Extending wireless to nearby house

bossdrum

Apologies first as i know similar topics as this have been discussed before.
I'm looking for the simplest and cheapest solution for this problem as i know very little about broadband.

I live in a mid terrace house, three doors down from my in-laws.
The distance would be less than 50 feet but the walls would be very thick between the houses.

Their setup is
Vodafone fixed line broadband with a download speed of about 13mb.

What would be the best way to increase the wifi range to my house and still have a decent download speed?

I see on other threads people mention Ubiquiti Unify. Would this work and is it easy to setup?
Are there any other cheaper solutions?

Many thanks

bonzodog2

A cheap wifi router (like an old Eir/Voda/Sky DSL box, prob get one for €5 on adverts/DD/freecycle) and cat5 between the houses would be the way I'd go. Or a proper wifi access point.

bossdrum

Thanks for the reply.
It would be difficult to get cat5 from the existing router, past two neighbours houses and into mine, especially as I'm only renting and don't want to do any drilling etc..
Can you let me know what the best WiFi access point solution could be?

ItHurtsWhenIP

bossdrum wrote: »

Apologies first as i know similar topics as this have been discussed before.
I'm looking for the simplest and cheapest solution for this problem as i know very little about broadband.

I live in a mid terrace house, three doors down from my in-laws.
The distance would be less than 50 feet but the walls would be very thick between the houses.

Their setup is
Vodafone fixed line broadband with a download speed of about 13mb.

What would be the best way to increase the wifi range to my house and still have a decent download speed?

I see on other threads people mention Ubiquiti Unify. Would this work and is it easy to setup?
Are there any other cheaper solutions?

Many thanks

Ubiquiti Nanostations should do the job OK - as long as you have Line of sight to their house. Take a look at this thread.

bonzodog2 wrote: »

A cheap wifi router (like an old Eir/Voda/Sky DSL box, prob get one for €5 on adverts/DD/freecycle) and cat5 between the houses would be the way I'd go. Or a proper wifi access point.

I think there is something dangerous (electrical-wise) about connecting two separate buildings in this way. Others might chime in about it.

bossdrum

MMFITWGDV wrote:

Ubiquiti Nanostations should do the job OK - as long as you have Line of sight to their house. Take a look at this

Thanks for your response.

The houses are only about 50 feet apart, and have two other houses in between. This would mean having to put aerials on each roof and all the drilling etc. plus expense which would incur.
Surely for such a small distance a wireless signal from one house to the other is possible without nanostations?
As it is I can pick up a faint signal from the Vodafone router from outside my front door.

ED E

1. Be aware that this is most probably against the Vodafone contract

2. Wiring isn't possible so we won't go into it, but yes you wouldnt do it with ethernet due to phase differential.

3. You cant just blast your wifi up to 11. The way wifi works is everyone has a low power transmission, if high power was allowed only 3 people in each town could use it.

If you want to do it without drilling etc you could put a weatherproofed wireless bridge in your garden and an AP in your house, run the cable under a door/in a window and you'd be all set assuming you can get the correct angle.

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mass_debater

bossdrum wrote: »

Surely for such a small distance a wireless signal from one house to the other is possible without nanostations?

Nope, you have obstacles called walls blocking the signal.

rugrat69

http://m.woodcomm.ie/ez-repeater-engenius.asp This unit should do the trick for you wifi for non techies.

mass_debater

rugrat69 wrote: »

http://m.woodcomm.ie/ez-repeater-engenius.asp This unit should do the trick for you wifi for non techies.

No good. A complete waste of money. This is why non techies shouldn't recommend wireless gear

1. Repeaters rely on a wireless signal which he says is very weak at the front door
2. Repeaters share the same frequency as your original wireless therefore it will immediately half the speed of what you've got.

rugrat69

Firstly I did not state that I was non techie I stated it is ideal for a non technical personnel to install without as much as a laptop. The person who started this post can do his/her own research online and see independent reviews. I have them working up to 1km in an external environment (campsite) and they work perfectly. So i guess 50 ft might just be achievable would you guess. This is a new piece of kit and traditional wifi vendors don't have them like this plug and play concept.

rugrat69

Firstly I did not state that I was non techie I stated it is ideal for a non technical personnel to install without as much as a laptop. The person who started this post can do his/her own research online and see independent reviews. I have them working up to 1km in an external environment (campsite) and they work perfectly. So i guess 50 ft might just be achievable would you guess. This is a new piece of kit and traditional wifi vendors don't have them like this plug and play concept.

mass_debater

rugrat69 wrote: »

Firstly I did not state that I was non techie I stated it is ideal for a non technical personnel to install without as much as a laptop. The person who started this post can do his/her own research online and see independent reviews. I have them working up to 1km in an external environment (campsite) and they work perfectly. So i guess 50 ft might just be achievable would you guess. This is a new piece of kit and traditional wifi vendors don't have them like this plug and play concept.

Traditional wifi vendors don't have plug and play gear like this because its not they way it's done. If you installed repeaters in an enterprise environment then you have no clue what you were at. Repeating a wireless signal on the same frequency loses you half of your throughput. It's not much use as it will not work well in an indoor environment with structural walls blocking the signal.

rugrat69

maybe the mid terrace indicated it is a domestic application only a wild guess ??

bossdrum

How about this thing?

https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap/

It has a range of 400 feet. Has anyone any experience of it?

mass_debater

bossdrum wrote: »

How about this thing?

https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap/

It has a range of 400 feet. Has anyone any experience of it?

Yes, I've fitted a good few of them in big open spaces. Solid walls are a big problem

duckndive

bossdrum wrote: »

How about this thing?

https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap/

It has a range of 400 feet. Has anyone any experience of it?

Not a bad piece of kit and have tried them also in an open environment, not great at traversing a multi-wall scenario though.

I have recently tried out the Engenius EZ repeater, as I noticed one of the lads above recommending them. I like new innovative tech so love to try it out on though jobs, nothing like trying to beat the living daylights out of a new box

I was expecting it to be easy to set up as the name was a kind of giveaway, 5 clicks on my phone and done. What I was expecting it to fail at was getting through 3 thick walls, each with a measured Db loss of approximately 9Db. I use Ekahau to perform all my pre-deployment, (and post deployment), surveys.

I noted that the EZ repeater had a 3Db larger TX output, (which equates to doubling of the RF output), which assisted in getting the 2.4Ghz channel I had chosen in transmitting, (or in this case re-transmitting), at a large loss but with adequate overhead.

I was repeating from a 240Mbs VM router, which of course immediately halved the throughput. As WiFi is a duplex medium I was working off 120 Mbs full duplex from the start either way, but all I wanted was for a small office set up at the repeater end. So I can now get with walls, repeater, overheads on encryption, co-channel interference, etc approximately about 30Mbps. Minor miracle and that comes from an enterprise WiFi fanboy.....me who may convert to these "domestic" EZ access points/repeaters for any future head scratching installations.

In short, if you don't try something out you will never know if it passes the taste test.

I hope you have found a solution to your problem.