even a few large trees in the way or a large building, this will not work. If he doesn't have reasonable line of sight he could try 900mhz or 430mhz wireless radio links that better tolerate trees and buildings. Alternatively, he could use custom firmware on a few WRT54g's and have them form a mesh network where one of the routers is mid way between the two homes and all legs of the link have line of sight.
There are many providers of antennas and equipment for long range WiFi as well as 900mhz and 430mhz radio links. Google around.
Cheers,
SimBuddha
Get two Netgear WG602 v2 routers. Other models may work, but this is the exact model in use, so I know it works well. Take two and put them inside of some Rootenna outdoor enclosures. These routers will configure as a transparent bridge. We have two that are used as a backhaul between two hotels, and they have worked for several years without hardly a single glitch.
Also, I have no idea how well they hold up, but look at the Ubiquity Nanostations. We have some deployed and they seem to work well, but we haven't used them long enough for me to get a good feel for them. I do know the price is right, as the retail price is supposed to be around 80.00 per unit. They should be able to do a wireless bridge with no problems, and have connectors for external antennas.
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
I know the Powerstation 2 has already been mentioned, but there's also the Powerstation 5 if you want to avoid interference from nearby 2.4Ghz networks.
Both run linux and can do such a short distance really easily.
Additionally, the Nanostation 2 can do this distance easily, is much smaller and easier to mount on a pole, has LEDs for pointing, and is only $79. If you want to see what's inside of one, Metrix took one apart and put it on the blog.
Fiber optic is another possibility. Costs are about the same as for DSL but you don't have to worry about lightening!
$318 WiFi network bridge (HD26200) connects two locations up to 5 miles apart http://www.wirelessnetworkproducts.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1899&HS=1
What's a hoe?
Pick up wi-fi over absurdly long distances.
Simple to setup.
As below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WokFi
www.radiolabs.com has every antenna choice you would need. Combine that with the DD-WRT flashed routers to bridge the connection and you are good to go.
If you prefer, Radio Labs also has high-powered APs - 500mw I believe.
No need to get fancy, the answer is often the simple one.
Uh, you misread the post. The OP is clearly describing two houses, one connection. I think Comcast et al tend to frown on that, and it would probably violate the ToS.
http://www.ethernetextender.com/
Those devices run over dry pairs from the telephone co.
You can lease a dry pair from the telco generally for less than $5 a month.
A friend of mine installed for a shop that had cable that was outside of the 100M limit and it works well.
Ho: "For $20 I'll do anything you want."
Dad: "Here's twenty bucks, lay 500 meters of conduit to my house, b****!"
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
We are doing this using Nortel 7230 to extend Internet to a farm around 3 miles out in the country.
We are actually using 4 of these. We have one at the main office, one on top a barn that connects to another via wire, which connects to the farm. The farm is not line of site enough to make a direct hop.
We get 54Mb/s data rate, which equals about 6Mb/s usable bandwidth. It varies with storms & requires a lot of maintenance in the form of lighting replacements, realignment, etc.
Including UPS units, labor, running power, etc it cost us around $10,000 for this link.
You can try low end stuff and do the same thing. These are called wireless bridges. Google knows of them.
I have a bunch of clients in a remote valley (self-generated hydro, radiophones/skype) who are sharing a satellite connection via 802.11b. The setup is simple enough, a vanilla buffalo router connected to a line amp and omni monopole antenna raised 35ft at the highest residence--and at one edge of the reception area. Great. Farthest client is about 2km away across the valley, reception with a small panel antenna OK; worst reception is under the antenna (no surprise) and down the hill towards the river. Nine households and low budget (so setting up 9 direct antenna links too costly).
My question: would tipping the angle of the antenna towards the reception area improve the take-off angle enough to make a difference? No-one has given me a straight answer on this.
Anyway, I was surprised at how well this !cheap! system works when they asked me to check it out. It just needs some minor reception adjustments.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Our company just set up a WiFi network with Ubiquiti's NanoStation 2 (2.4GHz) and RFXtreme technologies. After using Motorola's Canopy the NanoStations are a dream, they are cheap (~$80) and are very user friendly and have an RF meter built into the physical unit for aiming. With the NanoStations we are getting a signal of -75dBm through trees at a distance of 4.5miles. I'm sure that the poster could use two NanoStations and get a link working @550meters for under $200.
Though more expensive, if there is a problem with hills/forested areas between the two neighbors, a series of range extenders might be useful. Electrical cabling or solar power might be easier given the lay of the land.
I have a friend who did this very simply with standard 802.11 base stations and a pair of parabolic directional antennae
Get two decent 802.11g access points that can be set up as a bridge, two high gain directional antennas, two 802.11 amplifiers, and whatever cabling and hardware you need to set them up. At 500m, you shouldn't have to work too hard to get the antennas pointed straight at each other.
I remember an open-source implementation of a system that communicated over long distancs using LEDs and optics. It consisted of a pair of tubes filled with LEDs and lens pointing each other connected to a network. I remember it worked very well and was very cheap, I do not remember the name of the project. Maybe someone knows what I'm talking about.
Multimode would be fine as well. Most multimode fiber setups are good for 2 km. Singlemode is good for 20-100 km (depending on the hardware at the ends) and supports much faster data rates, but the equipment at the ends tend to be more expensive. Cable costs about the same either way. The actual fiber is very cheap, it's all the cladding around it that's expensive. Direct-bury cable can cost over a dollar per linear foot, last I checked. You could use cheaper, less well-protected cable and take your chances if ~$1500 is a bit much to spend. (I haven't tried this myself, so I don't know how well it would work.)
Old media converters that convert copper ethernet to fiber ethernet can be had for cheap on ebay; you would need one on each end, and then you can just treat it like a really long ethernet cable. One caveat: fiber ethernet isn't backwards compatible like copper ethernet. If you have a 10mbps media converter at one end, and a 100mbps converter at the other, they won't be able to communicate with each other.
If there's line of sight, I would just go with a wireless solution, but fiber would be my second choice.
Novaroam is goddamned expensive though!
2 outdoor meraki units would be a cheap, reliable solution. The outdoor units come weatherproofed, POE, with 25 feet outdoor cat5 pre-attached.
If it's clear line of site you'll get the range easy. Meraki has two basic equipment types - standard and pro. There's a $100 price difference. Basically standard lets you whitelist 5 mac addresses, pro lets you have as many as you want, along with other features.
