What equipment needed to cover this area with WiFi

The_Ogre

The_Ogre

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Hey peeps

A friend of mine has a fairly large plot (or should I say smallholding) which he'd like to cover with WiFi

What equipment would he need? From the point where his phone line enters the house to the furthest point isn't more than 400 to 500 metres.

He's also got a small cottage which is about 200 metres from the house which he uses as a sort of office thing.

They're currently using 3g, but his children are abusing the data more and more.

Cost is a bit of a factor, so the cheaper the better!
 
ADSL router at phone line.
A few Wifi range extenders or Maybe a few Ethernet over power devices to extend the range - easiest to set up though can be a bit pricey.
If he doesn't mind laying network cables he can do that and have a few cheaper routers around to extend the range of wifi.
 
isie said:
ADSL router at phone line.
A few Wifi range extenders or Maybe a few Ethernet over power devices to extend the range - easiest to set up though can be a bit pricey.
If he doesn't mind laying network cables he can do that and have a few cheaper routers around to extend the range of wifi.
Click to expand...
Don't know why PoE didn't cross my mind. What's the range limit of those?
 
YingYang said:
He's also got a small cottage which is about 200 metres from the house which he uses as a sort of office thing.
Click to expand...

2 x Nanostation M5's from the house to the cottage. Then a nanostation M2 or unifi from ubiquiti to cover the grounds
 
Ive used a cpuple of PicoStation M2 (roughly R900 ex vat) with great success in a multistory concrete car park.
Should work better in an open air plot.
 
Thanks gents! Much appreciated!

Off to do some research into this :)
 
An omni directional antenna on a normal wifi router (that supports an external antenna jack) should do fine. If the PC in the home office doesn't pick it up, a directional antenna attached to the wireless card will work.

I'm pretty sure an omni should be fine though
 
I would personally recommend going with Ubiquiti UniFi AP's and several UniFi Outdoor AP+. As others have said, it may be necessary to create wireless bridges to the most distant parts of the plot with Nanostations.

Alternatively, if there is a a place for a nice high site, an Outdoor AP+ with larger omni antennas can be used to create a really large radius.

Edit: on re-reading the requirements, what others have suggested is more optimal but there's no escaping a Nanostation to link the cottage up to the main house.
 
EnGenius EAP300 - High-Powered, Long-Range Ceiling Mount, Wireless N300 Indoor Access Point. Sells for about R1750.

Mount the EAP300 inside a weatherproof plastic enclosure (costs about R200) outside, above the main house. You should preferably mount the enclosure on a pole. Make sure you have some sort of lightning protection. Then connect it to an ADSL router. It should cover the entire plot (500m radius).

I've used these before, and they provide excellent range and penetration through walls.
 
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