Extending the Wifi from House A to House B

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llewellyn

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Topic # 89288 30-Aug-2011 10:33

So here's the suitation, we've bought the house neighbouring our parents and we want to leach the internet off our parents, with their permission of course..

Our parents live in House A, which has a Wifi connection and Internet connection.

We live in House B, where Wifi signal is quite weak.

I wanted to know what would be the best option to get a good wifi signal in House B

1: Use a Range Extender/ Bridge/ Repeater 2: Buy a second Router for House A and run House A and B Routers with WDS 3: open to suggestion.

What is the difference between Range Extender/ Bridge/ Repeater??

Running a cable between the two houses is not an option..unfortunately

gumdigger

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Reply # 513823 30-Aug-2011 10:43

use a directional outdoor wifi antenna. you can use these on existing access points/routers as long as you can unscrew the default antenna on the unit.

cyril7

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Reply # 513834 30-Aug-2011 11:03

Hi, run a cable in your folks house to an outside wall facing your place, then install one of these pointing at your house, run it in AP mode (actually WDS to get fully layer2 transparency).

How far are the two houses apart, ie what would the path length be.

Cyril

richms

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Reply # 513871 30-Aug-2011 11:49

There is a cheap TP-Link AP that does all the modes, the only issue we had with a pair was when using the remote one as an AP and WDS bridge at the same time, thruput became useless, the ethernet sockets bridged fine.

TP-Link TL-WA901ND was the model, in the remote hangar we just plugged another accesspoint into the ethernet of the tp-link so that we could use phones and stuff, as the WDS is setup with the remote mac address it doesnt try to connect back to the closer accesspoint.

Just watch that one is not set on auto channel since then it bounces around on each powerup and the remote one will not find it.

Richard rich.ms

cyril7

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Reply # 513884 30-Aug-2011 12:06

Hi sorry for got to put the link in my post above.

http://www.gowifi.co.nz/backhaul-point-to-point/ubiquiti-nanostation-locom2-802.11n/g-200mw-outdoor-...

These will work faarrr better than a domestic grade AP.

Cyril

llewellyn

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Reply # 513895 30-Aug-2011 12:30

THe houses are not far apart, approx 10-12 meters between. But the walls of both houses are brick and there are a few bushy trees in the corner...

I was considering usiing TP-Link TL-WR1043ND at both houses are connecting them using WDS, but i read on Wiki that WDS halves your bandwith.. Has anyone used this or WDS before?

Another option was to use Netgear WN3000RP, has anyone used one of these before??

Thanks heaps...

timmmay

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Reply # 513898 30-Aug-2011 12:35

You can get repeaters, they'd be worth a look.

Another option is a second WAP in their house, inside and wired to their main router, with a directional antenna pointing at your place. I do something similar at home, but for use inside my larger house rather than to get it next door.

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cyril7

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Reply # 513899 30-Aug-2011 12:35

Hi any repeater mode or WDS (which is just repeater in a more ordially fashion) will half throughput, basically each frame has to be recieved then passed on.

I have installed a number of the above suggestions by putting the AP on the outside of your folks house cuts down one brick wall, and leave enough signal to get coveage directly inside your house.

Cyril

Edit my suggestion for putting the UBNT AP in WDS mode was not to use the WDS mode, but because it makes the AP fully layer2 transparent, something a normal AP will not, ie everything on the wireless side of the AP appears on the wired side as from the APs mac, this can cause issues with some applications that rely on layer2 addressing.

richms

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Reply # 513906 30-Aug-2011 13:07

WDS only halves it when you go in and out the radio on the same device, if it is a bridge to wired and then you have something else providing wireless on a different channel so it doesnt interfere, then it will be fine.

Just keep in mind that there is only enough space on 2.4GHz for one N network and one G network, if you try to run 2 40MHz N networks they will overlap and not work very well at all. We found N for the bridge on CH1 and then G for the clients in the second hangar on CH 11 worked sweet as, got full DSL speeds almost on the speed test on laptops etc.

Richard rich.ms

webwat

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Reply # 515176 1-Sep-2011 16:51

llewellyn: THe houses are not far apart, approx 10-12 meters between. But the walls of both houses are brick and there are a few bushy trees in the corner...

I was considering usiing TP-Link TL-WR1043ND at both houses are connecting them using WDS, but i read on Wiki that WDS halves your bandwith.. Has anyone used this or WDS before?

Another option was to use Netgear WN3000RP, has anyone used one of these before??

Thanks heaps...

If you really do need to connect wirelessly over the local AP in your house, you will probably find that 1/2 bandwidth is still faster than your available internet speed, so its more affecting just the latency. I imagine you probably do need to do this sometimes, but not a major issue unless you are using a congested channel already, or sending files/media between PCs.

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chevrolux

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Reply # 515211 1-Sep-2011 17:30

cyril7: Hi, run a cable in your folks house to an outside wall facing your place, then install one of these pointing at your house, run it in AP mode (actually WDS to get fully layer2 transparency).

How far are the two houses apart, ie what would the path length be.

Cyril

This is the simplest and best idea. Get a set of those little ubiquiti external AP's and you will be away laughing.

llewellyn

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Reply # 524864 23-Sep-2011 08:00

Thought I'd give you guys an update

I eventually got myself a TP-Link Repeater, and placed this in House B. It was the cheapest solution. My Belkin router did not support WDS so I've used the Universal Repeater mode.

I know that it will half my bandwidth, but with a 300N Belkin Router and 300N TPLink Repeater its very acceptable since we are 99% on the internet and rarely ever shared stuff over the LAN.