Wireless bridge ½ mile outdoors?

V

Valnar

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Apr 3, 2001
Messages
4,321
I'd like an inexpensive wireless bridge to connect to a friends house, which is only 1/2 mile away, if that. I'd prefer something very very secure, even proprietary if possible. Adhering to 802.11 standards is not necessary since the two endpoints are only going to establish a connection to each other (and probably safer??) Anything fast enough to get 60-100Mb is more than fine.

What's the recommendation? This will be a personal purchase, so nothing extravagant.
 
Dang, lots of choices there, and no prices. Do you have a specific recommendation? It doesn't appear I would need the ones that go 30 kilometers.
 
Have a look at TP-Link's offerings too, seems very affordable.
//Danne
 
Valnar said:
Dang, lots of choices there, and no prices. Do you have a specific recommendation? It doesn't appear I would need the ones that go 30 kilometers.
Click to expand...

To do this properly and to have it dead reliable for 10+ years will not be cheap. Don't skimp. I put one in a few years back to get a facility onto a WAN, and it cost about $25k for a wireless GbE bridge. Stay away from Microwave if you can, as that requires licensing etc. *edit* at 1/2 mile you will probably be into microwave range.... wont be cheap. The place I am at now is about it get its fiber links cut to our other building for a subway construction, so we are putting in 2 pair of these: http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/BridgeWave-GE60-60Ghz-GigE-Link/1143490.aspx and a FE version for our phones as well. Once the utility moves are complete the fiber will be rerun by Metro.

I say again, DONT SKIMP. Do it right once. ;)
 
schizrade said:
To do this properly and to have it dead reliable for 10+ years will not be cheap. Don't skimp. I put one in a few years back to get a facility onto a WAN, and it cost about $25k for a wireless GbE bridge. Stay away from Microwave if you can, as that requires licensing etc. *edit* at 1/2 mile you will probably be into microwave range.... wont be cheap. The place I am at now is about it get its fiber links cut to our other building for a subway construction, so we are putting in 2 pair of these: http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/BridgeWave-GE60-60Ghz-GigE-Link/1143490.aspx and a FE version for our phones as well. Once the utility moves are complete the fiber will be rerun by Metro.

I say again, DONT SKIMP. Do it right once. ;)
Click to expand...


Yep the guy is going to spend $16k to connected his and his friends house. :rolleyes:


OP here is the Ubiquiti stuff on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=ubiquiti

I would look at these as long as you have line of sight between the two locations. If not then you are out of luck.

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-LOCO...sim_147_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1JK739G3NK3Q5ESNZ2AX
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
5Ghz will have no issue doing 1/2 mile. Pending that the RF environment isn't congested and you have Line of Sight (LoS).

You could use the Ubiquiti Nanobeam M. It's $99 MSRP for each unit (you'd need two).

http://www.streakwave.com/product-ubiquiti.asp


AAAAAnnndd if you are [H] the AirFiber 5Ghz is $2,000 for the pair.
 
The nanoBeam M5 or NanoBeam AC are good if you are not in a dense RF environment and have good line of sight. The AC gets you more bandwidth. Both NanoBeams do not support DFS frequencies or the lower UNII-1 frequencies "yet", so if you are in an urban environment you may want to go with something like the NanoBridge that does support a wider range of frequencies currently.

Its $88 for the NanoBeam and $100 for the NanoBeam AC. They are tiny little domes, so the SAF is high as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Netw...=UTF8&qid=1431967843&sr=8-2&keywords=nanobeam

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Netw...F8&qid=1431967848&sr=8-1&keywords=nanobeam+AC
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
"AP / Client / Repeater / AP Router / AP Client Router (WISP) operation modes"
//Danne
 
Lots of good recommendations guys. thanks. I think $100 a pop is do'able, and I know Ubiquiti gets good marks here so I'll try that.


diizzy said:
Have a look at TP-Link's offerings too, seems very affordable.
//Danne
Click to expand...
Thanks for the recommendation, but the small price difference isn't going to kill me. I just didn't want to spend $500 per unit or something crazy. If for whatever reason the Ubiquiti units don't work, I'll give it a shot.
 
Mopower said:
Yep the guy is going to spend $16k to connected his and his friends house. :rolleyes:


OP here is the Ubiquiti stuff on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=ubiquiti

I would look at these as long as you have line of sight between the two locations. If not then you are out of luck.

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-LOCO...sim_147_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1JK739G3NK3Q5ESNZ2AX
Click to expand...

You know I missed the part about connecting his friends house. I was more focused on the issue. Please forgive me. :rolleyes:
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Ubnt nanobeam ac or mikrotik routerboard sxt ac.

Either will work great, just depends on you brand preference really.
 
Mopower said:
Who knows sometimes with this forum. ;)
Click to expand...

It is my default perspective when I think of this stuff. I immediately go Enterprise. Then realize it is a home solution and I got nothing... lol

At home I only have 2 PC's, daughters chromebook, single AP and my wife and myselfs phones. That's it. I get enough complicated shit at work. :D
 
I have another use case for this. If a location with the WiFi is only across the street, but you don't pick up the signal normally (would have to be outside the building), can you still create a link with a single Nanobeam? Or would you still need one for both sides?
 
bds1904 said:
Ubnt nanobeam ac or mikrotik routerboard sxt ac.

Either will work great, just depends on you brand preference really.
Click to expand...

+1
I run two Ubiquiti NBE-M5-16 NanoBeams in a 900 Meter P2P connections and they work great.. Sand storms, RF interference and power brown outs/surges and they are still have no issues. Plus they are only around $70 per station.


But if you want to do it on the cheap/dumpster dive and you have LOS, just make two helical antennas out of PVC pipe, a few buckets and some copper wire. Then hook them up to two WRT54Gs (ddwrt FTW) or any other Wifi AP/Router with external antenna. Put one in client mode, set up some StaticIPs for management and disable DHCP on the client side.
 
Valnar said:
I have another use case for this. If a location with the WiFi is only across the street, but you don't pick up the signal normally (would have to be outside the building), can you still create a link with a single Nanobeam? Or would you still need one for both sides?
Click to expand...

Sure can, as long as the access point isn't an Apple device. For some reason, the entire Ubiquity line hates AirPorts. The Nanostations M2s will go into a reboot loop if you try to join one and the M5 will not connect at all.

Just set the device to be a client, enable bridge mode, and you now have a wireless media converter.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top