100 yards of wifi

[Solaman]

I need to send a internet signal to my mothers house which is about 100yards thru the woods behind my house.Iam planing to buy this router ASUS RT-N66U.The router will be in my living room.Do ya'll think this will work.

 

[Daybreak]

no
there is more to it than just that.

 

[devnull]

First, please note that doing this will probably be a violation of the terms of service of your contract with your ISP. If your ISP discovers that you are sharing your internet connection with another residence, they will likely terminate your service and possibly make you pay a fine.

If you're OK with that, then pay attention.

The RT-N66U is a nice router but no regular wifi router on its own will let you go 100 yards through woods. Live trees definitely will interfere with the signal. The other thing about wifi is that the signal has to go both ways. Whatever kind of computer is at your mother's house won't transmit with enough power to make it back to the router. So you have to have somewhat special equipment to do this.

At the bare minimum, I recommend a pair of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833168093

Those are high-power wifi bridges. You'd set one up at each house and have them pointed at each other. They should be powerful enough to go through wooded area, but you won't know until you try it. The only other thing you would need is a wifi access point (or router, such as the RT-N66U) wherever there are wireless clients (PC, laptop, tablet).

If there isn't any legal opposition to burying your own cable, I would use these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833114042

With some direct-bury grade CAT-5 (or better) ethernet cable, you'd definitely be able to go 100 yards. Since that uses copper cable, you'd have to have good surge protection at each end to protect the equipment from lightning strikes.

Fiber optic has gotten cheap enough to be usable for this as well. It will be a little bit more expensive, but more reliable. It will also be immune from lightning strikes, so you wouldn't need as much surge protection.

If the actual length of the whole run (plug to plug) is definitely no more than 100 yards, then you might be able to do this with just an inexpensive ethernet switch at each end of the cable. This solution would also use direct-bury grade CAT-5 ethernet cable, and would need surge protection at each end. Like all the other solutions I mentioned, you'd have to have a wifi access point at your mother's house.

 

[NXIL]

Electrical potential

Hi DevNull,

a friend of mine had internet in main house/2 bedroom "granny flat" in back, about 70 to 100 yards.

I looked into main house switch >> ethernet cable >> back house switch, but, even in a low lightning area (California--lightning every two years or so), everything I read said that even this simple setup could result in significant electrical potential differential, and was a bad idea.

We looked at fiber optics: too expensive.

Line of sight is unobstructed, so, set up a wireless bridge and that works fine.

For OP: "100 yards through woods" is a bit different of course.

Anyway, stringing Cat5E or Cat6: I would have a professional do that--also, as you know devnill, that 100 yards is right at the limit for ethernet cable length.

I think wireless, with dedicated units that have decent and movable antennae is the best way to go.

Note: might want to look into the "break even" point, ie.

cost of adding this connection to grandma's house versus

monthly cost of getting her own internet connection, ie. DSL

Depending on where you live, there can be a ten dollar a month DSL connection as I recall, and, after all is said and done with wireless, it could be a DSL line's speed, even low end, will be faster than "piggybacking" on the grandkid's connection.

Here is DSL for ten dollah:

http://dslfor10.com/

I assume grandma is not playing BF3 or COD4.

HTH

 

[devnull]

Here's a link to a fiber-to-ethernet media converter for $50 each.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...yMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo

Outdoor rated cable is $200 for 100 meters.

An armored cable is $500.

http://www.sanspot.com/100m-Light-Armored-Cable-SCSC-SMM5QDL100-p/scsc-smm5qdl100.htm

Yes it's a bit pricey, but not out of reach of the common man.

Also, when you go to the website you linked to it says that the $10 DSL service is no longer available.

 

[NXIL]

$15 a month

$14.95 Basic DSL is now the cheapest high speed internet service offered by AT&T.

There are other search engines too that might help find budget service--depending on where grandma lives.

http://dslfor10.com/

 

[stevech]

$12.95
http://www.dslextreme.com/
And with this reseller, you can avoid dealing directly with the black hole called AT&T.

 

[DaveMcLain]

100 yards using wifi wouldn't be too tough to do if you have at least one large dish antenna but the problem is in the trees. They absorb wifi signals like crazy especially when they are wet from rain or thick with growth in the summer. I see this at my house which has a lot of trees around it on 3 sides. In the winter I see a much greater number of neighboring SSIDs than I do in the summer, probably 2X.

For a while at home I was using a long distance link to an AP at a church down the street. I traded some work on their PA system for the key to their wifi network. Using a Linksys WRT54G with DD-WRT firmware so that it could be used as a wireless client and a large dish antenna I could establish a link that was pretty solid over a distance that's between about 1/8 and 1/4 mile through trees and stuff. This worked fine in the wintertime, I could watch Netflix streaming movies at good quality levels reliably but as soon as the trees put on their leaves my signal level/link quality dropped like a rock. I just bit the bullet and signed up for my own internet service at home.

If you have the time it certainly might be worth experimenting with because the gear won't cost much via E-Bay.

 

[NXIL]

Leo LePorte!

$12.95
http://www.dslextreme.com/
And with this reseller, you can avoid dealing directly with the black hole called AT&T.

DSLExtreme! Leo uses it....and really they have a great reputation.

They do not service where I am, or I would sign up with them!

 

[stevech]

Leo's reputation a'int what it used to be