What are the options for creating a local private wireless network?

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › What are the options for creating a local private wireless network?

Rikkitic

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# 255954 8-Sep-2019 12:16

I have a non-technical friend with a question I can't answer, but I'm sure an answer does exist. She is a property investor and owns houses that are all very close to each other. One is across the street. Another is on the other side of a fence, pretty much in the back yard. At present she is faced with having a separate Internet account for each house (Orcon). She would like to have just one account and be able to share it between the houses. This is beyond my technical experience, but I would think something like a wi-fi extender with external antennas might be able to cover the distance, or otherwise some kind of private radio link. Can someone explain the options for something like this?

I don't think there is ever a bad time to talk about how absurd war is, how old men make decisions and young people die. - George Clooney

cyril7

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# 2312870 8-Sep-2019 12:35

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Hi, yes easily done, however if she is on selling the Internet service then she maybe contravening the ISPs T&C, however if its just something included in the rent then probably OK, a bit of a grey area, but as a landlord I have done similar before.

As for gear to do it, assuming both remote locations can be readily seen from the main house and all within say 100m of each other I would check out the mikrotik 60ad gear.

Cyril

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# 2312878 8-Sep-2019 13:09

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The most important aspect of you're going to do this and offer internet as part of a lease is network isolation. You'll want each property on its own VLAN to ensure they're seperate.

Rikkitic

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# 2312879 8-Sep-2019 13:11

She would not be onselling anything, just providing basic Internet for the occupants of her houses.

I don't think there is ever a bad time to talk about how absurd war is, how old men make decisions and young people die. - George Clooney

cyril7

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# 2312961 8-Sep-2019 13:30

Hi yeah agree with Steve you would want to put in a decent/flexible router to provide a seperate firewalled network for each house.

Cyril

PolicyGuy

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# 2312962 8-Sep-2019 13:30

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Rikkitic:

She would not be onselling anything, just providing basic Internet for the occupants of her houses.

And what if one of the occupants downloaded something really badly illegal?
Probably DIA / Police would kick her door down first, what with it being her account and all.

And even if she wasn't violating her ISP's T&Cs, she might be effectively setting herself up as an ISP, with all the legal implications that has.

Definitely not worth the money she would be saving

richms

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# 2312965 8-Sep-2019 13:46

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Rikkitic:

She would not be onselling anything, just providing basic Internet for the occupants of her houses.

That is still onselling.

Richard rich.ms

epr

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# 2312969 8-Sep-2019 13:55

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Rikkitic:
She would not be onselling anything, just providing basic Internet for the occupants of her houses.

IANAL but this seems like arguing semantics to me. As pointed out not worth the hassle.

Rikkitic

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# 2312974 8-Sep-2019 14:12

I don't see the logic of this argument. Whether she has one connection feeding three houses or a separate connection for each house, they are all in her name and she is providing Internet to her tenants. I happen to know someone else doing exactly the same. I do not think it is uncommon. As far as someone downloading something horrible goes, how would they even do it with all the filters at national and ISP level? No-one these days is going to do something like that on an unencrypted connection, and if it is encrypted, no-one is likely to know about it.

I don't think there is ever a bad time to talk about how absurd war is, how old men make decisions and young people die. - George Clooney

Rikkitic

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# 2312976 8-Sep-2019 14:17

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richms:

Rikkitic:

She would not be onselling anything, just providing basic Internet for the occupants of her houses.

That is still onselling.

Her places are homestays providing short-term accommodation. Are you trying to tell me that every backpacker's in the country with an Internet computer is breaking the law? Get real.

I don't think there is ever a bad time to talk about how absurd war is, how old men make decisions and young people die. - George Clooney

toejam316

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# 2313085 8-Sep-2019 16:09

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No ISP in NZ to my knowledge will approve this sort of usage, as it's being utilized in a commercial property.

Beyond that - the initial upfront cost and complexity to make it reliable and prevent interference by occupants would likely be higher than your friend would like.
If for some reason they were to push ahead with this, instead of just getting the dirtiest, cheapest unlimited internet connection at each property (what I would recommend for the sake of sanity), my vague guide would be as follows.

1. Establish line of sight between properties - no line of sight, no bueno.

2. Work out exact lengths and optimal external mount points for transmit/receive equipment.

3. Install some external P2MP Wifi equipment - Client devices at the receiving properties and an AP at the transmitting property. Example - Ubiquiti Nanostation 5AC at the host end, LiteBeam AC at the client ends.

