Running internet to a building 660 feet away

[quicksandfarmer]

The title says it. I have high speed internet, I want to extend it to another building on my property that's 660 feet away. Interested in hearing from people with real-world experience. It seems one approach would be to do it wireless with long-range WIFI, the other would be to string fiber optic.

Thoughts?
Thanks.

 

[JeepHead]

I have used these on many occasions both at work to link up weigh sharks on conveyor belts as well as at home to link my shop around 1000' away. There is no replacement for a hard wire but do you have the ability to do a fiber run? Also, my brother just had a second fiber line installed at his shop and cost was only an extra $1.50 a month from his provider.

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[Runner]

I tried wireless to my shop, but couldn't get signal through the steel walls.

Ran ethernet underground about 200 feet total and works great. Interested to hear from experts if you can go 600.

 

[JeepHead]

I tried wireless to my shop, but couldn't get signal through the steel walls.

Ran ethernet underground about 200 feet total and works great. Interested to hear from experts if you can go 600.

Will it work? Yup, but may not offer optimal speeds. I have ran those distances in quarries feeding cameras with no issues.

 

[D&D]

The title says it. I have high speed internet, I want to extend it to another building on my property that's 660 feet away. Interested in hearing from people with real-world experience. It seems one approach would be to do it wireless with long-range WIFI, the other would be to string fiber optic.

Thoughts?
Thanks.

depends, do you have a clear line of sight between buildings? If so, a wireless access point or wifi bridge (my preference) are an easy answer. The bridge with a wifi router in the shop, barn, w/e is rather user friendly. Odds are the existing fiber switch only has one access point, so you would need some more hardware to convert fiber to ethernet.
regular ethernet would need a booster midway (100 meter max)

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[kenmbz]

My separate garage I just ran cable (since that's how I get internet today) and a separate router.

I don't have the two networks talking to each other, but I get full speed in both the house and garage this way.

Getting through metal may mean a mast or something on the roof/side to catch the signal if you just want to expand the network.

There are some who have used the ubuiti like JH and have been happy on this site too.

 

[MMC]

Like most things...depends. Contrary to what internet gadget guys like to sell, hardwired and shielded is always better. But much more expensive. Underground Feeder ethernet cable is available and can certainly be done with time and money.

But, you might try some wireless systems at that distance first. If, and only if, you don't have anything major blocking straight line signal transmission. Put something in between the antenna transmitter and antenna receiver and things rapidly degrade.

I have done something like you want on the farm at a distance of 350 feet (actually going through some wood and vegetation obstructions). Before you spend a lot of money, you might try something like this:

Amazon.com

That unit was pretty cheap for an experiment...and it works. It broadcasts a signal from inside my house to a receiver unit on the outside of my shop. The shop is tin or it might have actually established a signal to the antenna receiver and router inside. If your building is tin, however, you are going to have to do what I did: mount the unit outside (it's allweather), run Power Over Internet (POE) through a bushing to the inside of the building (POE and ethernet power ports are supplied with these antennas), and connect to a router inside and you're off and running.

I have no trouble running a video or getting on the internet to order parts with this system. Now, the box says its for Starlink...well, not so much. Look around on Amazon - there are a lot of these antennas with reviews that don't say Starlink. But, I used a Starlink modem/router to establish a DECO mesh system in an old 1840s brick house with solid brick interior walls. Yeah, you can do that if you have some doorways the signal can get through. Point I'm making is that I wirelessly sent a signal from a DECO mesh "repeater" connected to Starlink's modem/router on the first floor to a DECO mesh unit on the second floor of this house and attached the POE and ethernet cable to the "broadcast" wireless antenna aimed at the shop through a window.

Anyway, it worked fine. And was a cheap experiment to try. I am assuming you have good bandwidth at your house. But...if you have a lot of stuff between the transmission point and receiving point, it might not work. If you live someplace with a lot of possible radio interference nearby, it might not work. This is kinda' old fashioned line-of-sight radio stuff. But, if it looks at all feasible, I would certainly give it a try. Dragging thick equipment tech manuals back and forth to the house for parts ordering really sucks, and I was originally going to put service underground like you implied.

Best of Luck.

 

[ponytug]

The title says it. I have high speed internet, I want to extend it to another building on my property that's 660 feet away. Interested in hearing from people with real-world experience. It seems one approach would be to do it wireless with long-range WIFI, the other would be to string fiber optic.

