setting up a long distance wireless network

[mattyx]

hoping some one has had experience doing this and can give me advice on equipment, etc.

one of the partners in my company is getting a T1 run to his house (they live in the sticks and are currently using starband which is terrible). they don't want to pay for 2 T1 lines so they are hoping to share the one T1 via wireless. Their houses are about 200 yards apart and I can get line of sight from antennea to antennea.

so, my questions are: what equipment do I put on the sending end and what equipment on the receiving end? recommendations?

how stable will this be? since one partner will be dependent on the other for internet, i don't want to have a big fiasco where the one partner has to keep telling the other to reboot or adjust his antennea or something....

thanks for any advice....

looking at equipment like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...08#DetailSpecs

[slgrieb]

Given the power limitations for WLANS, you aren't likely to get any connectivity if you stay legal. Some of the MIMO systems from Belkin or Netgear may work for you, but my experiences with both haven't impressed me much. If your clients are in the boonies, it might be easier to run a cable. You know, scrape a trench and put in direct bury grade cable. You coud do a 200 ft run (cable cost only) for something like $70.

[MobilePCPhysician]

Two of these should do it nicely. Dlink also has outdoor high gain antennas available to increase the signal.


http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=2&pid=376

[confus-ed]

Wirelss range is all down to line of sight, & background interferance levels across the wavebands you are using .. 200 yards I'd say is quite achievable in many instances without any special kit whatsoever, as long as your ariel is high enough up.. this is I'd say a representaive quote

...Typical indoor ranges are 150-300 feet, but can be shorter if the building construction interferes with radio transmissions. Longer ranges are possible, but performance will degrade with distance.

Outdoor ranges are quoted up to 1000 feet, but again this depends upon the environment..

Usually what happens is that most of the traffic ends up being error correction & you just go really slooooooooowly in terms of receiving what you want, thus your 'true connection speed' suffers as you increase range.

What might be 'naughty' is sharing the line, as generally that's precluded in any TOS agreement.

[mattyx]

whoa, that dlink deal is 885 dollars.

for 885, it better work.

[slgrieb]

Whoa! I didn't catch that 200 YARDS the first time! Damn that's humiliating! That distance is too long for a cable run unless you can install a switch or other booster at the mid-point.

Frankly, for all that wireless vendors like to tout their range extenders, high gain antennas, Pre-N MIMO technology, or whatever, I've been really underwhelmed by the performance. I burned up tons of time and money with many of these products, and have yet to see one that I've been satisfied with in terms of price, performance, or both.

STILL, If I were going to make a wireless suggestion, I would go with 2 Hawking Technologies 14 DB outdoor antennas and 2 outdoor cable kits. They will connect to virtually all wireless routers, access points, AND wireless NICS. The whole enchilada should run something like $270. Still, if there is lots of 2.4 GHz activity in the area (cordless phones, cell phones or cell provider towers, or other microwave towers) the signal quality may still be poor. No matter that Channels 2, 6, and 11 are supposedly unshared! I've seen plenty of RF intererence on these channels that was enough to seriously degrade a WLAN signal.

So, if you can overcome problems with providing electricity, weather protection, and a degree of temperature control, I'd do direct bury cable and a switch. Otherwise try the Hawking gear.

[Hidn]

You have line of sight ??? Why not build a couple of cantennas .. cheap and easy .. People are also using old Satelite dishes and aligning them to get ranges in miles instead of feet. Line of sight is the key .. if you have that you can get good results cheaply.