[SOLVED] Setup for repeating signal from neighbor's house

[d3adw3ight]

This thread was previously close because my post made it sound like I'm doing something against the ISPs rules.

TO BE CLEAR: What I'm trying to do does not violate the ISPs terms. I've had this conversation with them. They don't do repeaters. That doesn't mean I'm not allowed to. My understanding is that it's because the repeater would be an additional node on their network and has some security implications. I'm not adding a node to their network. What I'm trying to do is analogous to running a very long ethernet cable from the point of service to my house. I'm just not sure the best approach or equipment.

The only ISPs available to my house are wireless ones, and even they cannot get a signal through all the trees. However, I have a neighbor whose house is about 550 meters away and they can receive service. They said I can use their house to put a dish on. Some wireless ISPs do this kind of setup. Basically, they put the dish and a repeater on my neighbor's house. The company I'm talking to doesn't do this.

So, this leaves me thinking it wouldn't be that hard to handle the repeater part myself. Can anyone shed some light on the right equipment for this? Do I just connect the repeater to the ISPs transceiver and point it at my house? I want to avoid putting a modem inside my neighbor's house.

I'm imagining that this setup ends up having essentially 3 separate networks: (1) the network connecting the transceiver to the ISP, (2) the network connecting my neighbors house to mine and (3) my regular home wifi.

 

[bill001g]

It is pretty simple but I am surprised the neighbor would allow it since they get no benefit and it uses some of their power.
Assuming you can actually get a signal between your house and the neighbors. All you do is buy wireless outdoor bridge equipment. Ubiquiti sell many models for different application. The in effect look like a long ethernet cable. The wireless is completely transparent. You hook 1 bridge to the ISP wireless equipment and the other to your router. It is though you ran a ethernet cable to the neighbors house.

Key is you are not running as a repeater. The ISP signal and your are seperated by a ethernet cable between your bridge and their equipment. If they have any smarts they are not using actual wifi. Wisp vendors have special radios some even run LTE on the unlicensed bands.

 

[RealBeast]

This thread was previously close because my post made it sound like I'm doing something against the ISPs rules.

TO BE CLEAR: What I'm trying to do does not violate the ISPs terms. I've had this conversation with them. They don't do repeaters. That doesn't mean I'm not allowed to. My understanding is that it's because the repeater would be an additional node on their network and has some security implications. I'm not adding a node to their network. What I'm trying to do is analogous to running a very long ethernet cable from the point of service to my house. I'm just not sure the best approach or equipment.

The only ISPs available to my house are wireless ones, and even they cannot get a signal through all the trees. However, I have a neighbor whose house is about 550 meters away and they can receive service. They said I can use their house to put a dish on. Some wireless ISPs do this kind of setup. Basically, they put the dish and a repeater on my neighbor's house. The company I'm talking to doesn't do this.

So, this leaves me thinking it wouldn't be that hard to handle the repeater part myself. Can anyone shed some light on the right equipment for this? Do I just connect the repeater to the ISPs transceiver and point it at my house? I want to avoid putting a modem inside my neighbor's house.

I'm imagining that this setup ends up having essentially 3 separate networks: (1) the network connecting the transceiver to the ISP, (2) the network connecting my neighbors house to mine and (3) my regular home wifi.

Do you have line of sight to any point of the neighbor's house assuming that you both had a short antenna? If so, you could use a point to point AP pair, some are fairly reasonable like a Ubiquiti Outdoor Directional AP.

 

[d3adw3ight]

There's a stand of trees, probably 100' deep between us.

What type of connectors can I expect to find on the roof unit? Will there be a PoE adaptor at the base, that I can plug my unit into?

 

[d3adw3ight]

It is pretty simple but I am surprised the neighbor would allow it since they get no benefit and it uses some of their power.
Assuming you can actually get a signal between your house and the neighbors. All you do is buy wireless outdoor bridge equipment. Ubiquiti sell many models for different application. The in effect look like a long ethernet cable. The wireless is completely transparent. You hook 1 bridge to the ISP wireless equipment and the other to your router. It is though you ran a ethernet cable to the neighbors house.

Key is you are not running as a repeater. The ISP signal and your are seperated by a ethernet cable between your bridge and their equipment. If they have any smarts they are not using actual wifi. Wisp vendors have special radios some even run LTE on the unlicensed bands.