Thoughts?
Thanks.

Both wireless and fiber can work; if you have something close to line of sight between the buildings, if not, fiber is the way to go. I would distinguish between point to point systems (potential range miles) and WiFi extenders (typically hundreds of feet). Are you ok with a system going out in heavy rain or snow?

If you supply a few more details, e.g. can you trench easily, do you have a good line of sight, are you ok with external antennas on both buildings, etc., folks here can probably give better advice.

All the best,

Peter

 

[MMC]

Both wireless and fiber can work; if you have something close to line of sight between the buildings, if not, fiber is the way to go. I would distinguish between point to point systems (potential range miles) and WiFi extenders (typically hundreds of feet). Are you ok with a system going out in heavy rain or snow?

If you supply a few more details, e.g. can you trench easily, do you have a good line of sight, are you ok with external antennas on both buildings, etc., folks here can probably give better advice.

All the best,

Peter

Good points - "extenders" are not going to do it. I should have used correct terminology: "Point to Point." You're essentially setting up a small radio station at your internet modem source ISP. Then you're broadcasting the signal through the antenna described, directionally, to another antenna which is looking for that signal. The rest of it is just routing that signal to dependent devices in your building.

As to the Chinese version of distance capabilities expressed in miles...only in a perfect world (which we never seem to live in LOL...)

And, as cautioned by ponytug, weather can play a part. However, I mounted my receiver antenna fairly high under an eave at the shop and seem to have few problems (well, except Starlink at the house may go off for a few minutes in a complete downpour...not in snow, it has a heater in its antenna which seems to work well.)

Good Luck

 

[JeepHead]

Good points - "extenders" are not going to do it. I should have used correct terminology: "Point to Point." You're essentially setting up a small radio station at your internet modem source ISP. Then you're broadcasting the signal through the antenna described, directionally, to another antenna which is looking for that signal. The rest of it is just routing that signal to dependent devices in your building.

As to the Chinese version of distance capabilities expressed in miles...only in a perfect world (which we never seem to live in LOL...)

And, as cautioned by ponytug, weather can play a part. However, I mounted my receiver antenna fairly high under an eave at the shop and seem to have few problems (well, except Starlink at the house may go off for a few minutes in a complete downpour...not in snow, it has a heater in its antenna which seems to work well.)

Good Luck

An extender can absolutely do it. I can easily send a very strong signal the distance he is needing (and further) using a directional antenna with no need for a point to point network.

 

[drssg]

I tried wireless to my shop, but couldn't get signal through the steel walls.

Ran ethernet underground about 200 feet total and works great. Interested to hear from experts if you can go 600.

That was my exact situation. I rented a small walk-behind slice trencher to run direct burial CAT5 line. That worked fine in the grass, but I needed my backhoe to get through the gravel driveway.

When the internet company ran fiber optic back to my house, they used a larger piece of equipment that used the same principle. I was surprised that they even went straight through 4-6" rip rap over my driveway culvert.

It seemed like that would damage the line, but it has been fine for about five years now.

 

[DarkBlack]

I don’t have actual experience using it at my place, but I know for a 660’ distance Ethernet over Coax would be an alternative to Fiber.Well within the distance. You can get the pair of boxes for about $120.
1,000 ft roll of direct burial rg11 is $240 on Amazon. The advantage would be you could be less careful with the handling and route of the cabling compared to fiber. You also wouldn’t have to deal with polishing the ends.

 

[LittleBill21]

go fiber, then you don't need to worry about lightning or grounding issues, you can buy premade fiber. just need these boxes.

Amazon.com

 

[ning]

20 years ago I set up WiFi links to two neighbors, 600' & 700' each; I had a company-paid T1 line and there wasn't anything else remotely as good in our area - people were still on dialup so I shared (there's never been DSL here, there's no cable... more recently there's a wide-area WiFi that they're on now; I'm on VZW cellular internet now). This was old "b" wifi of course. It worked pretty well though one neighbor did have to trim some trees after a couple years. That setup was running for a good number of years, like... 7?

More recently, I ran a fiber optic line from my solar ground mount to my shop, because the setup needed a USB connection between a unit at the ground mount (combiner box which holds the main smarts) and the unit in my shop 550' away as the electrons flow (photons too, on the fiber; there's no clear path through the air); in more typical setups these are all relatively near each other and don't need an extender. Anyways, I got a pair of devices for about $200 which sit at either end of the fiber optic cable and they bridge USB over it.

