Wireless bridge recommendation

[Faw]

I have a wireless bridge between 2 houses (distance between 600-800 feet). Right now I'm using 2 TP-LINK TL-WA5210G. I want to replace them with something faster, maybe in the gigabit range if possible.

I saw the Unifi Outdoor AC but it's between $400-$600. I was wondering if there is another cheaper option around. Maybe an 802.11ac router/with a directional antenna? One of those routerboards?

 

[CaptainSTX]

I would consider using higher gain antennas before purchasing new bridging hardware.

Also consider improving your line of site if it is partially obstructed by using simple towers at one or both ends.

 

[Faw]

I would consider using higher gain antennas before purchasing new bridging hardware.

Well I don't think higher gain antennas will increase the max speed of 54mbits (right?).

Also consider improving your line of site if it is partially obstructed by using simple towers at one or both ends.

There are no line-of-sight problems.

 

[L&LD]

At that range, I would keep my focus on 2.4GHz band devices. Your max connection rate will be 450 Mbps at best but you may see up to 5x the throughput of your current setup depending on the actual devices you decide to buy.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Well I don't think higher gain antennas will increase the max speed of 54mbits (right?).


At the distances you are looking at it will be challenging to get actual throughput greater than your link rate of 54Mbps using SOHO grade equipment.

Perhaps by going from G to N on 2.4 Ghz you might do better but higher gain and highly directional Yagi antennas will still be key. If packets get lost your link rate will continue to negotiate down and down.

Newer routers don't necessarily have more powerful radios than older routers what they have is the ability to use multiple streams and less congested frequencies to minimize packet loss.

If you need/want higher throughput you might need to look at commercial grade equipment.

 

[azazel1024]

If you have actual line of sight, a couple of Engenius ENH202 should do that justice. Its only 10/100 ports on it, but at that distance with that bridge, you should be able to get around the port speeds.

Or you can look at the ENH210, which is somewhat higher gain (14dBi) and I think the same radio power, but it has gigabit ports on it.

For a cheaper option, you could look at the ENH200, but it has lower radio power and is only N150...so in likelihood, you could not hit port speeds on it.

Another option is get something with gigabit ports and a couple of outdoor rated yagi antennas and point them at each other and run a short, 1-2m extension between the AP/router indoors and the antenna outside (or stick em in a window).

If its true line of sight, 600-800ft should mean that you'll need something around 25dBi of signal gain to get around 300Mbps connection speeds. That is based on something like a regular consumer radio. Something like the higher power radios in most outdoor bridges, you'd probably only need about 16-20dBi of total gain. Those Engenius bridges are running 10dBi each, plus 500/800mw radios (compared to probably 50-100mw in a standard consumer router/access point and maybe 250mw in a "high power" consumer router).

So you'll possibly/probably be able to get a 300Mbps connection speed and might actually be able to push a 10/100 port to full speed. Maybe/probably.

A couple of decent N300 routers/access points with 20-24dBi yagis and gigabit ports however probably would see little if any speed degredation with the 40-48dBi of total signal gain they'd have going on at those distances.

 

[Faw]

Thanks for the recommendations.

I actually don't have a problem buying the Unifi Outdoor AC I was just asking if that was my only gigabit wireless bridge option.

Since most people here seem to know more about this I thought there could be other options that I didn't know about. I also thought of getting some hardware where I could replace/install a wi-fi card later, like the Mikrotik BaseBox5 (though I dont know if it supports 802.11ac).

 

[stevech]

True gigabit net yield at the IP layer, via wireless, is quite expensive. 10's of thousands, and uses licensed spectrum.

You'll have to settle for 100-300Mbps link rate which corresponds, absent competition for air time, about 30-125Mbps net yield. That should be good enough for residential users.

 

[azazel1024]

Well, it depends on just how far you want to go. With some good parabolic 5GHz antennas and a 1300Mbps 3:3 802.11ac access point on each end, you probably could get a realizable 400-500Mbps or maybe even somewhat more over the link.

That's a lot of setup and a lot of antenna to work with.

With the 300Mbps Engenius bridges, you'll probably be able to get around the port max of 100Mbps.

With a couple of good, higher power consumer access point/bridges/routers operating at 2.4GHz 300Mbps with good yagi antennas at that distance and a gigabit port, you might be able to get up around 150Mbps or so.

With a 3 stream router/bridge/access point you might actually hit over 200Mbps.

600-800ft isn't really that far if it is line of site, at least not for high gain antennas and/or real bridge hardware.

Actual gigabit speeds are not a possiblity with current consumer or general enterprise gear. You are looking at specialty gear on licensed spectrum.

Maybe/possibly once either 160MHz 11ac gear comes to markets and/or 8 stream 11ac gear, you would be able to hit actual gigabit usable speeds over a wireless link, but is also likely getting expensive. 8 high gain antennas is a lot of antennas on each end (I'd assume we are talking well over $1,000 when all was said and done).

Between cost and speed yield, I wouldn't go with more than a 2 stream solution on each end. Possibly a 3 stream if you absolutely have to have the speed. Cost wise, the Engenius bridges I linked you too are probably your best and easiest setup though. Unless you have to push large files through the link often, 100Mbps isn't anything to sneeze at. Its plenty for sharing an internet connection (if that is your goal) and even share a good high speed internet connection and stream a movie or two concurrently, stored locally on one of the networks to the other network.

 

[stevech]

Well, it depends on just how far you want to go. With some good parabolic 5GHz antennas and a 1300Mbps 3:3 802.11ac access point on each end, you probably could get a realizable 400-500Mbps or maybe even somewhat more over the link.

Clarifying... you refer to 400-500Mbps net yield at the IP layer? Not link speed?

No matter what, the state of the art is about a max of 2.5 bits/second/Hz of channel bandwidth, with no interference or access delays.

here are commonly used gigabit wireless bridge links
http://www.bridgewave.com/products/80Ghz.cfm
There are some vendors in the 22GHz bands. But these are more difficult to license than 80GHz. And around 20GHz there is a rain-fade issue.

Not viable for consumer or SOHO applications.

 

[azazel1024]

Net yield.

That is with 3 radios going though.

I of course have no idea if the range itself would reduce it with some reduction because of ack delays and so forth, but I'd assume that reduction would be very minimal. More a question of reflected radiation as well as reduced signal strength, but with resonably high gain antennas on both ends, I don't see why you couldn't get full link speed on 802.11ac and also get close to the theoretical maximum yield from it (which you mention is around 2.5bps per hertz...which 80MHz means around 200Mbps per radio...times 3, is around 600Mbps actual yield, which stands up pretty well with what a pair of 1300Mbps 3:3 802.11ac routers in bridge mode seem to be able to push/pull, which is around 500-600Mbps or so when relatively close to each other.