[TriLUG] How to connect two buildings a mile apart...

[William W. Ward]

John -

At one mile two directional antennas with WiFi and some good quality
bridging APs should be sufficient to avoid rain fade AND potential
interference from nearby users on the same channel, although I've
experienced some unreliability with my low-end consumer AP and PCMCIA
adapters in an omnidirectional state, YMMV.
Effective radiated power limits are higher for point to point fixed
installations, so he should be able to throw enough juice from end to end to
overcome atmospheric interference.

Dan -

I'd suggest doing a bit of research beginning at
http://www.seattlewireless.net and following links from there.  Since you're
in a commercial house, you can spend a bit more money than the hobbyists.
Many commercial-grade wireless systems can be used to extend 10-11mbit/sec
over one or two miles with reliability.  Other alternatives include
laser-based links, but I know little of them and the cost of WiFi systems is
pretty low, even for commercial-grade hardware (such as Cisco's Aironet.)

You'll want to place the access point and antenna as close together as
possible, so consider something with an external enclosure, and you'll
definitely want to install some sort of encryption on either end BEHIND the
access point, as the common implementation of Wireless Encryption Protocol
is unreliable.  A couple of well placed Linux boxes using a VPN-like bridge
would be sufficient.

Lastly, I don't have any experience with the 802.11a hardware, but you may
be able to invest in this and achieve something closer to 56mbit/sec
throughput.

Its a one-time expense, as long as the hardware lasts, so you can depreciate
the expense over time.
The only other possibility that I'd be interested in is dropping fiber for
that mile-span, but I beleive a mile's worth of fiber is >$3,000 before you
discuss how to get it in the ground and terminated.

-b-



----- Original Message -----
From: "John F Davis" <johndavi at us.ibm.com>
To: <trilug at trilug.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 12:50 PM
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] How to connect two buildings a mile apart...


>
> Get a leased/dedicated line.  Since you pay by the mile, two miles ain't
> going to set your company back that much.  Also, its not going to have
rain
> fade and will most likely be cheaper.
>
> JD
>
> Dan Monjar <dmonjar at bellsouth.net>@trilug.org on 07/31/2002 10:39:31 AM
>
> Please respond to trilug at trilug.org
>
> Sent by:    trilug-admin at trilug.org
>
>
> To:    trilug at trilug.org
> cc:
> Subject:    [TriLUG] How to connect two buildings a mile apart...
>
>
>
> Not on topic but I'll give it a shot... I need to connect two buildings
> about a mile apart... I currently have two T1's (one is used for backup)
> between but the R&D folk don't think 1.5Mb is fast enough, go figure.
> There is line of sight between the two buildings so I was thinking of
> microwave or perhaps WiFi with a yagi antenna to make the beam more
> direction.  What would you do?
>
> --
> Dan <mailto:dmonjar at bellsouth.net>
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