2km wireless bridge

[simpletron]

I want to get internet access out to a remote building, which doesn't have (and won't ever get) any telephone or cable service. The building is almost exactly 2 km or 1.25 miles away from their house that has 50Mb cable service. The terrain is flat as both place are about 15ft above sea. The first ~500 meters is forest, then the remaining 1500 meters is open marsh/tidal creeks.

I'm thinking of doing the following:

Cable modem--cat6-->RT-AC56U--cat6-->PoE adapter--shielded Cat5e-->NanoBridge M5--2km wireless link--> NanoBridge M5--shielded Cat5e-->PoE adapter--cat6-->RT-AC56U-->computer

RT-AC56U
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=ATVPDKIKX0DER

shielded Cat5e
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=AVE52N8JWK1X4

NanoBridge M5
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...A2D0YFB4ZQHPN0

PoE adapter
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=ATVPDKIKX0DER

While the building does have 3g verizon service(slow, 700Kb, and expensive, an additional $60/month for their needs) and 2g T-mobile(super slow and cheaper), these can't be the best way to do this.

Is there anything wrong with the above plan? Is there a better wireless bridge for competitive price to the M5? I would appreciate any help/advice on the above project.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I want to get internet access out to a remote building, which doesn't have (and won't ever get) any telephone or cable service. The building is almost exactly 2 km or 1.25 miles away from their house that has 50Mb cable service. The terrain is flat as both place are about 15ft above sea. The first ~500 meters is forest, then the remaining 1500 meters is open marsh/tidal creeks.

Is there anything wrong with the above plan? Is there a better wireless bridge for competitive price to the M5? I would appreciate any help/advice on the above project.

I'm no long-haul wireless expert, so correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the presence of 500 meters of forest basically preclude long-haul wireless links? Pretty sure that they require tuning and LoS.

 

[Fardringle]

If you can stand at one building and physically see the other building, then long distance wireless is definitely an option. In this case, with about 500m of forest between the buildings, you're going to need really tall antennas to get above the trees, or use something that doesn't require line of sight, like the 2g/3g you mentioned, or really high powered transmitters (that would need a special license).

 

[JackMDS]

To expand on Fardringle correct notion.

You have some chance if you equip the Nano Bridges with High Gain High Directional Antennae.

Put the Antenna on tall masts (with POE) so they have a clear line of site, and have special GPS tools to make sure that the two Antennae in line to really face precisely one the other.

That said it can also end up that it will work and will not be faster than the 3g Verizon.


-----------------------
In general when it come to Wireless there is a Bizarre approach by the masses.

While No one will Post "Hey I have 1 million $$, tell me what I can buy to get to the moon and back. Some how people get it that it cost Billions and Million to go to the Moon.

When it come to Wireless people try to save "Big Money" (like $60 a month) thinking that they can do something with Wireless technology without spending thousands (or ten thousands) $$$.

 

[imagoon]

http://www.dragonwaveinc.com/products/packet-microwave/harmony-radio-lite

Good luck aligning that tiny dish without a GPS or laser guidance system. You also likely would need to guide wire the mast as the breeze will knock little dishes like that out of alignment.

 

[Lifted]

If you can get line of sight, either of these would work.

http://www.engeniustech.com/business-networking/outdoor-access-points-client-bridges/16753-ens500
http://www.amazon.com/EnGenius-Techn.../dp/B00BOVOM0S


http://www.engeniustech.com/business-networking/outdoor-access-points-client-bridges/16749-ens202
http://www.amazon.com/EnGenius-Techn.../dp/B00BOVOKR8

 

[theevilsharpie]

5GHz radio signals will not reliably penetrate vegetation, and getting a tall enough tower to clear a forest-sized trees will likely be expensive.

As an alternative, you can use 900MHz radios, but you're unlikely to get 50Mbit/s from them unless your signal is absolutely perfect.

 

[azazel1024]

You are better off with a high gain Yagi in 2.4GHz rather than those 22dB suckers in 5.8GHz.

