Cheap Wireless bridge to link 2 DSL Routers?

[Kevin1911]

Hi all, I'm a newby here, but think I'll become a regular! Some very interesting threads!

I stumbled upon the site whilst researching the feasibility of setting up a wireless bridge between the home network and my garden office cabin network. Both the house and the cabin have DSL lines, and separate WiFi and physical LANs. It would be nice to be able to have the two LANs linked up so that I can access the NAS which is in the house whilst working in the cabin.

I reckon the options are either to set up an IPSec VPN between the two DSL routers so they're connected via a tunnel via the web, or to enable remote access to the NAS (which I've avoided so far due to security concerns).

The third option is to somehow bridge the two LANs together, but it would need to be wirelessly. The cabin is only about 5 metres from the house, and about 10 metres from the home DSL router, but the WiFi signal from the home is patchy in the cabin.

The home DSL router is a TP-Link W8980, and the cabin has an old Linksys WAG200G which I'd be happy to replace.

In terms of routing, I'd like internet-bound traffic to use the local DSL line, with only inter-LAN traffic going across the bridge. Actually, a better scenario would be to have 2 VLANs in the cabin with one being routed via the cabin DSL line and the other being routed via the house DSL line (the home line is ~5 times faster).

Just wondering if anyone has set up anything similar, and if so what kit did you use? Ideally I'd like to do this as cheaply as possible! I'm a network guy by trade, but am not too familiar with residential CPE or wireless bridging.

Looking forward to hearing your suggestions!

Cheers,
Kevin

 

[ktriebol]

Do you think that your house wiring between the house and cabin would lend itself to the use of a pair of powerline adapters? If so, then it seems to me you could get rid of the DSL line in the cabin and just set up an access point there (you could probably use the WAG200G for that). That should give you a good, solid, fast, connection between the house and cabin.

 

[Kevin1911]

Thanks for the suggestion. I had considered that but had discounted it as a non-starter as there are two consumer units between the router and the cabin (the main home one, and a smaller one in the cabin). I had believed that powerline adapters wouldn't work across consumer units, but having googled it it seems that it's not quite as clear cut as that. I'm sure I've got some unused in the attic, so I'll give them a shot next time I'm up there. Thanks again