[SOLVED] Wireless top wired to wireless... Seems to be uncommon

[Dodger1960]

Hi there! As is becoming the norm, here I am a newbey in the forum and asking an awkward question as a first post... I have a wireless router connected to 900Mbps of loveliness. I also have a dedicated ethernet cable between my house and the annex though not connected to anything on either end. I want to buy/configure something (two devices) that will enable me to connect the house to the annex. Can't use ethernet to connect to the dedicated line for various reasons. So wireless router to wireless device to wired to wireless device... Any thoughts?

 

[Ralston18]

This:

"Can't use ethernet to connect to the dedicated line for various reasons."

What reasons? Sometimes the reasons may not be as they seem and wired could be workable.

Distance between house and annex? Anything in between? What about the surrounding area: other wireless networks, sources of interference, etc.?

A couple of Access Points might be viable but actual speed and/or performance could be marginal.

More details needed.

 

[Dodger1960]

The reason in this case is that it is a listed building and cannot therefore have any additional cabling. Distance is about 20m between house and annex. Should not be any other signals as this is rural England ;-) I have stayed away from point to point wifi because (a) I need to put something on the outside of the house which is difficult given listed status and (b) most reviews seem pretty poor. I have the cable buried between the two so seemed like the right option to actually use it. Not bothered if it is not gigabit - 100-200Mbps would be acceptable as this will be paying guests so to speak...

 

[Dodger1960]

Apologies - weird rules here in the UK for old houses - all council controlled and often archaic...

 

[bill001g]

So you have a ethernet cable already run but you are not allowed to use it?

Is there some issue with where the cable is located in the building or something.

In general you should already get a signal directly from the router that is usable. 20 meters is not that far. Now the outside walls might absorb too much signal but that problem can not be magically fixed. The wifi solution would be to put a wifi transmitter outside and then run a wire though the wall to solve the issue of the wifi not passing through. If there are limits on just using a existing ethernet cable I doubt that will be allowed either.

There is not much else. Maybe wifi bridges in windows if that is allowed. You would still likely have to run ethernet back to the router and to a AP on the far end for optimum results.

 

[Ralston18]

No apologies needed: lots of weird rules everywhere.....

I was wondering about:

"I also have a dedicated ethernet cable between my house and the annex though not connected to anything on either end"

Not sure about the rules etc. regarding "additional cabling" but it seems to me that if the cable is already there then it should be usable.

E.g.: " I have the cable buried between the two ".

Will defer to Forum members in UK accordingly.

 

[Dodger1960]

OK. So generally you cannot “add” cabling especially when it has to go through walls etc. Unless you can make it like it was so to speak. The cable was put in when the annex was converted and is buried outside and hence not subject to the same restrictions. It comes in to the house and the annex through the door jambs and thus does not interfere with the house “fabric”. So there is Ethernet cable there but no way rot get an ethernet cable to it inside the house. Because to do so would mean wiring through walls 3 feet thick and going against planning. Very English. Anyhow, that’s why I thought, see8mg as how the router upstairs is already there amd “approved”, I’d just try to connect to it through wireless, wire it to the annex and then back to wireless. Your comment about wireless and walls is relevant. Walls 3 feet thick don’t transmit wireless very well

 

[bill001g]

Is you concern extending the ethernet cable farther into the house or is it not actually inside already.

So can you connect anything to the cable. For example could you hook up a pc directly to the cable physically or is it someplace you can not really hook anything to it.

The idea would be to connect a device where the cable comes into the house. This device would use wifi to receive the signal from the router and since it is already inside the walls it should get a signal. It would then send the data over the ethernet cable to the other building where you would use another wifi device to transmit the signal to the actual remote device. Again since this is already inside the other building it should work.

You likely could buy a couple of wifi repeaters to accomplish this. They likely would work with default settings but what would be best is if you set the one in the house to client-bridge mode and the one in the remote building to AP mode. This makes it pretty much just repeat the signal over the ethernet rather than transmitting duplicate wifi signals and interfering.

The only other thing I can think of is maybe powerline networks would work. This is made much a harder when you have 2 different buildings but if they both connect back to the same power panel you might be able to use the electrical wires. This does not work if the buildings have their own power meters in most cases.