The 900MHz radios would be a much better option if such equipment is available (not sure on your price range). 900MHz penetrates significantly, significantly better. You might well get a resonable signal through half a kilometer of forest, even with foliage on with some nice high gain antennas on either end.

I think the only real option you are going to have is sticking Yagi antennas on a masts to get them as high as possible, use 2.4GHz and a really high power radio router, possibly with a signal booster in there too.

I'd be prepared for failure though.

The other option might be to get some direct bury fiber and just trench it shallow through the woods and then setup a weather proof box with a fiber transciever and directional wireless bridge/AP pointed at the outbuilding and use something like a 30w solar panel, solar charge controller and a 65ah battery or so. That'll get you through the woods and, I assume, direct LoS then. Its a lot of fiber to bury, but if you are only trenching down 6"-1' it shouldn't be more than a couple of weekends of work.

 

[pm]

I tried to do this across 750m of trees, forest and marsh with line of sight using 2.4GHz routers driving professionally-made cantenna's that were precisely aimed and with amplifiers on both ends and I had limited success. In winter time without any leaves, I could get the equivalent of 1-2 WiFi bars worth of connectivity which mostly worked, but in the summer (with leaves on the trees) and during any form of precipitation (rain, snow, or even fog) it would disappear. Once trees leafed out in the spring time that would kill any form of link.

I decided that I needed to either elevate the antenna onto masts (to get above the trees) or switch to something lower frequency (like 900MHz) but I figured out a way to get a directional antenna onto a FreedomPop ("free" internet) router and we just used that.

 

[simpletron]

The property owners association will probably block me from building a mast tall enough to get over the trees. Running a fiber cable is also out of question because I don't own the land in-between.

Roof-mounting the antennas will get me up to about 30ft, which is above most palm trees, but lower than the tops of pine and oak trees. Luckily, the only thing blocking the line of sight is the vegetation, there are no hills or buildings in the way.

I been trying to figure out which frequency to go with(900mhz vs 2.4ghz vs 5.8ghz). In my basic understanding, the goal seems to be to keep the fresnel zone as clear as possible for the best signal. For 900mhz, the fresnel zone dips well into the marsh, which at high tide becomes a very shallow body of water, and will be a major disruption for 900mhz. For 2.4ghz vs 5.8ghz, while both fresnel zones won't hit the ground, but the 2.4ghz one will dip more in lower thick vegetation. Additionally 2.4ghz is more readily absorbed by water than 5.8ghz and there is a lot of water in air around here whether it is rain, fog, wind-blown mist, or humidity. This is why I'm leaning towards using a 5.8ghz antenna and this one has a few reviews of people getting links through up to 0.5 miles of forest.

A couple of people mention budget, I would mind spend $750, maybe $1500 to get a solid link because that is 1 and 2 years, respectively, of saving on mobile data. Because I think it will be at least 2 years before verizon or any other mobile provide will upgraded their network here.

 

[pm]

Given your reasoning - which I agree with - I'd go with 5.8GHz too.

 

[FrankSchwab]

I'd get a couple of Ubiquiti Nanostations from Ebay for $100 and try it before you buy the rest of the equipment. Worst case, you put them back up for sale on Ebay and you're out the cost of the ebay listing and shipping. It'll take a month or two to buy them, try them, and sell them, but it's a cheap and easy way to determine if it'll work.

As a matter of fact, you might want to visit their community site (http://community.ubnt.com/), and ask over there. Questions I've asked have been answered authoritatively by people who use their product every day.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

I'm with JackMDS, as long as you have perfect line of sight and you use the proper antenna this should not be a problem, I did the same type of setup with some cisco outdoor wireless bridges and was able to get just shy of a 20mb connection.

