WIFI Personal Hot Spot. What are the Limitations?

[tonyq60]

Simple things.

First wifi is in ghz range and the 2.5 better than 5 for coverage but it can be issue if neighbors but likely not in your case.

For coverage it is pure line of sight so you can do what we do in modified form for microwave pathing by using light but instead of strobe light confirming A to Z path you need wide coverage.

Photo shows someone on tower so drag up a light fixture and an extension cord and place light where you are considering antenna then when dark plug it in and drive your area.

If you can see the light it MAY work...

If we recall correctly the signal is single frequency 1/2 duplex TDMA ( cannot remember exact term but close enough) in that the signal is a bunch of time slots and some are down link and others uplink.

So far so good but as distance increases timing or delays are introduced that can slow the speed.

For basic stuff maybe fine but video would be a problem.

There are network type providers who hunt towers to increase their footprint and it cad get stupid dealing with them.

We had a cell site we built inside a mini storage place and land lord was happy with the deal until he saw another ring of antennas and someone told him what the lease on that ring was...4 times what he got from us.

Money can be made but have a lawyer read any contracts as they try to take full control and you are screwed.

There are commercial devices that are not generic wifi made for this so first question is what is your budget?

What is the bandwidth of your provider to your place?

What bandwidth do you need?

Footprint needed?

Many cell providers now have generous unlimited plans but cell coverage may be limited.

The different carriers do have actual RF engineers who drive their areas and can verify performance in your location.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Good idea. Actually part of the mast, below a 900MHZ dipole is wrapped with RED LED string light. So yes, I should go to the remote shack at night and see if I can see it.

I did have another ISP contact me a while ago. They wanted a contract where they had rights to the tower forever! Regardless of sale of land or whatever. Right, for fifty bucks a month, I would possibly encumber the sale of the property. I said they would get half a years notice. And possibly the new owner would be on board anyway. I never heard from them again.

 

[newbury]

Simple things.
<snip>
We had a cell site we built inside a mini storage place and land lord was happy with the deal until he saw another ring of antennas and someone told him what the lease on that ring was...4 times what he got from us.
<snip>.

My wife is line for inheriting (hopefully MANY YEARS from now) a 1/2 acre fenced plot with a full fledged cell tower. It was built about 15 years ago on an Aunts land and she passed the lot to my MIL, and we bought the land around it at that time (about 80 acres). I THINK she used get $80/month for it 8 years ago. Now she gets about $500. When it came up for renewal the company WAS going to offer her a free phone. But my wife and BIL checked around and made them pay the going rate.

On the subject of Ayrstone - I looked into them and they seem good. However after some research I turned up an old post in a forum where the owner posted that he basically selected Ubiquitu (sp?) equipment and screened them for the best pieces. And they admit that on Amazon now.

You've got two things to deal with remember - the sender and the receiver. It's not one way transmission. For example the router sends, the phone receives. But then the phone has to send the signal BACK and the router receives. And phones are not made as long range wireless devices.

Thus you really need "powerful equipment" at both ends to do it right. For "round numbers" I figure I'm lucky to go about 200 feet clear LOS from my router, that should cover about 9 acres, with the Arystone package I could probably double the range and do 30 to 40 acres. But to cover 100 acres I think it would be stretching it without setting up a "mesh" which would require multiple power points to run the equipment.

Like I wrote - I looked into it. I also was about to run fiber to my workshops. Then along came Mobley.

I usually get 5 to 20Mbps speeds almost anywhere I go in Northeast Mississippi with my trusty Mobley setup. Which consists of a DeWalt 20v Max USB power source, a battery and an adapter.



Which is twice as fast as I get on the landline router.

So I stopped looking into it

 

[square1]

I'm sure you may have reasons for a more elaborate set up but it's hard to beat carrying you wifi connection in your pocket everywhere you go (and can get signal) on your cell phone.

$75 per month (which includes tax, title, dealer prep, and destination charges) gets me unlimited local and long distance talk, text, and data (internet access) on 2 cell phones. Each phone can share 8 GB monthly through tethering (via hotspot) other devices i.e. computer, wifi radio, TV... I use roughly half the monthly allotment but do not stream movies through the hotspot to a tethered device. I can share unlimited music through the phones bluetooth connection that does not count against the 16 GB hotspot tethering.

This gives me all the connectivity I need, again I'm not a gamer or movie watcher, just about anywhere I end up whether at home, at the property, at the cabin, in my car, fishing, etc...

 

[zmountaineer]

My wife is line for inheriting (hopefully MANY YEARS from now) a 1/2 acre fenced plot with a full fledged cell tower. It was built about 15 years ago on an Aunts land and she passed the lot to my MIL, and we bought the land around it at that time (about 80 acres). I THINK she used get $80/month for it 8 years ago. Now she gets about $500. When it came up for renewal the company WAS going to offer her a free phone. But my wife and BIL checked around and made them pay the going rate.

On the subject of Ayrstone - I looked into them and they seem good. However after some research I turned up an old post in a forum where the owner posted that he basically selected Ubiquitu (sp?) equipment and screened them for the best pieces. And they admit that on Amazon now.