4. Install PoE Outdoor rated cable from this equipment into the property at an isolated (preferably by locked cabinet) point with mains power, where you will house the power injectors/router for each property respectively. Two Power Injectors at the client properties (included with the equipment), and a MikroTik hAP ac lite at the host property, using the PoE port on the hAP ac lite to run the NanoStation AC.

5. Install WiFi equipment at the client properties, I'd go with MikroTik cAP ac as I've got a feeling your friend isn't looking for the flashest gear, and it'll save a few bucks off of this already costing more than I suspect they'd like endeavour, run it off the POE equipment.

6. Do your alignment and speedtesting of equipment, and configure your APs on separate subnets and possibly VLANs. Configure the firewall rules on the hAP ac lite to ensure that the subnets can't access each other and only access the outside world through the WAN, and you're done.

All in all, just for the hardware I've mentioned, and no cabling, mounting, configuration or labour, you're looking at

$119 x2 for cAP ACs

$95 for hAP ac lite

$235 for Nanostation 5AC

$125 x2 for Litebeam AC

so, $818+GST for the bare basics of hardware only, this is direct from Go WiFi.

Tack on some professional help (which I'd suggest, because you've come here for help so I suspect you'd be out of your depth on all the potential issues that could arise doing this), their equipment costs, mounting, cables, configuration, labour, scoping, etc. and you're very comfortably in the world of 4 figures, all to end up breaking your ISPs Terms of Service and potentially get in hot water.

A-- Would not recommend.

If you do want professional help with this sort of thing, your local WISP might be interested in helping out, although I'm sure you'll get told similarly as everyone else has here, that they'll help build the network but the actual use of it is likely to violate T&Cs of your ISP.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

antoniosk

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# 2313126 8-Sep-2019 17:10

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Rikkitic:

I have a non-technical friend with a question I can't answer, but I'm sure an answer does exist. She is a property investor and owns houses that are all very close to each other. One is across the street. Another is on the other side of a fence, pretty much in the back yard. At present she is faced with having a separate Internet account for each house (Orcon). She would like to have just one account and be able to share it between the houses. This is beyond my technical experience, but I would think something like a wi-fi extender with external antennas might be able to cover the distance, or otherwise some kind of private radio link. Can someone explain the options for something like this?

The 2 houses separated by the street will be a pain. Radio links are PITA to manage and maintain and can be affected by all sorts of things, especially in the wifi bands. For simplicity and ease she may wish to just get 2 accounts and negotiate a deal. If she's a manager the last she wants is the hassle of maintaining infrastructure like this.

For the 2 houses bordering each other, what is the distance between the 2 buildings? Ethernet cat5e (good for 1gbps) is good for about 90m - which is a HUGE distance. If she could make a clear run from the router in one house to a small switch or wifi router in the other, then she's sorted. Fixed wiring is always more reliable. She should put it into conduit and bury it for safety of course and get high quality low-loss cabling, so it might cost a few hundered bucks from a good installer, buts it's only one high quality wire acting as a small backhaul connection. Then its done and she never has to worry about it again.

________

Antonios K

Rikkitic

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# 2313134 8-Sep-2019 17:33

Good point. This would almost certainly work for two of the houses.

I don't think there is ever a bad time to talk about how absurd war is, how old men make decisions and young people die. - George Clooney

afe66

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# 2313140 8-Sep-2019 17:59

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Rikkitic:
richms:

Rikkitic:

She would not be onselling anything, just providing basic Internet for the occupants of her houses.

That is still onselling.

Her places are homestays providing short-term accommodation. Are you trying to tell me that every backpacker's in the country with an Internet computer is breaking the law? Get real.

I expect there is a difference between providing wifi to multiple people inside one property (motels, hotels, backpackers) and several properties with different leases.

chevrolux

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# 2313151 8-Sep-2019 18:35

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The issue of 'onselling' services is simply not going to be an issue. The fact of the matter is that data/bandwidth usage isnt going to be an issue at this level. None of the decent ISPs are going to notice/care.

I would agree that this is no different to providing internet access in a hotel/motel situation. If that is truly a problem, better let Spark/Vodafone/Vocus know that people are on selling their services and stop providing them...LOL

Edit: to answer the question though. This would be a really simple set up. But needs VLANs, traffic managment etc to work well.

hio77

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# 2313164 8-Sep-2019 18:54

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chevrolux: The issue of 'onselling' services is simply not going to be an issue.

The wider thing is, while almost every provider has this as not allowed per their terms, actually taking the time to identify and enforce this is honestly, Not worth the time unless it's an extreme case

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