Wireless Usable Range?

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Jim Johnson

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Mar 4, 2005
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Newton, AL
One of our daughters just built a house in the country.  Tfhey do not have, nor will not have, any access to cable, DSL etc.  They are thinking of going in with their neighbor and putting a joint-use Direcway dish that they can use together with one of them operating via a wireless connection.  Their houses are about 150 feet apart.  Their, and my, question is what type of setup, ie, antenna etc would they have to have in order to make it work, or is the distance to great?  Anything that I can tell them will be appreciated.
 
If there are no intervening obstacles, like walls, trees, etc., it should work with a good access point and wireless client adapter.  The simplest is to try it, then if there are signal strength problems, look into a directional antenna for the access point or the client adapter.
 
If the houses are 150 feet apart why not just run a cat-6 drop, it's good for at least 2x that distance

I would suggest burrying it in conduit, PVC works well for the conduit

Advantage... If the neighbor abuses.. Pull plug is easier than filtering

Last I heard Directway charged by the megabyte after you hit your limit.  I'd be interested in unlimited sat-service
but I do about 10 meg per day minimum
 
Wireless will be much easier than burying cable over 150 ft.  There are directional antennas available, if necessary, but if the line of sight is clear, they may not be necessary.

DirecWay has no charges other than the fixed monthly charge.  Service is unlimited but there is a Fair Access Policy (FAP) that will throttle the download speed if you download more than a certain of amount of data in a 4 hour time period.  For the consumer plan, the FAP is set at 350MB and the speed is throttled to about dialup, so even if you do hit the FAP, the service is still usable for browsing, albeit at the slower speed until the FAP is removed.

10MB/day is a very small demand.  I do that much with my first cup of coffee :)
 
Ned said:
the FAP is set at 350MB and the speed is throttled to about dialup, so even if you do hit the FAP, the service is still usable for browsing, albeit at the slower speed until the FAP is removed.
Click to expand...

Ned, do you know if removal of the FAP is an automated process that happens after a given number of hours at the slower rate, or is manual intervention required, or does it require a phone call begging DW to flip the switch?
 
It's a bit more complicated than that.  It's been explained like this: you have a bucket of data (say, 350MB) available that fills at a rate of, say, 56kbs, but never exceed the 350MB.  You can draw from the bucket (download) as fast as you like (typically 400-600kbs) until the bucket is empty.  You can then draw only as fast as it refills, 56kbs.  If you don't draw at all, eventually the bucket fills up again to the original 350MB.  Keep in mind that the FAP is in megaBYTES while the rates are in kiloBITS.  So, yes, it's an automatic process.  There is a web page where you can view your up and download usage by hour for a month at a time and it also shows if you were subjected to the FAP during any hour.
 
Thanks for that explanation Ned. I learn something new every day.
 
To add to this we have the consumer plan and we have never reached the fap point.  It really takes a lot of gaming, downloading of very large files etc to reach the fap point. 

 
I hit the FAP quite often.  Downloading 700MB ISO files can take several nights :)  I have a download manager that can download in segments to keep under the FAP if necessary.
 
I can understand you would reach fap Ned since you are using your system in your business.  We don't havethat much requirement to download large files.  If We found it necessary for us to dwnload large files then I would do the same and use a download manager.

 
Ned said:
DirecWay has no charges other than the fixed monthly charge.
Click to expand...

I should have said 10 meg per run

And thanks for the info... I do toss gigs around here like nothing but that's on the LAN for the most part

I also do some stuff that runs 128K by forever  That is about 1.8 GIG in a 4 hour period

(Internet radio, FM quality, LIve 365, I'm a member so I don't do the ads)
 
Ron,

I don't download large files frequently, but still file Download Manager a great tool. Occasionally it will run into a link it can't resolve or some other problem. Then you have to use the regular download procedure provided, but that doesn't happen very often.
 
John In Detroit said:
If the houses are 150 feet apart why not just run a cat-6 drop, it's good for at least 2x that distance
Click to expand...

Be very careful with wires between buildings. You risk the chance of equipment blowing up on both ends in case of a thunderstorm.

Wireless should be able to reach 150ft easily, you may want to add directional antennas to make sure.
 
Jim:  Wireless is crap - all kinds of things go wrong and it can get slow.  I have a wireless and a wired connection on this Toshiba that I am using - it is five feet from the linksys router [wired and wirelless].  On the wireless set up it stalls, goes slow for a while and then speeds up.  If I switch over to the wired - the download or connection is fast - steady and good. 

I should run a cable through a one piece of rubber tough plastic tubing between houses.
 
You can get plastic (PVC) tubing in clear, reinforced, and colors at most hardware stores in any length.  This can be burried (I'd like to see it at least six inches) very easily (Or even deeper) If you want a "Code like" job put a Thompson's Treated 1x3 board atop it (I did not) and ... Well, job done

Personally, when I get the RV on my property (next to the garage) I'll run some CAT-5 through the conduit I have streatched between house and outbuilding.  Run it up and across, and put a data door in the RV side of the garage.

Then a quick cable to the a box in a bay and I'm wired (One replay will go in the rig quickly.. The other two later) That way I can record in the Motor Home  In the middle of the winter, with a foot of snow on the ground, and w/o putting on my shoes, watch in the comfort of my bedroom or living room here in the house!!!!!

Now that's convience.

And in the summer when we go camping I can D/L the shows on the basement computer to the external hard drive, Plug them into the RV's computer and serve them back up to the RV's Replay, Even though I"m miles from the home network

It keeps getting better :)
 
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