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Judah writes "We run free community events around the NY/NJ metro area, and have a great opportunity to have our events broadcast nationwide, via a cable modem to sattelite uplink. The challenge: some of these events take place in buildings with SLOW internet connections. After some research, I have found in every location a cable modem within about 1,000 feet (either in an office or someone's house) that we can use, but these cable connections can be across a busy street and/or a few buildings away. Attaching antenas to these buildings is not really an option. We need a free standing ethernet port (i.e. not a card in a computer - needs to be a port on a router, access point, etc.) to connect the polycom camera to so it can talk directly via IP to the sattelite uplink. My first guess was the Belkin pre-n routers, but it turns out you can NOT bridge them. Any ideas for a low budget solution?" Post up in the comments!
Low cost wireless bridging?
Judah writes "We run free community events around the NY/NJ metro area, and have a great opportunity to have our events broadcast nationwide, via a cable modem to sattelite uplink. The challenge: some of these events take place in buildings with SLOW internet connections. After some research, I have found in every location a cable modem within about 1,000 feet (either in an office or someone's house) that we can use, but these cable connections can be across a busy street and/or a few buildings away. Attaching antenas to these buildings is not really an option. We need a free standing ethernet port (i.e. not a card in a computer - needs to be a port on a router, access point, etc.) to connect the polycom camera to so it can talk directly via IP to the sattelite uplink. My first guess was the Belkin pre-n routers, but it turns out you can NOT bridge them. Any ideas for a low budget solution?" Post up in the comments!
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Nov 3, 2005 12:08 PM
Announcements, Make Challenge, Wireless |
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why not just use a few linksys wrt54g's with the sveasoft firmware? Less than a hundred a router...
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jstone beat me to it. You can get those for less than $50 if you find the right sale. Love the blog, but this is kind of elementary...
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Personally, I'd recommend avoiding Sveasoft. If you're using a WRT54g, go with OpenWRT. Sveasoft doesn't believe in the GPL or Open Source, go with a firmware that does.
http://openwrt.org
http://indi.doubledaze.com/
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sbma44 - we could have just replied to the email/request and suggested the wrt54g's and the firmware mods (we've covered those here on MAKE) - but i thought it would be more helpful and useful to the MAKE readers by getting more people thinking about this as well as seeing the solutions...
thanks for the links jeremiahjohnson.
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I've used old laptops (broken LCD? config with external monitor then manage with VNC) running Win2K and its built-in Internet Connection Sharing to do this. Lacks the geek cachet of going the GNU/Linux or *BSD route, but I'm lazy and some of my WiFi adapters weren't well supported last time I looked at the Open Source, et al. options.
WiFi link to internet on the one side, Ethernet out to a hub/switch on the other. Nice use for the stack of old Thinkpad 600s with crunched screens that I inherited a while back.
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Another great resource is the MIT Roofnet project.
http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/roofnet/doku.php
They are using the wgt634u from NetGear. With the roofnet software the network will build itself. I've seen it work here in Boston and it's pretty damn cool.
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Cheap ptp solution up to 4 miles, 4.5 mbps, about $450
http://www.connexwireless.com/Q-Bridge/about/
Has to be line of sight, you can probably put the antenas in some window inside the building.
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I left out a very important point in the question - there is NO line of sight between the two points - can the linksys routers go 600 feet with no line of sight?
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I just spoke to Linksys. They claim if you want to go building to building without line of sight, they can't do it.
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Apparently home-made parabolic setups work pretty well for improving reception and connectivity for longer links. I have seen posts of people using Chinese woks, and even aluminum foil as reflectors.
One of the features of the open-source firmware is that you can boost the power up pretty high from the default -- using boosted power with a parabolic reflector on both ends would get you closer to having a good connection. However you may overwhelm the wifi channels on any buildings in between, and the boosted power may not be legal after a certain strength.
PS -- Kudos for the advice to avoid sveasoft -- I want to put in a recommendation for
DD-WRT firmware -- The main contributor works really hard giving lots of excellent support in the forums for free, and I've had great results with it.
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I have a low-cost wireless bridge running at somewhere under 10mbps. You need wireless devices that have detachable antenna - I used a d-link 2000AP with a directional Yagi antenna at each end. One of the antenna is on a small rig sat on a shelf behind a window, the other is mounted outside - but they do work without being attached to the exterior of a building. Total cost was under £150.
I'm around 400m line of site between buildings and there's a victorian (read: thick walls) house in the way and it's still faster than my broadband connection. Not too hot at transfering huge files though.
One thing to note - aligning antenna when you can't see the other end is quite a headache.
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