I have a half dozen meraki to do the 'last mile' to my house and for connecting some business clients. It's reliable and the range is impressive. I get about a half mile with my laptop to the nearest meraki - far longer ranges between meraki units. They're simple to setup, plug and play and a nice web admin.
it is NOT a required service.
some jurisdictions want to make it so.
they are lobbied to the point of death by corporations that don't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars to service one guy and two woodchucks out in East Noplace.
get two wireless routers and two external antennas, problem solved. pay your buddy's broadband bill.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Hie you to the eBay and look up some cheap Tranzeo outdoor 5.2Ghz or 5.8Ghz radios. Get 11Mbps (around 6Mbps usable) no problem at several miles, if you have line of sight.
Or for a really kick-ass system, find some used Trango Atlas radios with integrated antennas. 54Mbps signalling rate and I have two pair of them that are doing 20 mile (30km) links with external antennas.
...Steve
At 1400 meters range with a basic setup, you could take a look at RONJA. Don't count on it during rain or snow, though. And you'll probably need to clean the spiders out of the tube hood every once in a while. :-)
What kind of son is this guy??? If laying down wire was all my parents need for internet I'd do it in a heartbeat.
This one is a cake walk, you spend around $2000 and get a simple PTP link installed in either 2.4ghz or 5.7. You can use 900mhz if you have a lot of obstruction but that setup would be more expensive.
I use a rather simple and relatively inexpensive "cantenna" to cover almost that distance with no problems. There are even DIY instructions using a Pringles can. ......... RonC
http://www.cantenna.com/
Cheers
WildBlue is two way. $250 installed. {To June 30th]
No trenches. No cables. No conduits.
No expensive legal muck-ups over easements and rights-of-way. I'm betting at some point there will be a conflict.
When it comes time to lay new water and sewers lines.
Widen the shoulder and dig a new drainage ditch for the county road.
3b: If you've chosen to run the connection to your neighbhour's home, ensure that you don't piss him/her off. They are now your cable internet provider.
Don't even think about it.
There are ISPs which are agreeable to this sort of thing.
But - sadly - the trencher that accidentally snags your line will probably belong to someone else. 500 to 1000 meters of undocumented fiber is going to look a lot like theft of services.
We've done 5 mile links with a pair of *old* wallmount AT&T Wavelan bridges and proper antennas on 915 Mhz. Those units were 400mw.
Such antennas are cheap and small, too. Under $100 in singles at a number of companies with online ordering facilities.
A 24db skeleton-parabola can get you miles of range even without a high-gain antenna on the other end, and is about the size of a UHF TV antenna. (I know one guy who war-scans the business district of San Francisco with one - from his apartment deck in Berkeley. B-) ) With antennas on both ends you should be able to go with the little lozenge types.
To give you an idea of range: My Nevada house is about 5 miles from the cell tower where the local WiSP has its POP, with a directional antenna pointed generally my way. His customers normally use a lozenge antenna with built in AP mounted on an outside wall, and I'll probably do that when I sign up (because my computer room is on the far side of the house). But my picture window faces the tower and my laptop catches the ID beacon just fine sitting in my lap using the builtin antenna.
So for a half-mile putting an AP in each attic and even a low-gain external antenna on the roof or outside wall should do the job just fine.
Want a cheap do-it-yourself high-gain directional antenna? Get a big wok strainer (woks and their strainers are pretty good parabolas), put a USB-stick WiFI adapter on a USB extension cord, and mount it with its backside at the focus of the strainer. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Even new converters are cheap.
http://www.neteon.net/prod.aspx?clvl=4&c1=1&c2=4&c3=22&p=181
Fiber has many advantages over using copper.
I have a wireless connection thats over 400ft between two houses with two buffalo routers.
200ft is nothing....
Contact me if you want to know how at cowsgonemadd3 @gmail.com
Title is router or something like that.
Here in the planes of Colorado we use wifi with directional antennas for up to 40 miles.
I've never used one but a friend of mine in Denmark did and he said he was getting good wifi signals upto a kilometer away. Google "Slotted waveguide" and check it out, easy to build, cheap and they supposedly work really well. I don't know what the tree cover is around there, but it's a cheap, quick solution to test, and you can build a working test version out of cardboard and aluminum foil. If it works, you build one for real, if it doesn't, you haven't wasted too much time, effort or money testing it out.
Good luck.
I've got several Cisco bridges with antennas pointed at each other shooting 500'+.
You need amplifiers and all that good stuff, but it's certainly doable.
Most likely, assuming there giant trees in between, you can roof mount both and shoot them at each other (two parabolic antennas) and you're ready to go. If there is no line of sight, you need some roof mounted towers to get high enough that there is.
Just another ignorant American.
My friend did this a few years ago spanning 400meters with Linksys routers and directional antennas. He wrote-up a nice little how-to that he hosts. Check it out here: http://www.sonicspike.net/projects/wap11bridge/
Easy solution is to run a standard phone line down the length of the dirt track, attach a suitable ADSL router/bridge at either end and you are on the net.
Seriously, I did this 7 or 8 years ago to an outlying building where we had our office at the time. It worked a charm over existing standard telephone wiring. 8MB with no problems.
At the time the two DSL bridges probably cost $1000. They probably give them away today,
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=11859
Just "released", inexpensive bridge.
Y'all are hurting my brain. I have a friend who simply uses a mini satellite dish on a tripod on his patio for wifi, with no signal booster or anything at either end. And over approximately that same distance. If the antennas are good enough, it will work.
This embedded system, this wifi card, this antenna, a >= 64 MB Compact Flash card, and Pyramid Linux should solve that problem for you.
and a Pringles-can yagi -- you'll be fine. Possibly with good line of sight you might not even need the pringles can. Buy two, configure them to talk to each other -- wire one to the source home network with a static IP address, and hook the other up via a cross-over cable or a switch with down-link capability using a second static IP address (if the private space IP addresses for the first network are like 192.168.1.x, pick two IPs -- that's all it takes). Follow the instructions for the WAP 11 in bridge mode, in other words. On the switch or via the crossover cable on the down-side of the equation put a laptop or PC and configure yet another address (I'd opt for a third static IP, just to keep your network setup from failing due to dhcp requests not making their way back to the source). Test -- when working, transport the down-link WAP 11 to the final resting place and see if you can ping across the gap. If it doesn't work you may have to build the pringle's can into the mix. This all worked fine for me for years with two neighbors in the mix. Good luck, -=FeriCyde=-
-== FeriCyde Chat ==-
Umm WildBlue is hardly a solution. 1200ms ping times...let me rephrase that 1.2 second ping times and low usage quotas (7.5GB/mo) make it a non-starter. Wireless to a neighbor's should be really easy with a pair or directional antennas- you could even throw a parabolic behind a rubber ducky and hit 300 meters at 11mbit- I've done it over 2km at 100mw tx power.
