0.3 mile wireless network? How much?

S

SNYP40A1

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 13, 2005
Messages
253
There is a Starbucks 0.3 miles away from my house. I don't have direct line of sight, but the only obstruction are trees. I would like to be able to use my laptop at Starbucks while connected to my home network. What's the cheapest way to do that? Don't need much bandwidth, 128 kbps would be fine.
 
About 25 bucks, see: 12+db WiFi Bi-Quad Antenna Big In Gain, Small In Size, although you'd need some PCMCIA card or some such to connect it to. Also, you may get some odd looks, and depending on the paranoia in your area you may actually be arrested because you are up to no good. However, in the more liberal areas you may make some new friends, potentially female ones, who will ask you about your gadget thingy.
 
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Just Bing around for Wi-Fi boosters and antennas. Plus there are a fair number of DIY projects that I’ve seen. I remember on guy buying an old radio antenna for like a $1k and giving him quite a few miles of range.
 
I'm curious why you want to do this? If you buy coffee you get wifi, some starbucks give away free wifi... although some have stopped to do this.

If you are going to just sit and loiter at starbucks, can't you just do that at home?
 
i think he is going to be stealing starbucks wireless and not the other way around.

cause if you had free wifi somewhere else you can just vpn/logmein back home.

hdcom.com
 
marley1 said:
i think he is going to be stealing starbucks wireless and not the other way around.

cause if you had free wifi somewhere else you can just vpn/logmein back home.

hdcom.com
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I get that impression or he just wants to be cool sitting in starbucks (I know a few who do that just to try get chicks, lol).
 
heatlesssun said:
Just Bing around for Wi-Fi boosters and antennas. Plus there are a fair number of DIY projects that I’ve seen. I remember on guy buying an old radio antenna for like a $1k and giving him quite a few miles of range.
Click to expand...

Lord have mercy.... 'Just Bing around'..... :rolleyes:
 
You just need one of these: (and yes, that's for WiFi!)
Long_Distance_802.11_Wi-Fi_-_dish%2C_Venezuela.jpg


:D

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-range_Wi-Fi
 
Thuleman said:
Just FYI, hotlinking is generally frowned upon.
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Just FYI, image hosting websites are blocked here for me at work. If you would like to host the image for me, I'll be happy to update my post with a thumbnail. :)
 
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Wow, quite a few posts.

First, I am not trying to rip off Starbucks internet. In order for that to work, they would have to upgrade the antenna on their router to broadcast long range. Otherwise, I would be able to transmit to it using a powerful antenna, but would not be able to receive any signal from its weak broadcast antenna. Although, I might look at piggybacking onto my neighbor's unsecured wireless router once my Comcast 15 mbps service for $20 / month expires.

Second, I like Starbucks green tea and with $0.50 refills, it's not too badly priced. And yes, there are hot girls who come into the Starbucks which is part of the reason I like going there. Even if that was not the case, I would rather be there around other people than in my empty house. It's so close, it's not like I am going out of my way to go there.

Third, I did not realize that Starbucks offered free internet with drink purchase. Thought they charged some horrible rate like $10 / month for it. That might be a better solution...

One thing I like about the recession: cheaper internet.
 
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Antennas work for both transmission and reception. You get x dBi of gain on both tx and rx. If you can receive it, you can transmit to it (assuming the remote side's radio is as good as yours). If you wanted to, you could probably pick up their wireless AP at your house pretty easily.

Here in Canada though, you need a registered Starbucks card for free WiFi, and you can use a maximum of 2 or 3 hours a day, so it wouldn't be a viable connection to steal for home use.

If you wanted to be less conspicuous, you could add a second AP at your house with a directional antenna pointed at Starbucks, and just use the standard antennas on your laptop.
 
Tbh, I just use my cell phone as a CDMA USB modem. Internet wherever I go.

Most cell phone providers charge extra for this service. However, if you're willing to venture into the grey area (I'll make my note here that I'm not advocating this route), it may not be difficult to make a change to a setting in your phone's service menu to enable this feature.

You'd have to be paying for an unlimited data plan though.

:puts on fireproof suit:
 
eeyrjmr said:
metric subdividing onto an imperial unit *shudder*
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Haha, awesome! ;)

re: free wifi with purchase
I think it depends on the market, or maybe even the country. I don't do Starbucks often, but I too was under the impression that you had to be on some T-mobile or related plan to actually get WiFi at SB.

EDIT: I actually looked this up, and it appears that you can get up to two hours of "free" WiFi at SB if you register a SB Rewards Card ( Highspeed Wireless Internet Access @ SB ), unless you are an AT&T DSL customer, in which case you can have as much WiFi as you want at SB. T-mobile is out, AT&T is in. Other than that WiFi at SB is priced at $3.99 for two hours. Free WiFi with drink purchase seems to be tied to the Rewards Program
 
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