Networking out to garage

Alex34 · 4 Sep 2019 at 20:04

I live in a new build and my garage isn't directly attached to my property. I live in a detached house and my garage is one of three garages below my next door neighbour's flat. When the house was being finished we ran power from the house to the garage via underground conduit that runs along side my neighbour's property and into the back of my garage. At the time I wasn't thinking and didn't run an Ethernet cable with it.

I'm now trying to figure out the best way to get internet good coverage into the garage. At the moment I use an ASUS RTAC68U wifi router in my home from my fibre router. It barely covers the garage with wifi and I want to use a wifi cctv camera in the garage for security as well as use the internet while I'm in there working on my manly projects :-)

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Should I get another ASUS router and use their in-house "mesh" system or could I use the mains power cable running to the garage to send the internet signal... sort of like those Powerline wifi extenders?

I don't think I will be able to fit an Ethernet cable in the existing conduit and it would probably be virtually impossible now that my mate forgot to leave a line of string in there when we originally ran the cable through.

The garage is probably less than 50ft from my house but as it is the third garage from us, it would be very difficult to run another conduit as it would involve two of my neighbours.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

DIABLO · 4 Sep 2019 at 20:43

Since it's only a garage i would probably just go the Powerline AP route.

Is the Garage on a separate circuit to the house electrics? if so that will drastically reduce throughput though.

Another option might be to put an WiFi access point on the outside of your house.

Alex34 · 4 Sep 2019 at 21:08

DIABLO said:
Since it's only a garage i would probably just go the Powerline AP route.

Is the Garage on a separate circuit to the house electrics? if so that will drastically reduce throughput though.

Another option might be to put an WiFi access point on the outside of your house.

The garage power runs from main breaker inside the house to an outside hub at the side of the house, then on to the garage which also has a breaker. If I use a powerline, how would I set it up? Just plug it into any mains socket in the house and in theory it should reach the garage?

If I go the outside wifi access point, which would be recommended?

Thanks.

DIABLO · 4 Sep 2019 at 21:29

So your internal sockets have their own breaker?

Ubiquiti AP's are the default devices people recommend. https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/products/27503-ubiquiti-uap-ac-m/specifications/#content

WJA96 · 4 Sep 2019 at 21:32

Any good electrician would have rods long enough to push a cable through the existing conduit. If you can cable it, it’s always the best way to do it. If you can’t cable it, then I would suggest a point-to-point link. Either something like Mikrotik’s Wireless Wire kit https://mikrotik.com/product/wireless_wire (about £160) or a pair of Ubiquiti Litebeam AC Gen2 https://www.ui.com/airmax/litebeam-ac-gen2/

Alex34 · 4 Sep 2019 at 21:48

DIABLO said:
So your internal sockets have their own breaker?

I'm not sure to be honest... The have their own switches inside the breaker unit... labelled 1st floor sockets and 2nd floor sockets, just as the garage has it's own switch in the same unit.

Alex34 · 4 Sep 2019 at 21:51

For the money, would it be easier just to replace my asus router with a Lynksys Velop mesh system?

sideways14a · 4 Sep 2019 at 21:53

SFP+ fiber out to a switch in the garage would be what i would do but then i would have god knows what devices hanging off it.
Can be done really cheaply - but total overkill for 99% of folk.

Alex34 · 4 Sep 2019 at 21:54

WJA96 said:
Any good electrician would have rods long enough to push a cable through the existing conduit.

It's one of those flexi plastic conduits, not sure if the rods would constantly get hitch on the ridges.

Quartz · 4 Sep 2019 at 22:31

Alex34 said:
I'm now trying to figure out the best way to get internet good coverage into the garage.

Use the current power cable to pull through an ethernet cable and a new power cable and a pull cord or two.

Steveocee · 5 Sep 2019 at 10:07

Alex34 said:
For the money, would it be easier just to replace my asus router with a Lynksys Velop mesh system?

If currently the WiFi isn't very good or isn't there at all in the garage. How would you expect a mesh system to work? It has to pair up over WiFi therefore would be rubbish at best.

WJA96 · 5 Sep 2019 at 13:27

Alex34 said:
It's one of those flexi plastic conduits, not sure if the rods would constantly get hitch on the ridges.

There’s a ball-type gimmick that fits on the end of the rods for that sort of conduit. You want something that will do a similar job to a cable, but wirelessly and that is the 60GHz Mikrotik Wireless Wire system. It is designed to allow small ISPs to deliver fast Ethernet connections across short distances eg. Between two houses. It’s perfect for what you want to do. Don’t be put off by the fact that it’s a Latvian company you’ve never heard of, three years ago you’d never heard of Ubiquiti or UniFi either.

Steveocee · 5 Sep 2019 at 13:42

WJA96 said:
There’s a ball-type gimmick that fits on the end of the rods for that sort of conduit. You want something that will do a similar job to a cable, but wirelessly and that is the 60GHz Mikrotik Wireless Wire system. It is designed to allow small ISPs to deliver fast Ethernet connections across short distances eg. Between two houses. It’s perfect for what you want to do. Don’t be put off by the fact that it’s a Latvian company you’ve never heard of, three years ago you’d never heard of Ubiquiti or UniFi either.

Only the dishes are legal to use outdoors though. The smaller NSM5 looking jobbies were indoors only last time I checked.

WJA96 · 5 Sep 2019 at 13:57

Steveocee said:
Only the dishes are legal to use outdoors though. The smaller NSM5 looking jobbies were indoors only last time I checked.

Interesting. Do you have a link?

My understanding that the transmit power falls below the level you need a licence to use, and that’s why the 60GHz dish models (that you do need a licence for) go 5km but the wireless wire kit only does 200m. I’ve supplied dozens of these kits since they launched last year and as far as I’m aware they’re completely legal in the UK.

Steveocee · 5 Sep 2019 at 14:01

WJA96 said:
Interesting. Do you have a link?

My understanding that the transmit power falls below the level you need a licence to use, and that’s why the 60GHz dish models (that you do need a licence for) go 5km but the wireless wire kit only does 200m. I’ve supplied dozens of these kits since they launched last year and as far as I’m aware they’re completely legal in the UK.

Not to hand but.....
OFCOM regulate (or did) that you need a minimum X amount of gain antenna which the dishes just about fall into but not the smaller wireless wire units. Not that it matters that much in real deployment as 60Ghz soaks up kind of fast but that was a part of being able to use it license free I believe.

**Edit: LiniTX did a good blog post and it looks like you can actually use them in IR2030 compliance so ignore me. I totally fell out of love with wireless and so on Sept 18 so that's why I'm giving mis-information (amendment was Nov 2018)
https://blog.linitx.com/60ghz/

WJA96 · 5 Sep 2019 at 14:27

It’s certainly a complicated area. I did an install in Suffolk for someone who wanted to link their gatehouse to the main dwelling house (definitely a 1st world problem!) We used the SXT 60GHz units and we got a full 1Gbps link at over 2700m. And because of whose home it was, we did full due diligence because if we needed a licence they would have happily paid for it to be completely legal.