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WiFi Options for 2nd Building ?

C

CHE

pfm Member
I have a property let (separate building) to which I want to supply WiFi via the broadband connection in my main house about 20m away. I don't have the option to use cable and there is no common electricity supply but have good line-of-sight from within 10m of the router in my main house. I want to ensure that the let property WiFi can't see any computers in the main house, otherwise I'm fairly flexible.

What reliable options are there that you can recommend based on use please ? Budget say £200 but could stretch a bit.

CHE
 
My TP link router has dual waveband and a guest account, so it would be easy to give a rental the guest account. That gives no access at all to your network.
 
And if need be, just add larger aerials to your router to get the signal strength. 12dBi or even 15dBi parts are very cheap.
Just for a giggle I've added a couple of TPlink 12dBi indoor wands to my Billion home router, and can now connect to my home network from a favourite cafe c.80m away : D
 
As said your Router possibly has the option of a second isolated Guest wifi and 20m line of sight isn’t that far

We use a few different brands, Draytek, Ruckus, Meraki, Unifi

I use one of these at home and at the office, been rock solid, they do a cheaper one about sixty quid with less range, has proper isolated Guest wifi

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B016XYQ3WK/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

If you’re not techy Devolo do a fit and forget Gigagate option

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01MXXBF9A/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

Gus
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
If you are supplying Wi Fi then you want it to be managed and solid, or they have a tendency to moan. Also be aware the occupier may browse some dodgy stuff, your ISP may pick up on it. I use Zen and they have picked up a compromised lappy at a clients house, his mate was chipping/remapping one of his bikes and a student flat was downloading warez and we got the heads up. Sharing broadband means it looks like it's your activity.

There are rules coming in about this stuff and some already here, you’ll have to track IP numbers and so forth, so do your due diligence.
 
I'm now using a Meraki AP and firewall at home. If you have a company you can register for a webinar and get the AP for free.

https://meraki.cisco.com/tc/freeap

It allows up to 15 x SSID's and adult content (porn) is blocked per SSID, plus you can set individual rules per SSID to block things like file sharing etc as well as throttling the bandwidth so they don't steal all of yours.

meraki by The Biglebowski, on Flickr
 
If you place your router high in your house then at 20m away the signal strength should be sufficient in the adjacent property let. Next you need a decent router and I use a Draytek 2860 plus ( think there is now a newer model) that has three aerials. But and this is important it also allows you to set up VLANs and SSIDs and that means that the users in your property can be isolated from your LAN by having separate VLANs for each property. One other plus is that you can allocate a maximum amount of bandwidth that each VLAN can have in accessing the Internet WAN and thus prevent anyone from grabbing all the bandwidth.

This is the sort of thing http://www.i-helpdesk.com.au/index....ytek-vigor2830-for-limited-guest-wi-fi-access

Before we had broadband in our holiday let I used to connect to a local hotels WiFi and that was more than 300ft away.

Depends on your ISP but with Plusnet you can block access to classes of sites such as for example porn and nasty sites using Safeguard https://www.plus.net/help/broadband/how-to-use-plusnet-safeguard/

Cheers,

DV
 
Thanks for all your replies, very useful and food for thought as I had assumed I would need a transmitter/receiver set-up. I do take the point about bandwidth limitations and site class blocking.

A bit more info., no I currently can't see WiFi in the let. Both the main house and let have 3' stone walls so WiFi in the main house is limited to just the two rooms closest to the router without extenders. I'm on BT Broadband and don't plan to change but maybe the problem is with the performance of the BT Home Hub 3 (HH3) router; it is about as high as it can be in the room at ~8'.

So being a broadband numpty, can I EASILY swap out my current router with something better than a HH3 that perhaps I can add on better aerials to and still use BT as my ISP ? And is so, what should I go for given the stone walls problem ?

CHE
 
CHE said:
So being a broadband numpty, can I EASILY swap out my current router with something better than a HH3 that perhaps I can add on better aerials to and still use BT as my ISP ?
Click to expand...

In worst case, you could keep your current router, and add a separate access point.

And is so, what should I go for given the stone walls problem ?
Click to expand...

A directional antenna on the access point / router could help.
 
CHE said:
So being a broadband numpty, can I EASILY swap out my current router with something better than a HH3 that perhaps I can add on better aerials to and still use BT as my ISP ? And is so, what should I go for given the stone walls problem ?

CHE
Click to expand...

Yes. The HH3 is useless junk. You will need to pay more for a proper modem/firewall with routing capabilities like the Draytek that I have. Others may also be worth trying but I haven't used those and don't know if they have proper capabilities for setting up two VLANs on separate SSIDs. The Vigor2860 or a similar alternative is also quite pricey so you'd really like to trial before purchasing.

Can you place the HH3 near a window and then check the signal strength outdoors. My Vigor gives full coverage of this detacted 3 story house and also out into the garden outhouse and garage however it is on the 3rd floor high up. I can also see 30+ access points from other users/ISPs and can connect to the the 3 BTWifi network hot spots (I'm with BT and Plusnet). However this house is modern build and not thick stone walls.

If you can get a usable signal outside your property let maybe try an access point/repeater by a window to boost the signal however replace the HH3 piece of junk.

Cheers,

DV
 
Have a look at Asus routers they have s clever feature where they redirect the signal in the direction of someone trying to access plus s separate guest network checked mine with a WiFi sniffer app and could see signal strength go up by 20+ db
 
TP Link offer good value, a step above are ASUS and Draytek

Also in the UK the signal strength is limited to 100mW on 2.4Ghz, in the USA it’s 1W so on some devices there’s a way to get 10x the strength by changing things, Google is your friend. I doubt the HH3 is such a device and as said is pretty dire.
 
Amber Audio said:
If you are supplying Wi Fi then you want it to be managed and solid, or they have a tendency to moan. Also be aware the occupier may browse some dodgy stuff, your ISP may pick up on it. I use Zen and they have picked up a compromised lappy at a clients house, his mate was chipping/remapping one of his bikes and a student flat was downloading warez and we got the heads up. Sharing broadband means it looks like it's your activity.

There are rules coming in about this stuff and some already here, you’ll have to track IP numbers and so forth, so do your due diligence.
Click to expand...
This is an interesting point. Legally speaking, you'll be a 'communications service provider' under the terms of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (aka 'snooper's charter'). In theory at least, you could be called upon to retain 2 years worth of 'communications data' and turn this over to the authorities on demand under a warrant. Highly unlikely in reality, but gives pause for thought.
 
A metal tray on the opposite side of the router will bounce the signal increasing the range.

Pete
 
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