Hello all,

I am very new to the networking stuff since I’ve always used my parents or whatever was offered by an apartment complex, so I may need some pointers. I was looking at doing a mesh system for the new property. We just had a fiber optic cable put in, and the port is in one house and not the other. Can we use a mesh system for this or is there a better solution to get internet to both houses. I would ballpark and say that the houses are about 100 yards or so away from each other…

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated

  • JibJabJake@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Get unifi bridges and be done as long as you have pretty good line of sight. Longest I’ve done personally was right at mile.

  • TheHillPerson@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    The best solution is likely running fiber between a switch in each house… but that involves trenching and a lot of work.

    A point to point wireless system, as others have noted, would be much easier and should work fine.

  • DavidMoksha@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I have a somewhat similar situation, and presently I use a pair of Ubiquiti Nanobeam 2AC dishes (2.4GHz) acting as a point-to-point wireless bridge for a slightly longer distance, about 450 feet. They support 300Mbps up or down, or 150Mbps duplex (up and down simultaneously). My fiber connection is 300/300 and speedtest.net shows that’s what I’m getting (just tested again - 273 down, 288 up).

    The 5GHz nanobeam dishes (5AC) support faster speeds, advertised as 450Mbps, and I believe the one-way speed is over 850Mbps.

    Nanobeams are about $100 each or $200 for a pair (whether 2.4GHz or 5GHz). Assuming you are in the US: B&H is a good place to buy - they are an authorized dealer - and Amazon is not. I bought mine directly from Ubiquiti, but their return window is only 14 days.

    A very clear line of sight is important. I first had one small tree in between, and the connection dropped frequently, taking 30 seconds to renegotiate. This is long enough to drop off a work call. I ended up mounting one dish to a branch of that very tree and now they don’t ever lose connection. The dashboard has a “connection time” statistic which now measures in days rather than minutes.

    The 2.4GHz wavelength might be slightly more tolerant to weather and stuff. Whereas 5GHz often has fewer other devices to compete with or disrupt.

    Ubiquiti no longer makes the nice flush mounts, but I got a couple from a dude on Etsy who is 3d printing them.