Internet Options for my Mom

[EddieWalker]

What is a Nest? How far does it go? I don't need anything fancy, Mom is just using a tablet for Facebook. All I need is reliable internet for her.

 

[part-time-Farmer-NC]

Cable's are the most dependable. Ethernet is allowed a 300' run between drops without attenuation. BUT... If you are susceptible to lighting it would be problematic as a lighting strike in/near the ground would fry both devices its plugged in to. Yes you can get a lighting arrestor but in reality its just as cheap to get two cheap switches for both ends of the run. Performance is as good as what you get. I did this for my granddaughter about 2 years ago. When a lightning storm comes up we both unplug it from our switches. Grandson in law ran the trench I provided the wire/pvc conduit and terminated the ends.

Another Idea is a fiber run between you. Lightning doesn't affect it. Performance is as good as what you'd get. Requires a dig or above ground installation, premade fiber and the repeaters on each end to convert back to Ethernet. I ran one of these for about 5 years to my brothers behind my house.

As mentioned earlier a point to point bridge. Has some weather restrictions or can be affected by EMI (electrical magnetic interference) and is best in line of site conditions. Performance is usually good.

A MIFI or a hotspot that operates on your cellular phone carriers network. Its a small box and puts out a wireless signal or if she has a smart phone its a check box to enable it, then connect her chrome book to that. performance is usually not bad depending on cell signal in her house. If the signal is good outside her house but not inside, you can get a signal extender. Basically an antenna designed for it and runs via a cable back inside.

There is also starlink, but overkill/pricy for what you want.

 

[grsthegreat]

Eddie, i use this to reach my shop 300’ from house router. If your house is on wireless wifi, it will work

Extend ANY WiFi System to Shop, garage, barn - Connect kit | RadioLabs

Powerful WiFi kit, Extends WiFi to any building, detached garage, barn, shop, where you need internet. Connects to all home routers, starlink or hotspots

www.radiolabs.com

 

[ponytug]

Is a Mesh a way to spread the internet around inside your house? Basically increasing the area that the router is giving you?

And is a Bridge a point to point signal from one building to another building?

I'm not seeing a lot of options on Amazon for Wifi Bridget Systems. Should I be using different words for my search?

Mesh is a device that amplifies the WiFi signals and rebroadcasts the signals, so it extends the WiFi coverage area. Like a point and shoot camera, they are very easy to set up, and the units can be moved around (they generally just plug into an outlet) to optimize the WiFi experience in your environment.

A bridge is another way of describing a point to point wireless system.

You might try "WiFi extender" or "wireless point to point". They are slightly different, as the former retransmitts your WiFi signal in a narrow direction, while the latter will typically use different radio frequencies that enable the point-to-point systems to not interfere with the household WiFi signals.

What is a Nest? How far does it go? I don't need anything fancy, Mom is just using a tablet for Facebook. All I need is reliable internet for her.

Nest is a brand of mesh system, Eero is another.

All the best,

Peter

 

[EddieWalker]

Mom's internet is back up today. It was only out for two days. The pressure is off to get her something, but then again, it could stop working again at any time, so I really need to make a decision on what to buy.

 

[EddieWalker]

Mesh is a device that amplifies the WiFi signals and rebroadcasts the signals, so it extends the WiFi coverage area. Like a point and shoot camera, they are very easy to set up, and the units can be moved around (they generally just plug into an outlet) to optimize the WiFi experience in your environment.

A bridge is another way of describing a point to point wireless system.

You might try "WiFi extender" or "wireless point to point". They are slightly different, as the former retransmitts your WiFi signal in a narrow direction, while the latter will typically use different radio frequencies that enable the point-to-point systems to not interfere with the household WiFi signals.

Nest is a brand of mesh system, Eero is another.

All the best,

Peter

Thank you, that helps a lot. We tried extenders with our previous system, and we have them hooked up right now, but they never really did anything that I could tell.

I'll look on Amazon for Wireless Point to Point!!

 

[ponytug]

Amazon can be pricey for some of the point to point hardware, E.g

airMAX NanoBeam 5AC - Ubiquiti Store

Compact, UISP-ready, 5 GHz WiFi bridge with enhanced surge protection and an optimized radio and antenna.

store.ui.com

Here a couple of setup videos;

All the best,

Peter

 

[MMC]

Mesh is a device that amplifies the WiFi signals and rebroadcasts the signals, so it extends the WiFi coverage area. Like a point and shoot camera, they are very easy to set up, and the units can be moved around (they generally just plug into an outlet) to optimize the WiFi experience in your environment.

A bridge is another way of describing a point to point wireless system.

You might try "WiFi extender" or "wireless point to point". They are slightly different, as the former retransmitts your WiFi signal in a narrow direction, while the latter will typically use different radio frequencies that enable the point-to-point systems to not interfere with the household WiFi signals.

Nest is a brand of mesh system, Eero is another.

All the best,

Peter

Ponytug gave you a lot of the basics. Anything I have learned comes from a lot of reading and trying to solve my own problems on the farm with internet access.

But, please don't misunderstand why I have Starlink. That's the only sort of high speed internet that many in rural areas have as a decent, if expensive, option. You have a great option with fiber optic cable. Greater speed and less cost. No way do you need a separate Starlink subscription for your mother.

Hardwired is always better, but I doubt you need that as a solution to your problem.

Also, mesh systems (Nest is just Google's name for their offering) do offer an excellent way to get signals back and forth within your own house seamlessly. But you may well not need a mesh system if you have a good enough signal close to your ISP modem/router from Spectrum. If the location of that Spectrum unit is close to a window that looks out at your mom's house, you might be able to just run an ethernet cable from that box to a point-to-point antenna in the window and receive it at another window/antenna at mom's place.

