Parent-Friendly Wireless Bridge To Span 500 Meters? 558
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?
Legislation? (Score:3, Interesting)
Use Mikrotik boards, which run Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [mikrotik.com]
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
Novaroam stuff works well (900Mhz no license band) (Score:4, Interesting)
-Karl
A rock record: http://www.instarmusic.com/ [instarmusic.com]
Make your own antenna (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:4, Interesting)
Wireless (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [radiolabs.com] 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.
Go Optical ? (Score:3, Interesting)
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/ [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
Re:Are you serious? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Use political trick (right of way) worked for me! (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
Linksys WRT54GLx2 + 2 14dBi directional antenna (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Directional antenna and LMR-400 cable will do it. (Score:1, Interesting)
K.
Re:Legislation? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
Re:Directional High-Gain Antenna (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Cantenna? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Doable with 802.11g (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you find DD-WRT to be stable (enough) for you, then I would suggest not changing.
Re:Cantenna? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Do it like Cox. (Score:2, Interesting)
TDR and OTDR is great for that.
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
Re:Options (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Metric shibboleth (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.12215 [dealextreme.com]
Not sure if this is a gimmiky product or if it will really work.
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
RONJA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:1, Interesting)
Wifry: Less than $100 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:3, Interesting)
Lay zero cable:
http://www.lightpointe.com/products/fl_100.cfm [lightpointe.com]
Re:Consider the do it yourself way... (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
Remote broadband (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Re:Do it like Cox. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.