You've got two things to deal with remember - the sender and the receiver. It's not one way transmission. For example the router sends, the phone receives. But then the phone has to send the signal BACK and the router receives. And phones are not made as long range wireless devices.

Thus you really need "powerful equipment" at both ends to do it right. For "round numbers" I figure I'm lucky to go about 200 feet clear LOS from my router, that should cover about 9 acres, with the Arystone package I could probably double the range and do 30 to 40 acres. But to cover 100 acres I think it would be stretching it without setting up a "mesh" which would require multiple power points to run the equipment.

Like I wrote - I looked into it. I also was about to run fiber to my workshops. Then along came Mobley.

I usually get 5 to 20Mbps speeds almost anywhere I go in Northeast Mississippi with my trusty Mobley setup. Which consists of a DeWalt 20v Max USB power source, a battery and an adapter.

View attachment 532964

Which is twice as fast as I get on the landline router.

So I stopped looking into it

I'm happy with my hub2n. The antenna literally has the ubiquiti markings on it. I think what they do is do all the configuration. If you know how to do the configuration then the ubiquiti would be the way to go, I cannot do it. From my understanding the mesh network is simple from ayrstone (plug and play) with their access points, unlike setting one up from scratch. The biggest trouble is having a power source. Which is why the antenna that you can put in your vehicle (tractor/side by side/truck) is attractive to me. They also sell a solar power station made by someone else, but it is pricey.

If I had cell service where I live then I would in no way have the need for a large wifi network. I need something bc who knows what can happen when outside far away from the house. I can wifi call on my cell phone so I have a lifeline.

 

[plowhog]

If you don't have a data plan on your phone, it seems you could borrow a friend's phone (with data plan) and see what sort of signal/internet you could receive on it as you try it on various parts of your property. If the coverage was good, you have several options: 1) add a data plan to your phone, 2) add a data plan to your phone plus sign up for it to be a hotspot allowing other devices to connect, or 3) add a jetpack/mobile hotspot to your cell contract. That device is devoted to supplying mobile/wireless internet using a cell signal.

If the shack doesn't have line of sight or there is no good cell signal there, you do have some options. Find a nearby location where there is line of sight to your tower. Install a Nanostation M5 (or equivalent) at the tower and the location that is nearby the shack, then convert from the nearby location to ethernet and route it to the shack. Basically, this is what I do between our residence and the barn. btw, the Nanostation transmitter and receiver are identical, you just configure one to be the transmitter and one the receiver. If you are technical, they default to IP address 192.168.1.2 for the transmitter and 192.168.1.3 for the receiver. Beware the Nanostation is only to get a signal from one specific point to another specific point, such as from the big tower to a location near your shack. But once you get that signal there, you can do lots of things with it using a wired connection.

There is another route, but if you are in Canada I'm not sure the legality of it. In the USA, the frequency of some wireless access points overlap the frequency that licensed HAM radio operators are permitted to us. For example, the Linksys WRT54G router (early versions) does this. Normally the router is limited to only 600 milliwatts of power, but if you are a licensed HAM operator (USA) you can legally boost that WAY up. I've heard of some of these routers supplying a wireless signal for 10 miles, and at that threshold people have actually converted the units to be water cooled since the processor chip gets so hot. That route might be too exotic for you (or me or most people) to tackle, but it's sort of an extreme level of wireless internet. Like always, it's still line of sight though.

 

[feasant]

check this out

Ubiquiti Networks - Wireless networking products for broadband and enterprise

oops. i see i was beat to the post

 

[3Ts]

If you have a tower that you're thinking about renting out/leasing, be sure you look into what the "deal" is. The company I worked for leased a spot on a tower for their antenna. It was not the only antenna on there and they paid by the height (there's probably other factors as well) so be sure you can put other antennas on as well and that the price is not fixed for ever - at least increases by inflation every year.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Interesting responses. Thanks. Having a full fledged cell tower is enviable, but then some are unsightly.

The tower is in the middle of the property so it doesn't have to go that far either way, and the one way is down hill in a valley, so coverage in that direction is even better.

I have limited wind load possibilities on my spindly little tower. As it is, they just installed a solid dish pretty much at the top.

Maybe the day will come, that I can't live without a data plan. Everything is being controlled by phone Aps. I have a new Bell Tower within sight of me, so this is good. Never a problem with signal, but I'm surprised the signal is never above half scale either.

Typical. I just cancelled my Explornet account. All of a sudden they want to work with me and offer me a discount! I told them, they outsell their resources and I wanted reliable Internet over Christmas! Nothing like watching a two hour Netflix movie that takes four hours. And then possibly even stops saying it's unavailable, try again later.

 

[LittleBill21]

that ayrstone, is using picom2hp from ubiquiti with what looks to be a couple nano stations prolly flashed with open wrt

Ubiquiti PicoStation M2 [OpenWrt Wiki]

ubiquiti native firmware doesn't really support mesh


if its plug and play might be easier, i wouldn't expect any crazy speeds from it though