You might have a look at Engenius's outdoor APs. A pair of EOC-3220s should work well. Cheaper than most outdoor gear, supports POE, stable (at least mine has been rock solid, I have the external antenna version). And it support bridging natively!
Cheers,
I just read this and may do exactly what you want. http://www.dailytech.com/Inexpensive+80211bg+WiFi+Bridge+Connects+Locations+Five+Miles+Apart/article11859.htm Mike
http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/05/22/bridge.links.wifi.for.5mi/
HD Communications Corp has introduced a wireless network extender system that allows users to bridge a WiFi up to five miles. The $318 HD26200 system, which requires direct line of sight, is a complete outdoor wireless network bridge in the 802.11 b/g 2.4GHz band that uses two high performance Ubiquiti network radios with integrated 17dbi dual polarity antennas. The HD26200 bridge is powered over ethernet, allowing a single outdoor CAT5 cable to bring both data and power to the radios.
"Since the introduction of WiFi radios people have tried to push the range of consumer level products by adding external antennas, RF cables, and WiFi amplifiers. The cost of those devices often totaled well over $500 and that was after they had already bought two D-Link or Linksys radios for $75 each," said Don Davis, President and CEO of HD Communications Corp. "Now they can have an FCC certified wireless bridge that will work better, look better, is easier to configure, and easier to install for less than $320."
On its website, the company claims that WiFi links can be established over distances of 50km (30 miles) based on clear, unobstructed line of sight in ideal RF conditions, but that typical links were between five and eight miles, short of its 5 mile claim in the press release. In addition, it said the system can provide significantly increased throughput (up to 50+Mbps TCP/IP).
The HD26200 does require a direct line of sight between the two locations; however, HD Communications says it has additional products for non-line of sight situations and promised to introduce additional wireless bridge solutions later this summer.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
Do some searches for Cisco 1300 series wireless APs. These are meant for outdoor usage and will do exactly what you are asking.
Do some searches on google for Cisco outdoor wireless bridge and also look around for cantenna designs on google (a lower cost alternative).
There are many documented accounts of the use of a Pringles can to construct a directional antenna. Rob Flickenger made one in 2001. Gregory Rehm did one in 2003 and was Slashdotted. G4 TV's Patrick Norton posted one in 2002 on The Screen Savers. Andrew S. Clapp has a lot of technical information on his website as well as several links to others. I wonder if he is, in any way, related to Eric Clapton.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
Why not use a cellular wireless internet card? All major carriers carry them. If he can get cell phone service, he can use them. (quick-googled)example: http://www.thetravelinsider.info/roadwarriorcontent/sierrawirelesscard.htm
Ever heard of this?
http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/448
This should work the desired distance. This is just a sample google hit. search for Pringles antenna or similar.
If you find a typo, you may keep it.
I don't have the details, but my dad did something similar to what you want, across an 8 mile span, and it works very reliably. In his case, he had clear line of sight due to being up on a hill and shooting to an access point he set up at a friends in the valley. He used a zzyyx router (cheap, has a bridge mode, and great support) at his end, some generic linksys or such at the other end, and a couple of directional antennas (dont remember the exact specs). Took a bit of tinkering to set up, but he gets better throughput than my cheaper DSL.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
"..Hughes satellite Internet, at $60/month, but he still has to be connected to phone line to upload to the Internet."
This is 2008, why would anyone have satellite service that requires a phone line? Why can't he get bidirectional sat. service? I'm somewhat in the same boat. I live waaay out in the boonies, no cable for many miles - not even TV, out a quarter mile long driveway so nobody is going to drag a line up to my house in the next decade (if ever). I've had sat. service (wildblue.com) for the past few years and am very happy with it. Much, much better than even 52k dialup. The latency is an issue but for most uses it is good. On-line gaming and skype don't fare so well.
" I suggested that he get a wireless access point, and put it at his friends house and then get a wireless card for access."
This would almost certainly violate the terms of service for his friend's ISP contract. You could spend a lot of time and money chasing the many technical solutions people have listed here only to have the ISP discover that there are two users on that connection and cancel his service.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
1 Buy two wrt 54g routers and directional antenas 2 flash dd-wrt firmware to rise output power from 100mw to 300w (it allows 1w) 3 configure 1st router as acces point (your neghborhud) 4 configure 2nd router as reciver (you) view http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/261/42/ Done !
Instead of "funny" this should be rated Score:-1, Self-important Persecution Complex.
Ronja (http://ronja.twibright.com/) may be an option...
If the man can get a cellphone signal, why not get an air card. He can use pay by use or unlimited. It is easy to set up and use and he can access the internet wherever a cell signal is provided.
You want two of these:
http://ubnt.com/products/ns2.php
Out door rated, $79 a peice. They are powerful, outdoor, directional access points. You can mount one outside of each home and point them at each other. With line of sight, they will easily do 500 meters. They will plug in ethernet on each side of the connection.
You may need to mount them high to get around trees and hills. It all depends. The higher you are, the better off you'll be.
I have personaly used these devices. They are amazing for the price. I'd pay double if I had to. Nothing comes close.
-Tripp
I thought they went to two-way satellite years ago?
Or you can do it yourself for $318
Wireless. Two access points set in bridge mode with two small directional antennas or one larger directional antenna. I can fire 802.11G over many miles with two direction 14dB gain antennas, and having one 14dB or two smaller ones will more than suffice, if there is line of sight.
If not, fiber that bitch. Make sure you can with regards to permits / easements. Get either an Outside Plant (OP) UV rated cable and bury it directly or ditch-witch you some conduit (1" will suffice) and you can run an Inside / Outside Plant fiber. Get at least a 4 strand and no more than a 6 strand fiber in case there are any problems. Buy two fiber media converters from Blackbox, http://www.blackbox.com/ item #LHC013A, pay a technian to terminate the fiber for you with a decent amount of service loop in case of a future move / service. Fiber will cost you $1,300, a tech and materials will cost you $275, ditch-witch rental and conduit will be $1,800, media converters will be a little under $400. I tech company can do it all for you but you will pay $75 an hour per man hour, probably around 25 hours or so.
Ethernet is only rated up to 100 meters for 10/100.
Last option: If the phone line running down there has a spare pair on it, use a couple of ethernet extenders or DSL modems.
What you need is the "HD26200" from "HD Communications". It costs US$318, an extends your WiFi range for up to 5 Miles.
The only requirement is that you have line-of-sight between the two end-points. If you do, all you do is connect on of these boxes on your friend's end, and then another in your home, and you're set.
