Question re Ubiquiti AC Mesh range

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am289

31 posts

Geek

#230443 23-Feb-2018 23:58

Heya - just after a bit of advice from those with experience re this layout

I have a family friend who lives rurally and they provide accommodation in a bed and breakfast style. The existing wireless set up to provide a connection to the additional accommodation (the north western building) is using a power line adaptor that then transmits a wireless signal within the building. I’m surprised it works at all, but the speed is terrible and unreliable. The house’ WiFi is a standard VDSL router with built in WiFi function. It performs sufficiently.

The VDSL is relatively slow and runs 80ms~ ping, 8-18 mbps down, 2-4 mbps up, so a sophisticated link certainly is not necessary.

Obvious option is PtP between A and B and then a WiFi AP at B. A & B are 35 - 45 metres apart and there is line of sight. In the end, that’s not a terrible set up cost.

Given the speed is not an inssue at all *in terms of the internet source itself is always going to be the bottleneck*, I'm considering whether a better option could be instead of PtP and local AP, two roof mounted UniFi AC Mesh units one on each A & B? A would be wired in, so at worst there is only one uplink for devices that could be connected to B.

The advantage is buying two units instead of three, it would be cheaper, and it would provide WiFi coverage for entrance way, garden, additional accommodation, garage etc. It would be useful having that coverage as mobile coverage is very limited there.

Look forward to any advice

Cheers

am289

31 posts

Geek

#1963240 23-Feb-2018 23:58

Image : https://imgur.com/huLzZP6

nitrotech

1285 posts

Uber Geek

#1963277 24-Feb-2018 08:14

The easy answer is that it should work, we have a number of sites that we use the wireless uplink/downlink function on the ubiquitous mesh but the preference is always to cable.

Placement is going to be key, if you put it in the middle of the roof the signal is going to be great in the paddock and crap in the lodge.

Crowdie

228 posts

Master Geek

#1963448 24-Feb-2018 14:29

As there are trees in the path between the two proposed mounting locations you will need to mount the bridge access points on long enough poles, probably with supports, to clear them.

richms

28191 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1963481 24-Feb-2018 14:48

Should be fine if you can clear the trees - either over or under the foliage in them. They use 5GHz for the mesh so its lower power and range than the 2.4 radios, but I have been quite suprised by the performance between 2 of the cheap little 2 antenna mesh ones when I had no cable between buildings due to builders.

I did find I had to turn off the auto meshing stuff in the controller since the one in the garage would always try to downlink from the garage accesspoint and then end up isolated from the house network or else others would mesh up making a network loop. Once turned off and manually set to only the 2 mesh outdoor APs connecting it was rock solid and about 200 megabits over the link.

Richard rich.ms

Crowdie

228 posts

Master Geek

#1963586 24-Feb-2018 18:09

richms:

Should be fine if you can clear the trees - either over or under the foliage in them.

You have to go over the foliage. Never try going under the foliage as the distance between the ground and the start of the foliage will not be enough to avoid adversely affecting the signal.