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jknight8907

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 14, 2004
804
49
Hudson Valley NY
My grandfather is wanting to extend his wifi connection 1500 feet from his house to his shop. What does he need to do that?

thanks!
 
Ummm, ethernet has a maximum length of 100 metres.

Yep. So he's got a couple options....fiber with a couple ethernet tranceivers on the end. This isn't too difficult. You basically have:
Code:
Router/switch -> Ethernet cable (doesn't have to be long) -> Tranceiver -> 1500ft of fiber -> tranceiver -> Ethernet -> router/switch/PC

Instead of a long ethernet cable, you use a long fiber cable with tranceivers on both ends to convert the ethernet to fiber. The tranceivers are transparent to the network equipment and require no configuration or expensive enterprise grade Cisco routers or anything. The biggest problem would be cost. Fiber isn't nearly as cheap as ethernet cable, and the tranceivers are probably a couple hundred bucks. But, it's relatively simple and more cost effective than option B:

2 separate networks (aka, 2 separate connections from his ISP). Setup a VPN server in his home and VPN into home from the shop

Fiber has a large one-time cost. VPN has little one-time cost (if you're willing to get your hands dirty with Linux rather than Windows Server 2003) but the monthly recurring cost. If it were me, I'd go with fiber.

But....there's something we don't know. These 1500 feet between his home and shop, does he own this land? Because you can't just run fiber across other people's land. If this isn't his proprety, VPN is his only option.
 
My grandfather is wanting to extend his wifi connection 1500 feet from his house to his shop. What does he need to do that?

thanks!

Using higher-gain than stock, directional antennas on both the AP and the Bridge, and mounting both up high enough to achieve line-of-sight between the two points you could easily go 1500 feet (and beyond) with off the shelf wireless networking devices. But, if you don't need to cross over into someone else's property a wired solution would likely be easier and more cost effective.
 
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