See this link for details: http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080521005391&newsLang=en
I work for a WISP, and we have been using the Ubiquity PowerStation 2 or PowerStation 5 (2.4 or 5 GHz, respectively) radios for some time. He can get a 2.4 or 5 GHz model, well, a pair of them, and set them up as access point and subscriber module. They work well, we have used them for shots of several miles. If he gets the 5GHz model, he can set it up so other people cannot just get his bandwidth. They are flat panel outdoor radios, designed to be easily installed and configured. Simple GUI interface, and best of all, they run about $169 each. www.ubnt.com
We use this gear on our community wireless network (SeattleWireless) and I always recommend it. Don't waste your time with linksys hacks, non-waterproof cantennas that melt in the rain (believe me, i should know, it rains a lot), and cheap imitations.
belial's idea is cheap, effective, and reliable. I'd recommend a pair of nanostations, as i think a powerstation would be overkill. Can't go wrong for $80 a pop.
So i'd recommend a nice trench digger. Not sure why it needs to be 18 inches deep. Seems like overkill. I know water and sewer lines should be below the frost line, but cable?
Also, make sure you call the building department to make sure there are no important pipes/cables below already.
As an independent consultant, I have used the kit found here here to link 2 offices through aproximately 500 feet of thick underbrush in situations where right of ways could not be obtained for burying cable. Setup of the routers takes about 5 minutes.
Obviously, you should use a bunch of cantennas to carry the wireless signal
Klingon Software is not released, it escapes, inflicting terrible damage onto the enemy as it does
I did, however, recommend fiber. I said "at the same time", but I should have said "instead". From Wikipedia: Multimode fiber - typical trasnmission speeds are 100Mbit for up to 2km using 100BASE-FX As for the price of a fiber NIC: Form Lanshack: Unicom 100BaseFX Multimode FIber PCI Network Interface Card - Dual ST $108.50 each. Sure, it's not gibagit to the desktop, but it's not meant to be. It's to resolve an expensive problem with a relatively low-maintenance solution.
Take a look at the article from 'The Pulpit' from 2001.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2001/pulpit_20010628_000421.html
It cost him $1400 at that time, but things are much less expensive now.
I actually wrote a report on this topic a few months ago. With a wire-in-Pringles-can antenna and stock WRT54G on one end, we were able to maintain usable (5.5Mbps) link at 550m (~13dB gain over the stock). A structured cantenna pair should get you u to 2-3km, and if you're interested the WRT's can run off a car battery+solar panel.
You can build one of these things out of a sardine can, and if you hook them up to an old dish, you get a lot of gain. http://www.seattlewireless.net/index.cgi/SardineCanAntenna http://www.trevormarshall.com/biquad.htm
Get 2 of these. EnGenius EOC-3220EXT
Approx 140 a piece. Outdoor rated, comes with POE injector, and mount kits. Runs a 400mw with an external 5 db omni.
Will work like a charm.
I'm suddenly having a flashback to an episode of Studio Sixty .... http://www.studio60-guide.com/113-harriet-dinner/.
This is a boring sig
If you are in a place like Minnesota or further north, things like this sometimes need to be ten feet or more down to avoid frost heave in the winter. In North Dakota and across the border in Manitoba, water lines and other infrastructure, are often 12 or more feet down. And on cold winters the lines can still be broken if the freeze goes deep enough. Nothing like a broken water or sewer line at 40 below to make your day.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
We made this in our Intro to Optics course:
http://www.bluehaze.com.au/modlight/
They got this to work for 167 km. We tried it for about a mile; you could use an optical modulator to attach the coax cable:
LED -> Modulator -> Focusing Optics -> (free space)
What about the legal ramifications of your neighbor "sharing" his internet connction? I'm sure the ISP has something against that in their acceptable use policy. Not to mention what about if that neighbor moves. There goes your Internet connection.
I have no cable or dsl offerings where I live, and I have "wdsl", which is basically 802.11 equipment with antennas at my house and a small ISP about 3 mi away. It's not blazingly fast (512kbps down, and I think 128 up, which wasn't the fastest choice), but much better than dial up and decent upload and latency (unlike satellite). Even if there's no ISP offering that, it sounds like you could use the same equipment to "share" with a neighbor (don't know what the cable company would think of that).
My in-laws are even farther out in the country, and they have one of those "unlimited" data plans through a cell company (I forget which one). They actually get better bandwidth than I do now.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
you got line of sight? then try this
http://www.usbwifi.orconhosting.net.nz/
What you need is RONJA, a free space optics link, with the technology being under your control (open source).
There are dozens of home-made cantenna designs (the name coming from the originals made from fruit juice cans). Kits. Parts. Everthing.
I think the current world record for stock wireless routers (and some very elaborate antennas, usually huge things salvaged or scrap built) is well over a hundred kilometers.
500 steenking meters is no problem whatsoever.
Google "cantenna", or (as one of the earlier messages said) get one of the commercial directional antennas already on the market. (Hint: it will NOT be a stick-shaped thingie. It'll most likely be parabolic, and probably several feet in diameter. And do NOT put it on top of the house / trailer, since they tend to be lightning magnets.)
What you need:
(2) wifi bridges (I reccomend senao cb3's) in adhoc mode
(2) Pacific Wireles 24 dbi parabolic antenna w/ N Female ends.
(2) N-Male to RP-TNC Pigtails preferably LMR 400 (length dependant on application).
(2) Roof Mounts (style dependant on application).
Put it all together and you've got at least 5mbps of real throughput between homes, and it will be under $500.
All of the above is available here.
I'm a wireless ISP (in fact, I was the first wireless ISP, started back in 1992), and do this sort of link nearly every day. I'll sell him a pair of LEGAL (not illegal, like the Cantenna) radios that will do the trick nicely for $400, including all accessories. Slightly more than an illegal link, but it'll last for decades and is FCC certified.
Get a pair of wireless radios like a tranzeo tr6000, or an Inscape pair, set one to be an ap and the other to infrastructure mode, and there you go. about 500 bucks, less on ebay maybe.... your range will be somewhat greater than 1/2 kilometer. look at bridge mode
Crazy Al's House of Intertubes - where we make up in volume what we lose per bit...
Wireless links with plain old 802.11 have been done over FAR longer distances (over 10km is common and I've seen links over 40km) with simple directional antennas. What's much more important than distance is line-of-sight. Basically if you can see the other antenna without a telescope, you can connect to it. However, there must NOT be any trees in between, even if you can see the other antenna in the gaps of the foliage. Trees are very good radio-wave shields. (Actually, water is the shield, but like all living things, trees are full of water.)
