Wireless Internet

eggy

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At the moment, I have a wireless Linksys router/adsl modem combo sitting in the office at home. I currently use ethernet cable to connect to my pc. My house is a seperate building to the office, approximately 30m from the office (open-air in between, gravel driveway). My room is on the top floor of the house (attic room). I want to access the internet from my room, connecting to the wireless router. Is this possible?

I can get wireless signal in the kitchen (first room) in the house. However, the distance to my room from the kitchen is a few flights of stairs. Can anyone suggest a solution? A powerful repeating wireless router in the kitchen perhaps? Or, ethernet cable outside to the house, then a wireless router? May be a possibility of simply running a long ethernet cable outside, then up the wall into my room, I'm just assessing options.
 

Danamyr

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Eggy, you simply need a better antenna for your receiver. It will plug straight into the connector on the blanking plate on your PCI wireless card, and you ought to be able to stick the antenna itself outside and superglue it to your window ledge.

Any decent IT store should sell them - also may be worth looking at Maplins.

HTH :)
 

Argante

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I would buy another wireless router put it in ur kitchen and establish a secure vpn with ur office router:
OfficePC - WiFI Router < - - - VPN - - - > WiFi Router - HomePC

I dont suggest u pass a lan cable outside.
 

Danamyr

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Argante said:
I dont suggest u pass a lan cable outside.

Although that would be by far the cheapest option. It would also be very secure. Just the issue of hiding and securing the cabling to and around the masonry.

That said, I still think you would have more flexibility with the wireless option TBH :)
 

Mojo

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drill some holes and do a propper job IMO wirless is becoming like lazy peoples fav IT solution, and TBH it just doesn't cut it, you could put antennas in all your rooms right next to your smoke detectors maybe you could knock down all your walls and replace them with paper, i bet the japanese dont have such issues with wireless :p
 

eggy

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But will getting a better antenna actually increase the range dramatically (ie more than double it, through walls/floors)? Wouldn't I need a more powerful transmitted antenna (ie on router)?
 

Danamyr

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eggy said:
But will getting a better antenna actually increase the range dramatically (ie more than double it, through walls/floors)? Wouldn't I need a more powerful transmitted antenna (ie on router)?

The issue is that the transmitted signal is not being received clearly enough by the receiver upstairs. My suggestion will do nothing to boost the power of your transmitter - that remains the same. But what it will do is enable your PC upstairs to receive the signal so much better.

Taking my previous advice one stage further, what you could do is to get another external antenna and use it to replace the antenna on the back of your wireless router downstairs...assuming your router antenna can be removed, some cannot.

I am fairly confident my intial suggestion will work well enough for you. But be aware that wireless can be affected by atmospheric conditions, even over a short distance like 30m, and additionally wireless has inherent latency issues that wired ethernet simply does not have.

For flexibility I'd go wireless. For reliability I'd go wired. The choice is yours! ;)
 

eggy

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I'll have a good look at home to see how well an ethernet cable could be layed from the office to my room. a small gravel ditch is no problem, but there is also a raised telephone wire from the house to office, so could run cable parallel to that, then put it round side of house and through the wall into the room directly. I'll have a good think about it.

I'm still not convinced that even with a decent antenna wireless signal would reach my room.
 

Teslacoil

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use cable, wireless sucks big time, i sell that crap all day long , it sucks so hard i don't even wanna sell it , but hey i make $$$$$$$$ on seeling it so , but a tip USE CABLE!
 

eggy

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I measured up my cable requirements and think it's the best option. As the cable will be outdoors I need advice on where to buy it (I am happy to cut and crimp my own). I think It'll be buried underground for half of the length, as putting it near telephone lines will cause inteference. What do I need to buy? Cheap?!
 

Mojo

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eggy said:
I measured up my cable requirements and think it's the best option. As the cable will be outdoors I need advice on where to buy it (I am happy to cut and crimp my own). I think It'll be buried underground for half of the length, as putting it near telephone lines will cause inteference. What do I need to buy? Cheap?!

Any cat5e cable will be fine, might be cheaper to buy a pre made cable for a single length if you can get the required length, buying a box/reel might be a bit ott for a single run.

Cat5e should be shielded so interference shud not be an issue, if you do decide to bury the cable then run the cable thru some pipe, steel is ace, plastic will do (if deepish) (overflow pipe 22mm or such shud be fine.

If your running over ground pipeing of some description would be a good idea also to just to prevent snagging, it doesnt require water proofing etc as the cable itslef is water proof, but your looking at something to prevent accindentel snagging, crushing etc underground or above so itake surface traffick into account, like do you drive your car over where the cable will be run etc.
 

eggy

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So you reckon running the cat5 along the telephone wire connecting the office/house is fine? Is this not a lightning risk? I'm surprised you think I don't need special cable for outdoor use, but I guess it makes sense being waterproof etc. I'll have a look at cheapo plastic piping for the underground bit.
 