A similar device exists that's a lot cheaper which bridges Ethernet over the fiber: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B06XBSZJL3
The fiber, of course, will be a lot more expensive, and you'll definitely want it in a conduit for protection, but this is the way to go for maximum speed and distance. Based on my experience with the USB extender, I wouldn't hesitate to use this if I had to go near 100m or more (maximum ethernet cable length).

I bought from fiberopticcableshop.com; I got a 4-fiber pre-terminated bundle with pulling eyes. As it turned out I built the conduit around all the cables as I didn't want to be pulling 4/0 aluminum that far so the pulling eyes weren't necessary but they didn't hurt. I got the 4-fiber because I figured it was like 20% more expensive than 1-fiber, and it gave me options if a fiber or two were to be damaged during construction/pulling, and best case there'd be some in the future I could use for something else - like I could use one of those bridges ^ to put ethernet on that part of my land.

Another alternative you just run ethernet; it may work even at reasonable speeds, because the network protocols will handle the increased errors. Buy 1000' of cable and run it, see if it's tolerable. $200 for 1000' of direct burial; buy it, you may be able to try it without unrolling the whole thing.
A final option is, run ethernet, but put a powered bridge/switch/hub in the middle of the run so that it's effectively two runs, each 100m.

This place: https://paigedatacom.com/gamechanger claims that their cable will provide good signal for 2.5G at 200m, 10Mb/s at 850'. Their direct burial is very pricey - $1500 for 1000', though the more typical stuff is $500/1000'. Still expensive (though there's a pop-up with 15% off oh boy), but it may just get you right where you need to go. I don't have any experience with this at all but they do have a warranty. I'd be pretty tempted to use this tbh.

 

[IXLR8]

go fiber, then you don't need to worry about lightning or grounding issues, you can buy premade fiber. just need these boxes.

Amazon.com

This is what I did to get 500ft to my metal shop. I used a fiber optic cable that had metal sheathing. It's been laying on the ground for 3 years with no issues. Dogs have dug at it, people have walked on it, 4x4 has driven over it. I'm surprised it still works. Renting a trencher next month and will finally put it in the ground.

 

[LittleBill21]

This is what I did to get 500ft to my metal shop. I used a fiber optic cable that had metal sheathing. It's been laying on the ground for 3 years with no issues. Dogs have dug at it, people have walked on it, 4x4 has driven over it. I'm surprised it still works. Renting a trencher next month and will finally put it in the ground.

armored fiber is impressively strong, I work with fiber in my job and it can take a pretty impressive amount of abuse. Frontier is putting fiber in the area, and I keep watching them drive over it with the truck. I told the one guy to stop doing it. he said they've been driving over it for years and never seen it break so they stopped caring. I was pretty impressed.

 

[DarkBlack]

Keep in mind, if you go direct burial fiber optic, the messenger strand , or metal sheath is conductive, so you need to provide a proper ground, like you would for a coaxial cable. The fiber cable of course has the advantage that it doesn’t have an ungrounded center conductor that could potentially carry stray currents into your device.
I would definitely go “Ethernet over coaxial” rather than 660’ of Ethernet cable, if you decide to go wired. It’s specified for such distance at high speeds.

 

[DarkBlack]

armored fiber is impressively strong, I work with fiber in my job and it can take a pretty impressive amount of abuse. Frontier is putting fiber in the area, and I keep watching them drive over it with the truck. I told the one guy to stop doing it. he said they've been driving over it for years and never seen it break so they stopped caring. I was pretty impressed.

That is amazing it isn’t damaged, and sloppy of them to drive over it. Shows lack of care

 

[IXLR8]

Keep in mind, if you go direct burial fiber optic, the messenger strand , or metal sheath is conductive, so you need to provide a proper ground, like you would for a coaxial cable. The fiber cable of course has the advantage that it doesn’t have an ungrounded center conductor that could potentially carry stray currents into your device.
I would definitely go “Ethernet over coaxial” rather than 660’ of Ethernet cable, if you decide to go wired. It’s specified for such distance at high speeds.

This is the armored fiber cable I bought. I don't see how you could access the armor shield to ground it.

Amazon.com

 

[DarkBlack]

This is the armored fiber cable I bought. I don't see how you could access the armor shield to ground it.

Amazon.com

Just google “ grounding armored fiber cable “. Grab a beverage