:j
If you do not have line of sight from the ground, try the roof. If you still don't your next option would be to build a mast. You can make a mast up to 10 or 12m cheaply by telescoping several pieces of steel pipe and bracing the whole thing with 3 steel cables. I have a 9m mast like this that I built for about $100.
Make sure to get a router with antennas that you can disconnect and replace (not all have those, but many do). Then connect a directional antenna... for 500m you don't need anything fancy, the cheapest directional antenna you can buy or a home-made "cantenna" will do just fine.
Same for the other end of the connection... if you don't want to put a router on both ends, make sure your wifi card has an antenna connector. Or you can use a USB wifi adapter with a "stub" antenna, and stick that little stub directly into a "cantenna" type can (you'll need to calculate the position of the hole for the antenna... there are calculators for this on the net, google "cantenna calculator"). That will turn a little $25 USB dongle into a directional Wifi powerhouse, using nothing but a can with hole drilled in the right place! I've gotten a strong connection over 1km between two of those and I'm sure it could have gone much further but we didn't try because 1km was enough.
For your short distance of 500m, given line of sight, you may even be able to get away with a directional antenna only on one end, and the regular omni antenna on the other. I.e. if you have window-to-window sight, you may be able to put an unmodified router on the windowsill of one house and a usb-dongle-cantenna on a windowsill of the other and have your link.
Good luck!
No mod points today, so I'll just have to reply.
That is indeed a good price for what you get. Assuming it works as advertised, of course.
I have set up WRT45Gs with high-gain antennas quite a few times and the cost was not that far from the one in the press release you linked to.
I'll have to look at that for the next link I set up.
Thanks
"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
As it's optical I would assume it conflicts with carrier pigeons en route for a certain RFC? :-).
Insert
Mentioned twice before in these comments (that I could see), but not modded up so here's another mention... Use a pair of woks or other parabolic kitchen implements... mesh is good for wind damage reduction... point one at the other and bingo, 3 to 10km range for the price of woks and 2 USB WiFi adaptors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WokFi
http://www.usbwifi.orconhosting.net.nz/
Back in 2002 Cringley found a solution to this very problem
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
Wi-Fi works great in a directional point to point environment. My friend in australia is doing this right now. His work (a school) is ~ 400 meters away and he has a 54meg connection on 802.11G. Actual thoroughput is around 25 Mbit/sec. You can sit there and ping the other side and get 1ms ping times all day long. They also use this for remote backups overnight :) Because you are bridging, all systems on the other end are a member of the same LAN as the main house so they have access to the same services.
My friend is using line of sight and using 6db directional antennas. I'd suggest a Wi-Fi router capable of QoS for your VOIP traffic.
http://www.usbwifi.orconhosting.net.nz/
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I've done this same setup for my inlaws and it worked perfectly. This is what you need:
Purchase any decent wireless router, I prefer linksys wrt54g, they can be configured with third party firmware. Two directional cantennas, can be purchased on ebay. two wifi signal amplifiers (Hawking HSB2), and connect the output to the cantennas. One of the amplifiers will connect to the wireless router, the other to your PC's wifi card. Connect the linksys router to your neighbors internet or his router. Make sure both cantennas are facing each other at both ends. With a clear line of sight, you should get a signal up to 1 mile. With trees, it should easly reach 500ft. As I said, I've done this for my inlaws and it travels about 800ft through dense woods.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
I would suggest spending the money on a new laptop and a trip to Starbucks or some other place with Wireless...
You had me at merlot
... there's usually a barbed wire fence.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=02/01/03/2039218
Here's the kind of boxes I'm talking about:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190224334652
an Israeli company named GO-Networks, which is now a sub-devision in Nextwave Wireless,
has several WiFi solutions (a/b/g) for a radius of about one kilometer.
you can check the products out at
www.nextwave.com
http://metrix.net/ubiquiti-powerstation-2-ps218v-p-109.html Get two, set them up, alignment LEDs are on the back. It doesn't get much easier.
As someone that has probably made every mistake that can possibly be made in this industry, I believe I might have some valuable insight. If you have LoS (Line of Sight) meaning that both antenna will be able to see each other without being obstructed by anything, the Ubiquiti NanoStations are an unbeatable solution. These radios cost $79.95/each (retail) and are reasonably easy to setup. http://www.microcom.us/ns2.html Online forum help is available here: http://forum.ubnt.com/forum/ Now, if you have a situation where trees or perhaps a house obscure your view between antennas you would be better served with a 900MHz solution. Deliberant is the place to pick those up at a reasonable (albeit higher) cost. http://www.deliberant.com/landing/ http://www.ligowave.com/?q=products/ligoap/ligoap-900 And just so we understand each other, I do not work for either company, I do not get any commission and you aren't going to get a better price by mentioning my name - I'm just trying to help out for all the help SlashDot have been to me over the years. In fact, it's nice to finally be able to give back.
304km link made by Italian radio amateurs.
You can do a lot on 500 meters using homemade antennas (scroll down, check pdf's) . Or you can buy any with gain of 15 dB or more.
1. Be sure to use routers that have external connections to avoid messy soldering. Anything with more than 17dbm is good enough.
2. Put the damn routers in the the sealed boxes outside, in the shade, close to the antennas. Keep coaxial cables short, less than 5 meters is good enough. Use Power over ethernet to power the routers.
3. Use uni-directional high gain low Q-factor antennas. Use coaxial cables suited for the GHz range frequencies. Use appropriate connectors and mounting to avoid boring repairs.
4. If You are interested in an wireless community, the simplest way to start is to put Your e-mail, or some other contact data in radio name or something that people can see when scanning.
I am using the wireless internet right now, with speed of more than 500 kilobytes per second at approximately 800 meters form the base access point.
Here's what we use at work: http://www.microcom.us/eoc3220.html $140 each (one at each location). We've gone up to a mile with not so much as a glitch, though they're rated to 10 miles. They require a modicum of line of sight, so you might have to put them on tripods on each house, but for a total investment of under $400, you really can't go wrong.
A pair of Tranzeo radios would easy work of this provided you have near line of sight. A few trees should be ok. http://www.tranzeo.com/ If you are more adventurous you could buy a couple of used Cisco 1200 APs with the older 802.11b cards in them. These can be had for as little as $60 on Ebay. These have bridging capability as well as AP functionality. A couple of panel antennas (12db to 16db should fine). You will need a couple of cables with reverse TNC on one end a N connectors on the other.