Killswitch

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I'd recommend using cable, purely for network performance and reliability issues. Don't make your cable run longer than 100m (80m is better). Don't run your cable parallel to mains cables (induced current in the cable can cause problems).

Last point is a weird one. Do you know if your house and office share a common earth? One big problem for cabling between buildings using eletrical (as opposed to optical) cable is that the earth potential of the buildings can be different. This gets a little complicated. It's possible (ie I've seen it) to get a potential difference of 100V between the two ends of a cable. This can cause damage to components and also, if there are earthing or electrical problems at either end, can cause electric shocks.

Wireless connections don't have this problem, neither do optical connections. If you need more information, let me know and I'll speak to one of the Electronics guys at my work. A simple trick would be to tie the grounds of both buildings together (run cat5e in steel pipe...ground steel pipe by connecting to mains earth at both ends...speak to an electrician :p).

You mentioned lightning risks. If you run the cat5e directly next to a telephone line for a long run, this could be a risk. If you get a surge on the telephone line (from a strike) this could induce large currents in your network cable which could damage components. Also, running your cat5e alongside any other cable (mains/telephone) will increase signal attenuation and shorten the maximum length of the cable run.

Maximum rated length for Cat5e network runs is 100m IN PERFECT CONDITIONS. Any longer than that or any interference on the line could well lead to packet-loss and data corruption.
 

Mojo

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eggy said:
So you reckon running the cat5 along the telephone wire connecting the office/house is fine? Is this not a lightning risk? I'm surprised you think I don't need special cable for outdoor use, but I guess it makes sense being waterproof etc. I'll have a look at cheapo plastic piping for the underground bit.

yeah i reckon it will be fine, not something i would recomend for commercial use, but the expense of digging and laying the cable propperly will be greater than the risk of having something happen to it in a residential enviroment i would still be inclined to run it through something though just so its isnt "exposed". The only noticable difference in cableing is really just the outer layer, some hardened plasticised type which you would typically find running between floors and thru ducting etc and a more rubbersised version (patch cables) which is more flexible less likely to kink but wont take a hammer blow aswell as the hardened type. Like with everything else there is a trade off in this case cost and time over ease and risk really.

Ideally you should run a hardened cable thru a steel pipe or ducting 12" underground coming up above ground on the inside of your buildings. But i just dont think its worth the expense for what you want to do.

Best practice is all very well and good when it's someone else paying the bill and your liable for it ;-)
 

Killswitch

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Mojo said:
yeah i reckon it will be fine, not something i would recomend for commercial use, but the expense of digging and laying the cable propperly will be greater than the risk of having something happen to it in a residential enviroment i would still be inclined to run it through something though just so its isnt "exposed". The only noticable difference in cableing is really just the outer layer, some hardened plasticised type which you would typically find running between floors and thru ducting etc and a more rubbersised version (patch cables) which is more flexible less likely to kink but wont take a hammer blow aswell as the hardened type. Like with everything else there is a trade off in this case cost and time over ease and risk really.

Ideally you should run a hardened cable thru a steel pipe or ducting 12" underground coming up above ground on the inside of your buildings. But i just dont think its worth the expense for what you want to do.

Best practice is all very well and good when it's someone else paying the bill and your liable for it ;-)

Agreed.

Read the original post again and some of the stuff I mentioned above doesn't really apply, especially for non-commercial use. If you're connecting 2 routers or a router and a switch, there's no problem with earthing. I've experienced the problem in co-ax connections between video equipment (although 2-directly connected PCs could suffer the same problems). Wouldn't worry about lightning either.

1) Use good-quality cable and connectors and run it in some plastic or steel trunking
2) Keep the run-length below 100m
3) Keep the cable away from mains if possible

And it should all be fine. I think I've just done too much sodding commercial networking.
 

eggy

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If I run it along a telephone wire, is it ok without extra covering/tubing? I assume the plastic tubing was only if i was going to run it underground.
 

Mojo

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eggy said:
If I run it along a telephone wire, is it ok without extra covering/tubing? I assume the plastic tubing was only if i was going to run it underground.

I would use tubing above ground if you can just to conceal the cable and to offer it some additional protection against snagging, but i dont think it's an absolute must. if you think the cable wont come into any harms way then you can do without it, it is in some instances easier to secure a tube to a wall etc than it is a cable due to the rigidity if tubes as opposed to cables.

I have a plastic pipe running from my house to my garage, the benefit for me is i can simply pass more cables thru the pipe/tube if i need to rather than ending up with maybe 5 or so cables zipped tied to each other, but the reason i went with tubing was because the cable ran over a door way that is used to bring stuff into the house so i didnt want anything hooking onto my cables and snagging them or ripping them, and i have whaked the pipe a few times since, :)
 

Mikah75

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..

imo pick up the wireless and throw it out the window:< wat im gonna do soon
 

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