Range of Wireless
 

My wife's work is moving approx 2 blocks away from our house. The IT guy there says that they are going to have a wireless network there and she will be able to connect to their server from our house. Has anyone heard of a wireless router that has that kind of range. I call BS, but I could be wrong... :dunno:

I've heard some get to 1300'+

So what would the connection speed be with those?

I'm trying to find where I seen the number. You would think the slower the further.

I think you'll need to do the pringles can antenna. Are they going to supply you with a WAP?

That's what I was thinking


Yeah I think so....

Maybe they have something better than the standard consumer stuff then. I've heard of people not being able to get signal from one end to the other in their own (larger) homes.

Well I know they are going to have a T1 line, and they usually buy top of the line stuff. They told my wife that they will buy everything to make it work at our house. I am just doubtful that it will actually reach that distance..

Have them get you a T1 too! something like this would do it, pricey though.

I do this at work and this is a bunch of BS in the traditional sense. You MAY be able to get wireless if you sit outside your house, within line of site to the directional antenna they have set up pointing at your house. I guess this could also depend on how far a "block" is for you. If they're two houses away from you then this is possible, but using the wireless at their office at your house just doesn't sound feasible. They'd have to set up two wireless directional antennas within line of site of each other at your house and the office. After that you plug the wireless bridge into your home network and then you can use that connection. If you find out how they think they're going to do this I'd love to know.

If you are within 100' for so, odds are good you will have usable signal. Any more and it degrades to the point of being useless with standard antennas.

If you can connect, the speed to the network will be limited by the quality of the signal. The common standards are 11mbs and 54mbs. If the signal quality is degraded, your conncection will step down in speed to increase reliablilty.

I use some hacked firnware in my routers so I can up the output power. Even then, my house is big enough that I have dead spots.

If "a couple of blocks" really means "a couple of blocks", I would venture a guess that you will be out of useable range.

I've used one that was not the regular 8.11, which went 1.5 miles. It worked great in the greenhouse, which is usually the worst place for reception of any kind. I don't know which brand is was though.

I seriously doubt it will work unless they have it amplified and an external antenna on the building.....when I wardrive I can only usually get a low - very low signal in my truck and thats when I'm parked directly in front of a house.....I guess if the person that sets it up really knows what he/she is doing then its possible but I to have my doubts about this.....

That might have been 802.11A or whatever the semi-common third option is... I can never remember the designation. There is an alternative to 802.11b and 802.11g that has greatly increased range. The problem is that version is not compatible with the b and g equipment that is so common, so if you buy the gear, you are stuck with not being able to access the much more common b and g networks elsewhere.

We have a 802.11b WAP that won't reach across the house or if it does it's low. Either the equipment is more expensive or it is a different standard. I can't see how b or g could reach that good and still have good transfer speed. I'm interested to know because I have been working setting up WAPs and such lately.
Jeff

WATRD, you might be thinking of 802.11a. It runs on the 5Ghz band instead of the 2.5Ghz band that b, g, bluetooth, cordless phones, and a bunch of other stuff run on. I work with computers everyday and can tell you hat none of the usual "conventional" wireless technologies can do this 2 block stretch.

Could be, I don't have any experience with 802.11a. I use one 802.11g router, one g access point and two repeaters to get a good or excellent signal throughout my entire house, so I have a hard time picturing a two block range on either b or g. I can't speak to a.

And, I stand corrected. I see that they now offer cards that are compatible with a,b and g, so you CAN have one card and move from your a system to the more popular b and g systems.

Also, just to let you know, most any b/g WAP or card is actually just a g card. Meaning its one radio. So if you have more than one computer using the wireless at the same time and any ONE of them is using b, they're all using b. So i guess what I'm trying to say is that make sure if you upgrade to g that all your clients are g as well. I don't knwo why I brought this up but I thought it might be nice to know.

That 3com wireless bridge I linked to below says it uses 11g for up to a ten mile range. $1200 each though....

I feel the same way, I just don't see it working from that far away. Her office is probably 1/4-1/2 mile away