Need to Extend WIFI 200ft to Another Building

[Modifyinc]

I'm looking to extend my WIFI about 200ft from my cabin to my friend's cabin who is just across a small pond with a clear line of sight. My internet is not great as I could only get Hughesnet, which gives me only 25mb/3mb. We don't really care about streaming movies or TV, etc., but we do like the ability to use WIFI Calling since we have no phone service here.

 

Any recommendations for an outdoor directional AP that would be a good and reasonable fit for such a setup? Considering the receiving devices from my friend's cabin such as his phone will have weak transmitting power to send back, would we need to mount two directional APs? (I assume this would be a point to point connection) I really don't want to put a lot of money into it since the speeds provided by Hughesnet are so slow, especially the upload. I wish StarLink was available here.

[Bdavis]

UniFi Building-to-Building Bridge is about $500 and would be a good choice. You might be able to use two of their ap-ac mesh at $99 each. Microtik wireless wire also gets decent ratings.

 

 

[Falcon1986]

On 10/13/2022 at 3:37 PM, Modifyinc said:

Any recommendations for an outdoor directional AP that would be a good and reasonable fit for such a setup?

If you wish to use UniFi hardware for this PtP wireless bridge, try using the ISP Design Center. It uses your actual location with elevation taken into consideration to give you recommendations. Of course, you can choose what hardware you want to use at each point, but you’ll get to mix and match to see what works for your budget.

 

Since you want to go cheap, I’d probably go for a pair of these TP-Link CPEs pointed towards each. Plug one into your router/switch and the other into his switch/AP. Adjust their orientation/direction until you get an optimal link.

 

Two pieces of advice:

1. Even with perfect line of sight, you might not get the highest bandwidth. When using directional antennae, elevation is also important to account for the Fresnel zone. The closer you are to the ground, the more the ground takes away from that Fresnel zone and the less speed you’re able to achieve. The link will still be good, but not at optimum.
2. If your switch or router can isolate traffic on the port connected to the PtP bridge, I’d activate that for privacy/security for both of you. If you don’t do this, your neighbour can potentially access resources on your LAN.