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?
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'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
-Karl
A rock record: http://www.instarmusic.com/
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 forgot get permits and right of way access to even begin doing this. Thats why people use wireless. Not to mention the cost (includes labor x your_time) of doing this would crazy compared to getting two directional wifi antennas and a couple of routers.
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
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
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
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.
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"
Just the other day I saw two geniuses from Comcast running cable through the lawn of my condo complex. I'm just waiting to see what happens when the landscapers come by to mow the lawn. I hope they don't charge $10k to do that.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
I just emailed him, but
I actually did this before. It was with a pair of WAP11's (current at the time), a 24dBi parabolic, and a 19dBi panel. It was 100% reliable, except for a few circumstances.
After a year, a bamboo tree grew up through the line of site.
One end was in an office, and the WAP11 would overheat because the A/C was turned off on the weekends, and the cleaning crew would shut off the fan blowing on the AP.
In one strong wind, I found I hadn't secured the antenna well enough, and it turned.
They were all easy, obvious problems.
In his case, an AP with a high gain antenna on one end, and a decent antenna on the distant end attached to his wireless device would be fine.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
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.
http://www.nuspectra.com/pdf/otc/OTC-9DB_Wireless_Kit.pdf
Use a wireless high powered directional outdoor antenna system like the one in the link provided. It can provided distances up to several miles, usually line of site without major obstructions. If you mount the antenna on your relatives house using a mast you should clear the trees. You could put a mast down at the street as well. Major problem I see is power. Putting a wifi access point on the pole isnt going to happen, no way they will give you free 110 power for the device. You would need to put it in a location where you have power way out down at the street in your property.
Or, go the illegal way and put a pole at your friends house that has cable and act as a long range repeater.
Look up "coffee can wifi antennas" on google
Just as an aside, the famous Rob Flickenger "Pringles Tube" antenna with all the washers up the inside sucks elephants through very fine gauze.
The stopped waveguide "coffee can" antennas work much better, but finding a suitable 85mm diameter can might be tricky. There are a lot of simple patch antenna designs out there, too. Helicals are too much hassle, really.
You might get good results with a couple of USB wifi sticks mounted in place of the LNB of some old satellite dishes.
Since when have cantenna's been illegal? Outside of pushing your transmit strength above the legal limit I've never heard of them being illegal...
Put a heatsink and a fan on those routers though. Otherwise they'll drop if you stream video (eg Netflix Watch it Now).
I tried DD-WRT, and in my situation, where I am using WDS along with QOS on one of my 3 wifi routers, Tomato was much more stable than OpenWRT and DD-WRT.
If you find DD-WRT to be stable (enough) for you, then I would suggest not changing.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
How is ignoring the Part 97 rules any better than ignoring the Part 15 rules?
Finding it when it breaks means hooking it up to a device that every installer should have that will say the break is N feet or meters away.
TDR and OTDR is great for that.
What about this: run some electrical cable down the pipe in parallel with the signal cable (assuming ethernet/Cat5/6 here). Every 100m, install a cheap hub. Since each hub will only be drawing a few watts, the voltage drop, even over 500m, will be quite small (14AWG has a resistance of about 4Ohms over 500m). This would allow you to run ethernet the entire distance while keeping costs down.
I know you're all about to scream "don't run power in parallel with data", but hear me out. I never said to use 120VAC. Why not run, say, 24VDC down 14AWG cable, with a DC-DC converter alongside each hub?
Help find a cure for cancer. Join the [H]orde
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
In English I use "meter", not "metre", though I also use "colour" not "color". And I don't live in the US.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
I think WRT54GL with a 500mW booster may do the trick.
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.12215
Not sure if this is a gimmiky product or if it will really work.
A day labour can trench about 50 ft. an hour by hand, which would be about 4 days, which would be about 800 dollars, check trencher rental prices. It will take another 3 days for laying the pipe and back filling which would probably cost you $600, less if you now how to pull wire(easy). PVC conduit is about $10 per 10 ft. so that would be about $1500. Odds and ends aside (insuriance j-boxes, fish-tape, you could probalby get it done for about 4k. That does not count the cost of data cable ($2 ft. plus sounds likely) and tech parts, and if you hired a Contractor they would want a cut too. In the end the utilitys companys 10k estimate doesn't seem to far off for a hardware install. You should just get a wave guide.
Just speaking for myself, when I was running DD-WRT it would lock up every few days requiring a reboot. I finally just put a scheduled daily reboot in cron and it worked mostly fine after that, though it did have one or two lockups still over the course of a couple months.
I eventually switched to tomato for better QoS support and tomato has been rock solid.
It also seemed like dd-wrt development wasn't progressing very much, as there hadn't been an update in quite a while. Though I do note now that they finally made v24 an official release just recently, so things may have improved since then.
DD-WRT does have some features that tomato doesn't, though. If I needed any of those features I wouldn't hesitate using DD-WRT again. Though I might try OpenWRT first just because I haven't tried it yet.
What you need is RONJA, a free space optics link, with the technology being under your control (open source).
Hardly anybody "trenches" cables into the ground nowadays. They are generally "plowed" in. Much cleaner and quicker and no backfilling needed. Even polyethylene gas lines are plowed in. If you rent a Ditch Witch, you *may* be able to get one with a plow, but I've never seen any for rent around these parts.
http://www.usbwifi.orconhosting.net.nz/
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Screw digging a ditch.
Lay zero cable:
http://www.lightpointe.com/products/fl_100.cfm
Actually you need a Line Ward cable trencher...
It's like a cross between a tiny tank and a giant sewing machine that puts just about any heavy cable as deep as you want it. 3" - 20+" just walk it alone and it cuts a 1" slice, with the cable being injected into the slice at the bottom of the blade! (the blade is hollow and the cable flows through the blade as it cuts)
Just watch out... One of these got loose and pinned me to a house once... my pelvis is still a lil achy... if no longer breaky.
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
500 meters? unless you're using fiber and a pair of switches that support FDDI tranceivers, you can't do it. No ethernet standard can go that far. You'd have to bury a repeater (at least 1) half way between the 2 points... and get power to that repeater. Of course, this is all dependent on you owning all the property betwrrn yours and his, and getting the apporpriate permits to drop the cable across a property line.
Since cables, even fiber, don't come in 500 meter lengths (1000' is standard for a box. With fiber you can also buy a 5000 spool, but that's not only overkill, but then you're not just renting a ditch which, but a spool truck as well, and adding rediculous delivery fees for the cable.
The only really managalbe solution is to use P2P wireless. You can get parabolic antaneas that are FCC licensed for those distances for a few hundred bucks each, and a pair of outdoor rated Cisco Aeronet APs. Your total would run you less than $2000, which is less than the fiber would cost (including someone with a splice kit to make the distance run feasable). You can find other products out there other than Cisco cheaper, but ourdoor rated units are hard to find, and antannea extenders to place an link outside for an inside located router would mitigate the cost difference.
Your biggest issue will likely be latency across that distance, combined with a strict requirement for line of sight.
On the other hand, your BEST option is likely cellular based broadband. Add a access card to your PC with a PCMCIA adapter and get an unlimited access account from your provider (should be less than $60/month) Use ICS in windows (I'd recomend linux, but this guy needed a SIMPLE solution, not a reliable and secure one...) to have multiple computers share the connection. Place the card in an el-cheapo PC that you don't use for anything else that runs quiet and green. For less than $400 in parts and the same per month rate, you can have decent speed internet (3G if you're licky, but even edge is better than nothing), at least until the FCC forces your cable company or phone company to hook you up, since the USF will eventually require it.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.