I have two homes on a somewhat remote island in the middle of a lake. There is no hardwired internet connections to the island, no cable, no DSL. Also, wireless (cellular) connections are spotty at best... getting cell signal requires your old fashioned walking around the yard, standing on one leg, tapping your head, and rubbing your belly, to get it to work... so this isn't really an option either. This has left us stuck pretty much with satelite... which is expensive.

We have satelite service to one home, the other home is a vacation rental and we would like to share our internet connection with the rental unit. The rental unit is about 150 feet from our other home. There is no realistic way to get a hardwired connection between the two houses. I have our wireless router up on the second floor by a window, and if I stand in the second floor of the rental by a window, I can just barely pick up service. The rest of the house, no dice.

I have been reading about putting in a wireless repeater in the rental on the second floor.. but I'm not 100% certain that going out and simply buying one will be the solution. Or is it? Do all repeaters generally work the same? Is this something as simple as plug and play?

Any advice would be appreciated.... I'd like to have as much information under my belt as possible as getting to a computer store to return / exchange equipment is a 4 hour round trip. I'd like to just get what I need and be done with it... without having to play around.

Oh, and to add this too it. I am a computer programmer by trade, so I do have some knowledge and know how... but networking is not my thing.

First off, I hate you...

Just joking. I personally would suggest setting up a Point-to-Point (PTP) wireless link. You will get a more stable connection with higher speeds then going with a repeater. repeaters are good but the biggest drawback is they cut your transmit speed in half. You are going to spend more for a PTP solution but you will never have to worry about it again.

I’m hearing good things about Ubiquiti Networks as their products are pretty cheap.

http://www.ubnt.com/

Oh and Post 1000!! WOOT

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PTP is your best bet. Look into something with directional antennas. That'll get the signal to the rental where you can further distribute it with a regular SOHO wireless router or AP.

If you had any idea how much of a PITA it is to do upkeep on two (actually 3... I have a primary residence nestled comfortably in suburban Ohio.. but that isn't important) homes... let alone the kick in the crotch I get from the tax man, you probably wouldn't hate me as much. .



I'm glad you mentioned that about the transmit speeds... as it was a question I had. Does that mean that both locations will see speeds cut in half, or only on the repeater side? I'm not too concerned if the rental unit can't stream HQ videos from PornTube... but it would be nice if they can do some Googling and check their Facebook. Me on the other hand, I do stream content from my home network (the 3rd home I talked about) for my kids to watch movies and whatnot stored on my home NAS. I don't want to lose this.

Rule is, for every wireless hope you lose half your bandwidth. So if you start off with your main location getting 54Mbps and connect your second location with a repeater that location will only get 27Mbps and the third location will only get 13Mbps. But if your internet connection is only 20-30Mbps then wifi will not be your bottle neck.

Even if the speeds were good enough you are still going to be dealing with connection issues and loss of connection from the repeater. From past experience I have had to fight this setup more than I would like. With a PTP setup they are usually solid and stay connected. So as you mentioned you wanted its pretty much a set it and forget it situation.

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http://blog.movingonesandzeros.net/