They're nice folks. I should definitely point that out to them, though. I don't foresee that being an issue. I'll probably owe them an extra batch of cookies each month.

By completely transparent, you mean the bridge signal is an open network (unsecured)?

 

[Barty1884]

There's a stand of trees, probably 100' deep between us.

Without a direct line of sight, you're going to be extremely disappointed in the speed/quality/stability at best.... and wasted $X wort-case.

Just throwing it out there - I'm sure there's some practicality issues,, but if you and your neighbour get along well (and I'm picturing a relatively open field between you), you could consider grabbing 1000' direct burial of Cat5e/6/6A and a surge protector for either end? Dig a relatively small trench in a straight(ish) line between the two properties, being mindful of what could happen at the site, frost lines etc*.

You'd be spending less** for a spool of cable than you would for a couple APs and, although you'd be exceeding the spec of 5e/6 (100m, ~325'), given the likely limitations of satelitte based ISPs, you should be able to see the majority of the available speed.

*Not an easy task by any stretch, and has it's pitfalls.... but I'd think the end-state would be substantially better than the AP route.

**strictly cost of materials, not accounting for the time to dig/run it

 

[bill001g]

The roof units on ubiquiti are poe. The connection between the 2 units likely will be done inside or at least someplace dry. The PoE injectors themselves are not designed to get wet.

No I mean the connection between the ISP radio and your router can not detect that there is a wifi connection...ie transparent. The ubiquiti units run wifi encryption like all other wifi devices.

If you do not have clear line of sight you are likely not going to get good results. That is highly likely why the ISP can not provide a signal directly to you.

If you think about doing the above post with a actual cable I would actually run fiber. There is no guarentee ethenet will work at that distance and it is huge amount of work to run the cable. They also make what is called a ethernet extender. What this is a form of private DSL. It will run very long distances over even telephone cables. Still like DSL from ISP the better your cable the better speeds you get.

 

[Barty1884]

If you think about doing the above post with a actual cable I would actually run fiber. There is no guarentee ethenet will work at that distance and it is huge amount of work to run the cable. They also make what is called a ethernet extender. What this is a form of private DSL. It will run very long distances over even telephone cables. Still like DSL from ISP the better your cable the better speeds you get.

Good point with Fiber. Would increase cost and would need conduit too, I believe (is there db-fiber?), so a bit more of a project. I wouldn't suggest digging the trench and burying the cable before testing the stability/speed achievable though, guess I should've mentioned that. Ethernet cables would be totally out of spec, but I would think it should be a pretty moot point given the speeds in question, but I'll admit I'm not 100% sure how that plays out in practice.

 

[d3adw3ight]

I took a closer look. I think if I drop 2 trees I will have a pretty good sized hole. The main stand of trees is shorter than I thought. So, with that, how's the performance on one of those ubiquiti units at 500 meters?

 

[kanewolf]

I took a closer look. I think if I drop 2 trees I will have a pretty good sized hole. The main stand of trees is shorter than I thought. So, with that, how's the performance on one of those ubiquiti units at 500 meters?

A PAIR of gigabeams should provide plenty of bandwidth. You need one at each end, and you create a point-to-point network.

 

[d3adw3ight]

Good point with Fiber. Would increase cost and would need conduit too, I believe (is there db-fiber?), so a bit more of a project. I wouldn't suggest digging the trench and burying the cable before testing the stability/speed achievable though, guess I should've mentioned that. Ethernet cables would be totally out of spec, but I would think it should be a pretty moot point given the speeds in question, but I'll admit I'm not 100% sure how that plays out in practice.

I think if it came down to going that route, it'd have to be fiber optic. The speed from the ISP isn't bad. It's not a satellite provider. My neighbors pay for 50Mbps and get most of it, 30+, most of the time.

 

[Barty1884]

I think if it came down to going that route, it'd have to be fiber optic. The speed from the ISP isn't bad. It's not a satellite provider. My neighbors pay for 50Mbps and get most of it, 30+, most of the time.

Actually yeah, you're right. I had misread your post as 550' not 550m.
Totally different ballgame if you were going out of spec to 5x+ rather than <2x.