Microwave Lan

Soldato
Joined
12 Sep 2005
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Grundisburgh
We will be moving to a farm soon and looking at connecting the LAN in the main house to other buildings a few metres away. I understand a cable or 2 would probably be simplest and maybe best but, having seen microwave internet providers, is it possible to utilise microwave as a link between Lan segments?
Has anyone done it?
 
Associate
Joined
7 Jul 2007
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1,408
You could get a couple of ubiquiti litebeams and point them at each other. I believe they can be set up as transmitter / receiver, but I don't know what other kit you need at both ends to do this. Seems a bit overkill as well, they have a range quoted in miles.

Depending on how close they are you might just be able to point a directional antenna at the other buildings?
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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3,506
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UK
Lots of products to do this like the one suggested so I don't think you'll have a problem finding a solution that works for you. I don't have personal experience but there are regular contributors here who have run Mikrotik's wireless wire product with great success. It's available for about £150 and will do 1Gbps between two LAN segments all day long.

I have a UniFi outdoor AP that meshes to a wired one about 20m away indoors and gives me 25Mbps WiFi from most outdoor locations but it's no cheaper than a Wireless Wire and I was solving a different problem maybe to what you're requiring.
 

Kol

Kol

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8 Jan 2003
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I think @WJA96 once recommended the mikrotik wireless wire.

If he didn’t, my apologies but I suspect will be along soon with a recommendation.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Jul 2005
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19,205
Location
Norfolk, South Scotland
Indeed. It’s one of our most popular installs. The 60GHz LHG dishes need a bit more careful alignment but they give 2Gbps theoretical throughput so even though they have a 1Gbps ethernet port, it’s always running at the full speed.

The wAP ones are super-easy to install and the newer ones have a 60-degree coverage so you can almost point them anywhere and they still work.

They will drop speed a bit when it rains very hard or snows (sleet and hailstones really mess with the speed) and again, the 2Gbps over-provision means you don’t really notice the speed drop off when it’s bucketing down.

The newest CubeG-5ac60adpair Cube version has the added bonus of a backup 5GHz link for when it’s raining REALLY hard. But they’re double the price of the cheapest wAP units. From memory I think the wAPs are about £130+VAT, the LHGs are about £170+VAT and the Cubes are £200+VAT. All prices are for a pair of units with PoE injectors.

They are totally plug and play, especially if you have PoE switches. Just point them at each other and walk away. As the Mikrotik product trainer said on the installers course... “FFS don’t try and configure them!”.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
12 Sep 2005
Posts
6,493
Location
Grundisburgh
Thanks guys it looks like I have the answer, that is IF I can't lay cable. The two buildings are opposite sides of a concrete farm road that is probably very strongly built. We hope to find out before the end of June
 
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