Seriously. You should have clear line of sight between your two points. I had a point to point rig set up for a few years, until some pesky trees grew up. While it was dry, the network limped along, but when they got wet from rain, the connection would stay down for a significant period of time.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
If you want something that you don't have to maintain, be sure to get something that is rugged and won't fall apart from being outside in the elements. I would suggest something like: http://www.valuepointnet.com/products/ruggedap/550gia12.html They are rugged and outdoor / marine rated, use POE, and have internal antennas that would easily span the distance you need. The antennas with these are about 120 degree coverage so alignment can easily be eyeballed.
I used to have wireless access from over two blocks away using only a USB adapter G. What I did was to take a pan lid, A "Wok" lid made it stand up like a little satillite dish, and placed my reciever in front of it. With some fine tuneing, (aiming and positioning), I was able to find multiple options for connections from about 200 yards away through trees and a barn using only a G type adapter, So if you were to get the +N USB adapter and reciever you should be good to go? You can always return them if it dont work.. I also extended the length of the usb cord by about 25 feet to allow me to move the adapter to the back side of my house. I Soldered a old Cat5 cable to the middle of the original wire that came with the adapter.
I just saw this link today, and it looks like it might fit the bill. The range is up to 5 mi, and it's powered via the ethernet cable. The downside is the $318 price tag.
Cynicism, like dogmatism, can be an excuse for intellectual laziness. - Susan Shirk
"He got sick of it and relies on Hughes satellite Internet, at $60/month, but he still has to be connected to a phone line to upload to the Internet"
I don't know where he got his hardware, but they haven't supported dial-up upload for the longest time... right on the site they tell you no phone line is used. back when they were part of direcTV long ago they had dial-up upload hardware, but that was almost 10 years ago! http://go.gethughesnet.com/
hughsnet is the worst satelite provider, absolutely horrible FAP policies, it's really only useful for casual webbrowsing... there is an upstart company that uses dial-up/sat inet, and then wildblue which has a 30 day rolling fap, you can download, but if you do too much in one day you internet will only recover a little bit each day... but i don't think their fap is nearly as restrictive as hughesnets, hugesnet doesn't even increase their fap if you get a buisness account!!!!! wtf...
there is a fourth satelite provider, that targets gas stations etc, for sending data to a central database, not sure what that companies fap is, but satelite internet is a crazy space with a lot of retarded FAPS...
Wifi can easily go a lot further, with a few after-market antennas, this company which i think sells them, has a simple primer, depending on the style of directional antenna you get setup can be as simple as using a level, and pointing in the general compass direction.
http://www.radiolabs.com/Articles/wifi-antenna.html
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Anything faster than that, no.
After ISDN is in, his dad would get 128 Kbps. It would be charged per-minute, but if he didn't need .iso downloads, it would be OK. There's essentially zero connect time, too. Just be careful he doesn't install bittorrent.... ;-)
If the cost of ISDN was too much, he could always cancel it later. Note that for the phone company to put in ISDN, they would have to upgrade equipment between him and the switch. That upgraded equipment likely wouldn't be pulled out, so his 22 Kpbs would probably peg at 56 Kbps afterwards.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
this is not too fare for a wifi conection what you needis 2 dd-wrt capable routers i recomend buffalo routers and 2 15 Dbi grid antenna's(kinda look like a parabolic dish) here is how you set it up you set up the first router and the friends house and aim it at your dads house then set up the other router as a wireless bridge ( it will receive the wifi signal from the other router and turn it into a wired connection. I worm for a Wireless ISP in Illinois i have setup 6 setups like this at distances of up to half a mile it works quite well but does have an additional latencies of about 6 ms
there are 10 types of people in this world, those who read binary and those who don't. which are you!
Wireless will still work at that range if you invest in decent hardware, such as two 24dBi mesh antennas, and two awus036h(500mW USB 802.11g)s, one in softap and one as a client.
www.isoHunt.com
My friend/neighbor had exactly this same problem. The cable ended at my road and they quoted him the same $10,000 to run down the road to his house. Both of us lived too far out to get DSL.
I signed up for cable internet service and we set up a link to his house. At my end we set up a WRT54G, one of the older ones, with HyperWRT firmware. It's WLAN port was fed from a LAN port on my home router. Set it up for only one antenna output but let the power setting alone. We put the router in a weather-proof box out under a raised deck with a line-of-site to his house. The active antenna was removed and a cable run from the antenna connector to a wifi circular polarized beam antenna with a gain of about 15.I don't remember the brand but it was white.
We set up the same antenna at his house and fed it into a Linksys WET54G Ethernet Bridge. The antennas were pointed at each other. His computers were networked into the bridge and we were in business. I didn't keep track but the total cost was under $300. This system worked flawlessly for several years. His speed was only limited by the cable internet limit of about 6Mb.
i work in the marine industry and we install long range antennas on boats so customers can hit open hotspots on shore. there is an internet service on the west coast called broadband express that caters to marinas and boaters. they set up the hotspots, and boaters can log in from pretty much anywhere in the marina using their equipment.
the wireless antennas work on regular services too, so if you are say within 1000 yards of a hotspot, you should be able to pick it up.
the antenna kits can be found at http://www.bbxpress.net/ecom/default.asp
Look at the ubiquity nanostation2. It is an access point/router with a built in directional antenna.
Passive PoE.
They are a relatively new product with great specs and price.
http://ubnt.com/products/ns2.php
I have a couple of these and as well as a ubiquity powerstation. The powerstation is a great device but is heavier and more difficult to mount than the nanostation.
Retail is ~$80 each. 15km max range. ~1 lb. weight.
I use an EnGenius EOC-3220 for long range connections when traveling in my RV. It could be configured as a bridge to work in your case:
http://www.engeniustech.com/datacom/products/details.aspx?id=171
Includes a high powered transmitter, extra sensitive receiver and hi-gain antenna.
Laser building to building network links 100Mb to 1Gb - 10m to 5000m. www.laserbandwidth.com YMMV
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Gotta love companies that consider their stuff so 'elite' that they can't be bothered to put any pricing information on their website. You could call them, but of course its after business hours. They want you to give them your contact info so they can call you at their convenience. Pfft, not.
I once actually took the time to call a company about some sort of networking kit, and was told that the units I was looking at were like 20k apiece. I told the guy to go back to smoking whatever he was before I called.
Generally, if a company refuses to publish their pricing opening, its probably $toomuch or $outofthisworld. I'm sorry, but if you are afraid that the price is going to scare people away, what makes you think it isnt going to scare them away when they finally find out it (AFTER wasting their time to call you and/or wait around for you to call them back, pissing them off)
Oh, and be ready to drop $1000+ for a pair of radios and possibly antennae.
