LAN Design for a Seperate Guest house

[rsaathoff]

Hello,

First time post. I've been doing some network admin work for a family business for about 10 years. I learned most everything I know on my own. I recently left my job and started doing some independent contracting for a friends business and really need to fill the gaps so now I am taking a couple classes. I know a lot but am lacking some areas so here I am here to ask a question...

I really don't like using wireless because you can't get Gigibit throughput. That is why I did Ethernet in my house.

However I need to design something for my mother's house. She lives in a house built in 1907 and has a separate guest house that my grandmother lives in. I recently was up at her place and they use only wireless currently beacause of the pain to wire the old home. Every vendor has just tacked cable to the exterior. They live about 2 hrs away so I need to kind of know my approach before go up there again.

They currently have a real weak signal off their router as it is. I mean I you cannot even get a full signal unless i'm right there. They have one of those wall plug repeaters at the other end of the main house closest to the guest house where my grandmother lives. By the time the wireless signal gets to grandmother, it is so degraded you can barely pull up a webpage. She just got a DVD with Netflix etc and the way it is, it is a no go.

I thought about putting Ethernet cable between the two houses connected to an access point & switch but there is cement between the two houses and no place to trench conduit for the cable. Will I lose too much through put beaming the signal for grandmother to watch netflix? Have you ever run cable between two structures or is it better to beam WiFi?

Also is it a good idea to stick with same brand names when adding access points? Or will they just pickup a IP address regardless and mix and match is fine. I really like TP-Link for their quality/cost value.

Anyway they are also using a combo router by Aris that was given them by their cable company. I do not like this thing as it seems like a very weak signal off the bat and I dont like the idea of the cable modem and router being combined.

I was thinkng about this:

Cable modem (turn off the DHCP portion) > New AC wireless Router > wired to Access Point (inside house) > Wifi to guest house (would rather use Cat5e) > Access Point in Guest house > Ethernet to switch to TV switch.

Anyway any suggestions on gear needed and LAN design would be helpful for Maximum through put to Grandmothers house.

Thank you in advance.

 

[sinshiva]

I was thinkng about this:

Cable modem (turn off the DHCP portion) > New AC wireless Router > wired to Access Point (inside house) > Wifi to guest house (would rather use Cat5e) > Access Point in Guest house > Ethernet to switch to TV switch.

Anyway any suggestions on gear needed and LAN design would be helpful for Maximum through put to Grandmothers house.

Thank you in advance.

essentially the right idea.

1.) turning off DHCP on the modem won't be helpful UNLESS you can set it to bridge mode, so only the new router is acting as the firewall and doing NAT. if the modem cannot be set to bridge mode, then you should leave DHCP enabled and set the new router to whatever that manufacturer's equivalent of 'Access Point mode' might be. this will essentially then act as another switch with wifi interfaces.

2.) we don't know the distance between the two houses. after setting everything up, you may find you need to invest in some kind of directional antennas. searching around the site/forum should help with that unless somebody has a suggestion to offer.

cheers

 

[rsaathoff]

Sorry the disgrace is less than 50 feet. More like 30 max.

 

[sinshiva]

Sorry the disgrace is less than 50 feet. More like 30 max.

you'll be fine without directional antennas

 

[azazel1024]

Hmmm, honestly at 30ft max, I'd consider just stringing a wire between the houses. Get some direct burial rated cat5e/6 cabling and string it from roof to roof (or halfway up to roof if one is 2-stories and one is a 1-story structure).

 

[sfx2000]

Hmmm, honestly at 30ft max, I'd consider just stringing a wire between the houses. Get some direct burial rated cat5e/6 cabling and string it from roof to roof (or halfway up to roof if one is 2-stories and one is a 1-story structure).

I would trench and lay a couple of Cat6 lines over using conduit (and drop in a coax string as well, material is cheap enough, trenching is the major cost here).

Be careful if the guest house has it's own fusebox/breaker panel, you can get a pretty good difference is ground potential between the two buildings, so have a qualified electrician check things before you start plugging in wires.

sfx

 

[azazel1024]

Cement was mentioned. Of course you might be able to go the long way around to trench. Or if the cement is only a portion of the distance, a ditch witch or DIY ditch witch could handle it.

 

[System Error Message]

You can use direct wifi link which involves a high powered AP (like 1W or more) and dishes. Using AC on those can actually get you gigabit wireless speeds even at a distance.

Cat5e suppots gigabit up to 100M. Make sure to get good quality cable or you will end up suffering later. Good quality cable means the heavier solid cores instead of lighter metal clad. Cat6 is better but regardless of which cable you should protect them by considering your placement or putting them in a pipe. Unlike cement pipes are easier for repairing and changing/upgrading and it is better to have them either hanging or on the roof to prevent people from kicking it.

 

[azazel1024]

At 30ft you just need a pair of routers in bridge mode sitting in a window with line of sight to get nice high speeds, preferably windows that are NOT low E. Low E coated windows can easily add 10-15dB of signal attenuation compared to a standard nitrogen filled double pane glass window. The sputtered aluminum on there which does such a wonderful job of reducing heat loss/gain also kills wifi. Nothing high powered or directional needed at all.