connecting two houses internet connection

[crmpicco]

Hi Guys,

I'm looking for a suggest on how to solve a problem. My friend owns two houses side by side, he has a wireless router with built-in modem in the house that he lives in. But the signal does not stretch far enough through to the next house for the connection to be half-decent or usable.

Is it possible to buy another wireless router, or regular router, and run a telephone cable through to the next house? Would that work?

Any suggestions are much appreciated.

Cheers,
Picco

[LeeU]

Well, they do have boosters (http://www.amazon.com/Linksys-WSB24-Wireless-B-Signal-Booster/dp/B000085BD7) (I just grabbed this link real quick).

[crmpicco]

i've been advised that the result of these boosters isn't too great. Is it possible to create some sort of network?

[EricG1793]

I know that this is pretty obvious, but the smallest action can make a big difference when it comes to these things.... Has your friend tried to move the existing wireless router to the side of his house that's closest to the other house? And to use the wireless device in the other house as close to his house as possible?

[crmpicco]

yeah, he tried that. he is quite used to wireless, he has it at his work and stuff like that so he knows how it works.

Is there no way of having a second wireless router to pickup the signal and forward on as normal?

[EricG1793]

Isn't that what a signal booster does? ;)

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_e?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=wireless+range+expander&x=0&y=0

EDIT: Oh, I see what you mean. I don't believe that there is a way to link two regular wireless routers.

[wh666-666]

You can try a bridge antenna, coming in a variety of sizes ... Aim it directly at the router ...

http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop/index.pl?origin=gbase6.3&prodID=968309





Or get a massive antenna to connect directly to the router ...

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/1673162/art/d-link/54-mb-outdoor-wifi-anten.html?srcid=867



Be aware by doing that though, it will make the wireless available to everyone else on your street as well.

[Theremin]

you can use an access point as a repeater. the also make wireless range expanders. they will pick up the wireless signal and then repeat. the ones i have used are flakey though and are a pain to reconfigure if you have wep or wpa enabled (which you should always).

linksys wre - are range expanders
i prefer to use the linksys wireless access points as range expanders though, because if you do need to reconfigure them, they can be plugged into the router and accessed much easier, you can manually enter in all the settings rather than trying to "discover" like the WREs

or if you were going to run a phone line anyhow, why not just run some cat5 from the router to the next house :P. get some conduit so it will last a long time, don't just have the cable buried or exposed to the environment :)

[Mr Initial Man]

When my dad buried the CAT5 cable between our houses, we put it through some 1" pipe.

[bathurst_guy]

The Apple Airport Express has WPS built in, so you set up one as a master, and as many as you like as relays or remote. I have 4 of them, and I also have speakers attached to them so I can use iTunes to play my music wirelessly throughout the house. One of them I also have a USB printer attached that can be printed to wirelessly.

[MrNobody]

I had much the same issue. We had a G-wireless router and attached a high-gain antenna to it in order to pick up the next building. Then we upgraded to an N-wireless router which did not support the high-gain antenna (no external connectors for an antenna). So, I ran a CAT-5 cable between buildings and attached a little 5-port workgroup switch at the distal end. Works great. Allows four connections at the workgroup switch.

[MDS]

If your freind has a powerful laptop in the other house, it can locate the other wireless network in the other house without a problem as long as they are adjacent to each other. Then the only thing to do is to give a network key for access to the wireless network