Cross Campus Connectivity

The problem: a remote building, far from our Infrastructure (about 1000 feet).  Worse, no conduit in the ground between the two.  Even worse, a parking lot on that ground, making it rather unpractical to ever install conduit.  What to do?

Here's the overhead view of the problem, from the Google Map view:

Five or six years ago, we looked at wireless solutions, which at the time were all 802.11a.  And expensive.  TENS of thousands of dollars.  And not terribly fast.  We settled for a few standard 1FB lines from the street and no practical integration with our phone system or network.  Fortunatley, we didn't need much out there, so it wasn't a big problem.

Fast forward to this year.  Our Summer Camp program starts in a few weeks.  We'll have something like 10,000 children in attendance, and a lot  of the activity will be taking place out near that remote building (the pool house).  The desire for connectivity resurfaced.

My, how a few years changes things.  We now have connectivity, using 802.11G, running the full 54Megabit, and it's quite reliable.  What's really nice is the cost.  The solution consists of a couple of standard Linksys Access Points, high-gain antennas, Power over Ethernet, some mounting brackets, and a bit of fancy engineering by Danny Ybarra and Jose Hernandez.  The result is even pretty!  Everything is in plain site, yet invisible.  Total cost?  Around $500 for all the hardware.

Here's a view of the main building, as seen from the parking lot between the two building.  Do you see the antenna?

OK, how about a closer view:

Not obvious yet?  OK, here's one more:

 

And the blatenly obvious:

Here's the view of the pool house, as seen from the roof of the main building:

And a few successive closer shots:

The result?  A functional phone (and more to come)

Here are a few of the innards:

Pieces and Parts:
Hawking Hi-Gain 14dBi Outdoor Directional Antenna Kit less than $100 each
Hawking 30' Hi-gain Antenna Cable about $30 each

Comments

[James Higginbotham]

Tony,

Our church had a similar desire to add network access to a coffee bar in a building across the parking lot. We opted to add a separate DSL line based on cost (like you mentioned, it used to be more), but also for better uptime. I have more confidence that the DSL provider would send someone out to fix a problem with the wiring, than a staff member plugging and unplugging wires and routers to "fix issues".

Given the need to operate the business using the access, and the desire to keep public traffic off our private office network, it was the right decision. Glad to hear prices are cheaper and the requirements weren't so strict. Enjoy!

[Chris Marsden]

What is the range here? (feet?) From the looks of your pictures, space between builings is empty parking lot. How do you think this solution would work across wooded property in a similar distance?

[Brett Anderson]

Your post couldn't come at a better time. We have a couple remote buildings on our campus that I am working to connect right now. I'm considering trenching and laying fiber, but we've also got a parking lot in the way and that gets cumbersome and expensive quick. I've got a couple of the Linksys APs already and considered testing them as a bridge. I'm excited to see you've done it with success.
What do the external antennas consist of? Did you just put a high gain antenna inside an enclosure? Any additional info would help a lot.
Great job!

[Tony Dye]

Our point-to-point distance is right at 1000 feet. We managed a clear line of site, but have a couple of trees that could threaten if they grow. We haven't tested signal penetration through trees (or walls, or people, or anything else), but my gut feeling is that it will be a problem. OTOH, a plain old WAP penetrates walls, so why wouldn't a directional antenna? You've got me thinking now...

I've updated the post to show the details of the antenna part numbers.