Kp>db
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
I lived on a remote mountain and was 100% off-grid. I used Starband (www.starband.com). I had it for six years and it was flawless. Up speeds were not awesome, but better than dial up. The service was the most reliable I have ever had. Down speeds were great (1+ meg). I had the SOHO plan. I ran a souce control server on it and an Exchange server. Worked awesome. Again, VSAT is a little different and you soon get use to the diferences. No phone line required.
.02
Also, I head from a friend that Wild Blue (www.wildblue.com) is also very good. I am going to get VSAT again (I moved) as a backup because it was very reliable. I have an RV082 and I know it works with VSAT on one of the WAN ports.
This is probably going to be a more reliable mechanism than a long-haul wireless setup.
Just my
Jamey
Jamey Kirby
you can easily go that far with a trivial antenna booster... I've heard of people extending their network over several miles!
http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/antennas/mypringles.html
Or, just google 'pringles net' for more examples and alternative ideas.
Errrr... I personally have no connection w/ NovaRoam (just used a few of their boxes for prototyping something). Price per unit was @ $2K, I believe. You'd need two.
We are in the process of ditching Hughes for reliability and performance reasons but we've never needed a phoneline for it, if your dad is happy with the service other than the dial-up requirement try asking Hughes for an updated set of equipment they should be able to get you bi-directional satellite
Are we talking like, parking meters? And are they side-by-side, or laid end-to-end?
You can boost the range of your wifi router/card by using an external antenna. The simplest option for you would be to construct a couple of antennas out of cans. The whole thing will cost you a couple of bucks and will be more than enough to cover 500 meters (I used such antennas for 3-km long links, and it worked like a charm). Hit Google with 'cantenna' to get more info on the subjet. If you decide to go this way, make sure your wifi card and router are equipped with detachable antennas so that you can hook an external one.
If you have line of sight (or can bounce off a neighbor, tree, kitty...) WiFi is the quickest and easiest way. The cablemodem is probably 10dBmV, put the amp at your end. You can look up the signal strength and frequency on his modem, then calculate the splitters, cable loss etc. accordingly. With the amplification figures, make sure your modem will get at least -15dBmV (not more than +15dBmV) on the forward path, and ensure it won't have to transmit more than 55dBmV for return (lower is better here). The return frequency is quite low so should have less than 10dB of loss, just watch out for crossing any electrical as it will induce noise. You could lay it on the ground, risking damage to tha cable, or get direct-burial cable that will go bad in 10-15yrs. Best bet is conduit, even 1" stuff that comes with cable inside and can be put ~6" in the ground by a trencher pretty darn quick. Pay someone to put very good compression (not hex... outdoor style, even if indoor) crimps on the ends of the cable, if you do not have the tools.
Rent a vibratory plow (Ditch Witch probably makes one), not a trencher. Assuming your working with moderate soil conditions you can install the conduit (the plow literally pulls the HDPE through the ground) in less than an afternoon without breaking a sweat.
Hi,
.6 miles, which easily covers your problem.
Put a wireless router on a location your provider is willing to connect to at a reasonable cost. Be sure to put it in a box that is weatherproof and vandalproof. Then, buy a can of pringles and some radio shack nuts and bolts and make yourself a Cantenna:
http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/448
It is said to have a range of at least
I installed a pair of EOC3220s for my sister-in-law, who was in a similar position -- just out of range of ADSL but within line of sight of a friend who had it, and no cable for miles around in their case. The units are dead easy to install and configure, and have worked like a charm for the last nine months. Just one thing -- it was really handy to have a 9-pin serial null modem cable to reset one of the units, so I'd recommend picking one up just in case. The installation I did spans a distance of just over 1km, and seems to work in all weather without a problem.
the maximum range of N1 is 425 meters, not too far off the 500 meters your dad requires, maybe you could make something work using N1 kit.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
best comment eva!
I've recently done up a system for similar(100m in multiple directions) with a high-gain omni on the source, and small directionals for the others. All parts from wlanparts.com except the router and client cards, Asus from Newegg, got better signal than Linksys. Total cost to them for the whole setup was $500, minus the 400 for HughesNet(doesn't require phone anymore, btw) But, Hughnet's TOS allowed this setup as it was all the same company(farm) and your cable provider probably doesn't. So don't tell them.
I've been looking at Q-Bridge which seems like a pretty easy to set up option. For a relatively short distance like 500 meters I would think it would do the job even with some line of sight issues with trees.
...and use it as a modem to connect to internet Or get a standalone modem. I believe many mobile operators give you a free modem if you ask for one year contract.
They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me. -Nathaniel Lee
Winner.
http://gnswireless.com/
Instead of coaxial cable in the proposed buried conduit, and instead of CATx twisted-pair, what about a cheap powerline in the conduit with a BPL node on either end? It's less expensive than coax and certainly less expensive than CATx. It can be made relatively safe, but I admit it's a bit scary to run 120V on your own for long distances. Run the conduit with the cheapest household wiring = 3 conductor copper, energize the line with GFI and surge-protected 120VAC, and install Linksys BPL nodes on either end (PLE200). Ethernet on both sides, one side connected to a broadband router. 1) the PLE200s are not that expensive, under $100 per node 2) BPL might not be good for the entire solution, but might help you with a particularly troublesome leg. 3) household wiring can be less expensive than coax and CAT5, for me it worked out to 3 cents per foot for the wire
Does it have to be buried ? I also live in the boonies my phoe and power are above ground on poles . When cable became available we just used the existing utility poles . If no poles are. available trees work .
500M is not VERY far.
:-)
Try a 'high gain wireless antenna' at the send end. They typically have a 5-10 degree 'on' zone which would give you a 45-90m wide 'on' zone at the far end. Enough to cover the whole house and deal with some wind.
You put it in, you point it, you done.
http://www.motorola.com/business/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=20e284c606de6110VgnVCM1000008406b00aRCRD motorola canopy system. can do several mile hops. yes, the radios are expensive, but a LOT less than 10k. Thus, in relation to the cable company's solution, this is cheep and easy.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
from 10 ways you might be breaking the law with your computer
#5: "Tools of a crime" laws
Some states have laws that make it a crime to possess a "criminal instrument" or the "tool of a crime." Depending on the wording of the law, this can be construed to mean any device that is designed or adapted for use in the commission of an offense. This means you could be arrested and prosecuted, for example, for constructing a high gain wireless antenna for the purpose of tapping into someone else's wi-fi network, even if you never did in fact access a network. Several years ago, a California sheriff's deputy made the news when he declared "Pringles can antennas" illegal under such a statute.