As an option, do you have a community college close by? A lot of these kids speak this stuff as a first language, LOL, and work cheap.

But I bet you could do this yourself...

 

[EarPlug]

Is a Mesh a way to spread the internet around inside your house? Basically increasing the area that the router is giving you?

And is a Bridge a point to point signal from one building to another building?

I'm not seeing a lot of options on Amazon for Wifi Bridget Systems. Should I be using different words for my search?

A "WiFi Bridge" is signal Mode/Protocall and not a Product. You need a Device that supports "Bridge Mode"

Here is the one I mentioned in Post #6 Amazon.com

MMC mentioned this in Post #17 Amazon.com

If you want to search Amazon use the terms - outdoor wifi extender - https://www.amazon.com/s?k=outdoor+wifi+extender&crid=137UC7652UBD1&sprefix=outdoor+wifi,aps,186&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_2_12

Here are the How To videos -

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=setting+up+wifi+bridge

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you Peter for the link and the videos!!! I do a lot better watching a video then I do reading and trying to understand what I've read.

My house is in front, and Mom is right behind me. The fiber optic comes into my house closest to the front road, and the roughter is in the corner closest to the front road. Easily the farthest place from Mom's house. My house is 48 feet from wall to wall. 100 feet of compacted gravel between both houses. Then inside Mom's house, she sits pretty much dead center in the middle of her house.

I can run a cable from my router to the wall, or a window facing Mom's house. That wouldn't be hard. I'd want a 75 foot cable, if they come that long, if I had to. I could do the same at Mom's house, but would prefer to just mount it and hope that I can hook up our old modem to it and have that reach her tablet.

 

[EddieWalker]

A "WiFi Bridge" is signal Mode/Protocall and not a Product. You need a Device that supports "Bridge Mode"

Here is the one I mentioned in Post #6 Amazon.com

MMC mentioned this in Post #17 Amazon.com

If you want to search Amazon use the terms - outdoor wifi extender - https://www.amazon.com/s?k=outdoor+wifi+extender&crid=137UC7652UBD1&sprefix=outdoor+wifi,aps,186&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_2_12

Here are the How To videos -

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=setting+up+wifi+bridge

Thank you for the links!!!!

 

[California]

Eddie, in place of that physical Ethernet cable to the back of the house, I used Ethernet-over-powerline. One unit at the router to inject signal into the house wiring, another at the back window to receive it and feed a router there, set up in bridge mode so it duplicates the primary router.
In your case, you would feed an antenna there.

Its random luck whether the house wiring will carry signals at sufficient speed. Stuff from Amazon is returnable.

 

[riptides]

I am using an eero mesh setup on our farm. I have a firestick in another building at 150 feet away picking up the network. That is going through two walls and into a concrete old style mesh parge wall and a wall mounted TV. I also pick up the network in there for browsing.
I would try a mesh system first.

 

[ning]

I have a mesh inside my house which takes my main Internet (300 Mbps) and makes it easily useable throughout the house (speeds in the house range down to about 120Mbps).

One of the mesh units is by a window that gives my gate, 150' away from that mesh unit, 60Mbps.

My chicken coop 200' away but about 25' lower elevation only gets 10Mbps (mesh units don't typically handle elevation differences very well).

Unfortunately my solar array which has a reporting function doesn't get quite enough signal at 500' away - sometimes it connects but usually not. Currently that uses a cellular connection (included with the hardware... free for 5 years) a few times a day but I plan to extend my mesh further in its direction so that there's just enough signal for better data and then it won't use the cellular any more.

@EddieWalker I would personally first try getting a few mesh units and see if it "just works" - put one in your house attached to your ISP router, and one in Mom's house (after configuring them to talk to each other first at your house). I'll bet you can get enough at her house 100' away to live with it - 20Mbps doesn't give instant video downloads but it's sufficient for streaming movies.

Modern WiFi has strong security that can be relied upon, as long as you don't go disabling it.

 

[LittleBill21]

I have to agree throwing mesh at it might be the easiest option.

buy this 3 pack, put one in the window at your house. put one in the window at her house, see if they will work this way. (make sure they are all connected before putting one in her house)

she would just need to connect to the new ssid that eero puts out.

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-eero-...d260d54984866&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

and you would just disable the wireless in your own router, and use these as the wifi, the book should walk you through it pretty easily.

that distance is not remotely far at all

 

[garry1p]

If you want to do this as a backup for your mom this is what I would do first.

1.Buy a Ethernet cable local or on line that would reach your window closest to your mothers window.
2. Connect the cable to the modem that Spectrum supplied.
3. Move the router to the your window closest to your mothers window and connect.
4 At your mothers place connect her tablet to your SSID and set it up with security.

This should cost $30 to $40 for cat6 cable

If that doesn't work, and I'm betting it will, buy an extender or mesh as above, move you router back to where it was and connect the extender at the window using the Ethernet cable, with a mesh you would not need a cable.

 

[EddieWalker]

I like that idea. I'll probably need a Cat 6 cable anyway, so why not buy it now and see what happens?

 

[LittleBill21]

I like that idea. I'll probably need a Cat 6 cable anyway, so why not buy it now and see what happens?

generally running a cat 6 cable through a house is pretty unsightly, the mesh units are wireless and will provide a better experience.

 

[ning]

generally running a cat 6 cable through a house is pretty unsightly, the mesh units are wireless and will provide a better experience.

Agreed - and Eddie quite likely doesn't need the cable. I still have a 100' spool of cat6 I bought for an old project and ended up not using; unfortunately the window to return it closed before I realized. I should sell it online I guess...

 

[Yander]

A good quality mesh network router might work. I have one called Eero. Worth a try. Return if it doesn't work.
Find Your eero eero: Find Your eero