 

[Agamar]

5.8 will not make that distance through obstructions. 900Mhz will, and 2.4G has a good chance. 900mhz will not get you a 50M link, and 2.4 probably will not either, since you will lose a lot of signal due to obstructions. You are probably looking at an effective speed of about 10M with 2.4

 

[Red Squirrel]

Check these out:

http://www.ubnt.com/airfiber

They don't seem to show it anymore but pretty sure that can do several km, at a bit over 1gbps, which is quite something.

You'll want to build a tower to go over the trees though. The only downside with this is the radio is going to be up on the tower too, so maintenance is kinda gonna suck in winter, but just have to hope it just works and does not fail. Can always get two to have a A and B side for redundancy.

If I had a situation where I needed a point to point backhaul I'd love to play with those.

 

[azazel1024]

That is direct line of site only. Any obstructions will block it with the 24GHz band. So not an option here.

I still think your best bet is 900MHz. Its better penetrating ability is going to serve you more than any issues which the marsh might cause.

Roof top mounting might work here. If it gets over a lot of the foliage you'll have a prayer.

I guess for some reason I had thought the entire distance was your property, but I assume its round about? Or two seperate properties you own? Just curious.

For water absorbtion, 5.8GHz is worse than 2.4GHz. Peak frequency absorbtion of water is around 22GHz, so the closer you get to it, the worst the penetration characteristics of a frequency are going to be. 5.8GHz being a lot closer than 2.4GHz and 900MHz even further away.

Same goes with the vegetation. The water present in the foligage is going to cause somewhat more issues than the foliage itself, so 2.4GHz is going to have better penetration through it than 5.8GHz and 900MHz better yet.

If it is returnable, I'd probably start with something like a 24-30dB high gain antenna, either parabolic or yagi on 2.4GHz and try it with a couple of high power routers/access points/bridges on either end and see what it gets you. You might well be able to punch a usable signal through that.

You could try 5.8GHz, so long as what you are using has 802.11a. 11a has some VERY high SNR tolerance. If you look at most routers, if they list the information, most are in the -60dB range for 80MHz 5.8GHz and around -68dB for 40MHz 2.4GHz. They'll drop to around 11b speeds at around -78dB on 2.4GHz, but they'll go out to around -95dB on 11a and 5.8GHz.

So even with the much lower signal propogation through that foliage, 11a might actually have a better chance, due to its superior SNR performance than something like 11b does, even with 2.4GHz's better signal propogation through the obstructions.

That said, I'd still start with 2.4GHz and very high gain antennas and see what it gets you. Even with 500m of forest, if it gets you above the palms and it isn't super dense, you just might stand a chance. I wouldn't expect a high speed connection, but you might be able to squeeze through 4-10Mbps of usable speeds.

Worth a shot if you can return the equipment if it doesn't work out.

No options for bouncing the signal? I know you don't own the property in between, but is there no connection between them that you own? For example, could you shot the signal down a km or two unobstructed to where the forest is significantly thinner or there is a gap in the forest, setup a wireless repeater station and then send the signal on to the property? You can always solar power it.

 

[azazel1024]

You could also look at adding a power amplifier http://www.amazon.com/J-Link%C2%AE-802-11b-Booster-Wireless-Amplifier/dp/B00DQ9PGOC/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1393518731&sr=1-2&keywords=2.4ghz+power+amplifier

No clue on the quality/efficacy of some of them, but they'd probably help a little. Don't expect much though and a note, the >1W amplifiers violate FCC regulations, though in your use a directional point to point link, the transmit power is allowed to be significantly higher, though a 24-30dB high gain atenna + a 2-5w power amplifier might be exceeding FCC limits in 2.4GHz.

Generally you are looking at 400-800mw on 2.4GHz for a "high power" router. Upping it to 5w would be a total gain of around 7-10dB. 7-10dB gain, plus a 24-30dB antenna and that is some serious penetration power. You'll also probably want it since you'll have to run coax up to your roof and 30-50ft of coax is probably going to lead to about a 3-5dB signal loss over that distance (though if you can mount the router in your attic, you can probably cut that down to a 1-2dB signal loss from much shorter cabling). Generally coax, RG6 type, is about 3dB per 30ft signal loss, IIRC.