E. Stick the bill to big old ultraexpensive cable monopoly for extendir their network.
I think the long distance wireless is a good option. As ling as you get a high gain aerial and the necessary permits everything will be fine. This woudl save a lot of digging or moat building. I also dont think that the cable company would even connect to your own cable. I suggest wireless
IT Strategist / Analyst working with AJAX, GIS, Web 2.0 specialist who enjoys outdoor pursuits.
www.ubnt.com
sub 100$ point to point wireless, very easy to connect. It is called the nano station, and is great for this type of application.
I vote for carrier pigeons. What other method is also edible?
Part No. UL-204 $325.00
PI Micro
PI Manufacturing Corp.
909.598.3715 Telephone
20732 Currier Road,
Walnut
California 91789
Tom
Is WiMax too complex for your father or for you?
There is an article on DailyTech about a line of site solution for up to 5 miles. Look at http://www.dailytech.com/Inexpensive+80211bg+WiFi+Bridge+Connects+Locations+Five+Miles+Apart/article11859.htm for information.
Well, he did specify "wireless" so digging a ditch and laying a wire was not part of the question.
As for wireless, I'm assuming tuned directional antennae would probably do the trick; they'd have to be LOS too.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
....A Telecom Engineer. Hybrid fibre-coaxial to be exact.
Hoe (one per helper) 500 meters of heavy duty conduit 500 meters of cable (recommend that you lay fiber at the same time)
First, and foremost - NEVER DIG WITHOUT LOCATES. Second of all, NEVER DIG WITHOUT LOCATES. Third, NEVER DIG WITHOUT LOCATES. Now since the first THREE rules have been established, I will go more into detail towards them.
What it means is, never dig anything (public or private property) without calling your utility locates authority. In most cases, it is illegal (talking about USA). In Illinois it is illegal to dig anything regardless of depth, unless JULIE is called prior (JULIE does the whole state except Chicago meto where DIGGER operates). JULIE is ran by The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC). Missouri uses Dig Rite. A notification to dig must be requested by you, or the service provider. It must be done at least 48 hours, or two business days prior. They will CONTACT the utility companies (gas, water, sewage, cable, telephone, electric, fiber, etc) and request a locate. At this time the individual utilities will come out, and typically with spray paint, mark your yard from their distribution tap to the house. They will also stick in bury flags to indicate their company. Every utility that has a piece of their plant in your property will come out to do the locates. 48hr rule/2 business days must be honored. Why? If you FAIL to notify, and hit a utility YOU ARE 100% RESPONSIBLE FOR THE COST TO REPAIR THE PLANT. Typical cost to just bury cable under a street will range $15-50 a FOOT. That doesn't include line terminations which is quite costly as well. IF you do notify, and they do mark - if you end up hitting a "rogue" utility THEY are responsible for it and you will have no liability.
Next topic. Since we are talking about just laying fiber in the conduit. What type of fiber? single mode? multi mode? LED? Laser? How many pairs? Aerial with messenger? Underground flooded? Buying expensive fiber, that most companies sell as "no return unless defective", and guessing what type is being used will just be a waste of money. RG-6 quad shield won't work, RG-11 quad shield won't work due to distance. Perhaps trunk (the very good reason why it will cost $10k).
3a: Call the cable company to connect the cable to the cable termination point. Begin paying monthly subscription to cable internet provider.
Without a nearby tap, one that can service RG-11 at the latest, they will never be servicable for any service. Regardless, even if the guess to choose the correct Fiber type is correct - they will still charge thousands to splice fiber to the plant. Maybe 50-75 meters they will be a node(a few more thousand), the node will connect to the coaxial plant, the plant will (at this example) have an self terminating tap splice in, RG-6/RG-11 will then be used to go to house. Hurray service!
More than likley, the $10k will cover the cost to use trunk line (large diameter,very low loss coaxial cable) that will connect to coaxial plant. A line amplifier will then be used, and the system will be RF based. Let us not forget the cost to bury.
3b: If you've chosen to run the connection to your neighbhour's home, ensure that you don't piss him/her off. They are now your cable internet provider.
Might be, if it wasen't a breech of most TOS for ISPs. Guess we can dig another ditch down the street to the next neighbor ???
Notice to all: I am just a bit annoyed. I got an emergency call at 9PM to fix an issue caused by someone not wanting to follow the state law on digging. I was off work for 5 hours when the call came in. The person hit a Fiber, they knocked a whole node down. 800 customers, down. TV, internet, phone (a life line) off line.
To be helpfull, here are my suggestions:
1. Have your dad talk to you local franchise authority. That authority, along with the FCC, hel
Hey dudes, this is Dad speaking. My son's idea won't work. Neighbor won't be my 'cable supplier', I had to use dynamite just to get my phone line in since the ground is so rocky [exposed rock ledges, etc.], and there are mucho trees in the line of sight.
Forget all that. Also, I do not have to use my phone line to upload as HughesNet has upgraded it's service, but it is slower than download on the HughesNet disk. I've got the disk installed and it works much better that the dialup so I'll stick with it.
Next problem: I want a simple wifi LAN in my home. There are no buildings within 250 meter to steal my signal, but never set up such a LAN before. Sooooo
I'm putting a simple wireless router on the Sat modem and my laptop is already wireless adapted. Now for the two desk tops. One is no big deal. It is a Dell with WinXP SP2 which is Ethernet connected to a Netgear Wireless switch that supports 4 computers and two printers. BUT, the second desktop is an old emachine with Win98 and only 128 Meg of RAM. It works fine for my wife's word processing needs but I want it to get the Sat signal also so she can cruise the net. I can't seem to get it to recognize the Netgear switch even though it has an Ethernet connector, NOR will it recognize my 2 gig USB flash drive [even though it has a few USB ports] which has worked fine to set up the network in the other two computers.
Any ideas?
Second 'problem', I want to enable my Skype account on my two land line phones through the HughesNet. Can't quite figure that one out with out spending mucho $$$ on stand alone equipment. ??? Thanks for any leads, but forget about ditches and 500 meter conduits.
So expensive as hell, and I bet not much bandwidth at 900Mhz, either. (Eg maybe 11Mbps) Lots of companies selling old 'expensive' solutions in this market, apparently. They dont want to admit that technology has bypassed them. Kinda like trying to sell 'business class' 300baud acoustic modems for $1000 each after everyone had 28.8's.
I've got a pair of Netgear WNHDE111's doing 40M+ at about 800 ft, with only 'mostly' LOS. They might do 500m if there was 100% clear LOS. Oh, and they only cost $250 for a pair, not 2 grand each.