long range (100-150 meters) network

frost

A non-profit organisation has asked me to quote for doing their network.
All pretty standard stuff, except that they have a second building about 100-150 meters from the main building they want to include.

I know 100m is the upper limit of normal Ethernet, so from a quick google it looks like it's going to have to be coax, fibre or long-range wireless. I haven't used any of these, so any advice on performance, issues, installation, recommended hardware and Irish suppliers would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

zilog_jones

You can use roof-mounted directional antennas for long-distance 802.11b/g/whatever. I don't know how much they cost but can find out if you want.

Fibre-optic cables are quite expensive - you'll certainly be looking at a three-digit price for that kind of length, not to mention the additional cost of FO network cards and/or switch/router modules.

Webmonkey

For something like that you should just stick to wireless to be honest.
Like zilog_jones said, just mount directinal antennas. Wi-pipe.com do them. Just find access points then with a antenna connector and you should be fine.

bushy...

Omni antennas ( not what you need ) from wipipe are very good , but i think you should look elsewhere for directionals.

A proper wireless link will be a lot more than 3 figures ( more like 5 ) but it will work , Wifi is grand if theres only a few users on it or you are on your couch surfing away , any more behind it and you start to see its shortcomings .

Why i'm pointing this out is , it is too easy to get talked into a pair of all-in-one wonder boxes , that you have to throw in the bin if you need to upgrade them.

How much bandwidth do think will be needed ?

If its not a savage amount and you don't want to spend a fortune , pick up these :

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055060531

and one more of them if you want a full duplex link ( i've used them before for this craic , they are grand for the money )

The next bit is stuff to drive them , and that depends on how much bandwidth you need.Post back when you find out .

Snowbat

Though for a point-to-point wifi link there will be only one 'user' as such. If you have line of sight, a low to medium gain directional antenna on one end of the link will probably be sufficient to cover this distance with good signal strength. Note that real life throughput on wifi is usually lower than an ethernet or fibre link of equivalent bandwidth, and this can be further degraded if you use encryption. The deciding factor will be how much bandwidth you need between the two buildings.

bushy...

What i was on about was when you have a point-to-point wifi link with a good few users in the "new " building , its throughput may fall drastically . If you want to do it wirelessly there is some unbelieveably bad gear out there at the cheaper end of the scale.

If you don't want to spend on top end gear you can play a bit cute and still make it upgradeable without throwing the whole lot in the bin and make it reliable, eg my own link is totally trouble free for about two years. I 'll give you enough advice for free on what i've seen and know to work to get their sites linked up.

So .. any idea of bandwidth requirements ?

mastermind2005

If its private property between the buildings install an undergound socket and put a hub between two 75m cables

niallb

Lets concentrate on the non-profit organisation, and the fact that it's only about 150m away tops. (measure that, by the way as best you can.)

It doesn't need to go into 5 figures unless you want to guarantee high performance LAN speed connections between all the machines in both buildings.

That's very unlikely to be necessary, and there may only be one or two machines using the link itself at any one time. Some of the new MIMO
gear might even be able to do that without buying antennas at all.

The better your antenna though, the better the network, but the option
is now available to put the bare AP or whatever link radios up this year
and get a connection of 2Mb between the buildings. Next year, purchase
some antennas and get yourself up to 10-50Mb.

The 2Mb might be plenty for a while, and being able to spread the cost
over two budget periods may make things easier.

How many machines are involved?
What will they be using the link between the buildings for?
Sharing an internet connection and the odd file, or something more intense?

Good luck with the project,
NiallB

Capt'n Midnight

If you have access to all the land in between cable is the way to go. It's secure and fast and not as susceptible to interference.

All you need is a switch / hub in the middle. Powering it is your main problem.
Cable should be buried in conduit to keep it dry and away from temperature extremes. 10/100 uses less power than gigabit. A water proof box in the middle would be handy. Always run extra cables so you have them there for the future. You could run phones later.

Anyone know of any cheap PoE switches / hubs ( ones that are powered by PoE that is !)

Many devices run from 9V to 30V so you could power up with low voltage cable and not have to worry to much over the voltage drop.
You might end up using a wireless AP as a switch simply because many are flexible with voltage requirements.

Urban Weigl

Two 802.11n wireless routers should be able to bridge it for you, as the range is much improved, and 150 metres shouldn't be an issue.

bushy...

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

All you need is a switch / hub in the middle. Powering it is your main problem.
Cable should be buried in conduit to keep it dry and away from temperature extremes. 10/100 uses less power than gigabit. A water proof box in the middle would be handy. Always run extra cables so you have them there for the future. You could run phones later.

Anyone know of any cheap PoE switches / hubs ( ones that are powered by PoE that is !)

Cables over wireless any day for sure, if its a non-POE 10/100 switch you could buy a POE splitter ( about ~ 20 euro) that will give you 5v or 12v for an input of 13 - 60v on the ethernet. You also need an injector for the indoors end ( ~ 15euro).

Niallb wrote:

Lets concentrate on the non-profit organisation,

The better your antenna though, the better the network, but the option
is now available to put the bare AP or whatever link radios up this year
and get a connection of 2Mb between the buildings. Next year, purchase
some antennas and get yourself up to 10-50Mb.

Here is my idea , buy the 3 x antennas above from Peanut ( ~ be less than 50 euro each )

If you just want a link for now you can upgrade later , get 2 x of these ( about 35 euro each)
and two boards to drive the radios like this ( about 50 euro each)

The above setup has given 20megs+ in tests

If you need to upgrade later , you can re-use everything except the boards.

frost

all,
really sorry, i wasn't getting email notifications of replies. just read through the whole thread and will have to read again a few more times to absorb it, but it's really helpful. as happens with non-profit orgs, they put the project on hold temporarily, but i suspect it will come back onto the front burner some time soon.

just a few points to clarify:
cost is an issue but i havent been given a budget for this
they do own the land between the two points so could bury cables/conduits
afaik, only 1 low bandwidth user to be in the outbuilding

E. Fudd

I would suggest running a four core multi-mode fibre between the two and installing a 3com switch with a fibre card in them at both ends. Simple, and quite cheap!
I'll even do the fibre for you!;)

JohnnieM

If you have a free pair of telephone cable or even one that carries a phone extension ..(device will not interfere with the phone extension) or If you can cable between the two.. You can use a VDSL router (master and slave ) Will work up to 4Km on good cable... Cost a little over 100 euro each and will give you 100mb network at the slave end..:)