 

[pm]

You could also look at adding a power amplifier http://www.amazon.com/J-Link%C2%AE-802-11b-Booster-Wireless-Amplifier/dp/B00DQ9PGOC/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1393518731&sr=1-2&keywords=2.4ghz+power+amplifier

I used these for my link described above... they helped but not massively, and they still wouldn't penetrate through about 40 fully leafed out cottonwood and other trees in the summer.

 

[azazel1024]

Yeah, I still don't think it'll work, but it might stand a chance, depending on the density of the forest. Its only roughly 2/3rds of the forested distance and if located up high, the OP mentions it puts it above the palm trees. I'd assume that the location is probably Florida or somewhere in the fairly far south, South East of the US, so I am not picturing a whole ton of very tall, full canopy tress that might be stretching 30+ft in the air.

It very well might be too much to handle any link at 2.4/5.8GHz, but it just might work (on 2.4GHz).

I'd still look at 900MHz though and I'd also consider that the link just might not be feasible over wireless.

 

[Ertaz]

+1 for 900mhz

 

[drebo]

900mhz isn't going to work at that distance unless you're really high. Especially not with refraction over a body of water. 900mhz is also very starved for bandwidth and a lot of municipalities use it for water meters. Nearly all WISPs are moving away from 900mhz because it's just too crowded. Basically, there's only 50mhz worth of spectrum for use at 900mhz.

2km for 2.4ghz isn't too bad, but is usually much more noisy than 5.8ghz.

Shooting through a forest, though, you're unlikely to get any signal at all on the other side.

AirFiber's great, but the 24ghz model has no capability to penetrate obstructions and the 5ghz model requires 100mhz of bandwidth to get even close to 1gbps, which is extremely unlikely to be available in all but very few applications, and basically also requires line of sight.

Basically, you can try. 5.8ghz is probably your best bet, but Ubiquiti equipment is cheap enough that you can buy both the 2.4ghz and the 5ghz versions for not very much money...so, buy both and try both.

2km is tiny in terms of long range wireless. My longest is 22 miles.

 

[JackMDS]

Reminds me 1960. I did the whole world with CQ 20 using BC 610 transmitter.

No need for line of sight Antenna can be a simple 15 feet horizontal wire few feet above the ground.

Will do great 2km through Dense Forrest too. - - :biggrin:

What I trying too say is, there are many solutions but they donot consist on inexpensive Entry Level WIFI.

 

[azazel1024]

I thought 900MHz was only 26MHz of free spectrum? If the body of water proves not to be an issue in the end (and it might not be, especially with a very high gain antenna, which is going to have a very small VWBP/HWBP), even 5MHz can still be plenty of spectrum if you manage to get a good solid signal through the obstructions.

Could be over 10Mbps usable with good penetration, which is plenty for a lot of things, like streaming video, email, web, etc. I wouldn't try streaming Netflix super HD over it, but it'll handle regular streaming fine even.

The more directional your antennas, the less other radiators will interfer with it, as the signal gain from those other sources is going to be so tiny off the antenna path, and especially weak compared to the signal from the other directional antenna. The only time other radiators are going to be a significant source of interferance is likely only if there is something in the path between antennas, or very close to the path.

So 2.4GHz being more crowded isn't a consideration really, nor is 900MHz crowding.

Things like 900MHz for WISP is an issue, because if you have a 12dB gain antenna pointed in your general direction and a 1w radio behind it, 2km away and your client base station is using an omni antenna...with a 900MHz water meter colocated on the frequency, with a 10mw radio, 10ft away...that water meter is awfully low power, but probably higher received signal strength than the WISP base station is a couple of KMs away.

Or your baby monitor a room over, or your portable telephone, etc.

900MHz can deffinitely be very problematic, but so long as you use highly directional antennas crowding shouldn't be much of a concern.

 

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