@Sgt Joe said:


That's kinda cool you have a little datacenter shed. Probably keeps the noise and heat away from the main house. I have a couple ideas if you're interested in upgrading. One is to replace the "N" repeater with a true wireless bridge (cheap and easy), and the other is the hassle way if you ever feel like digging a 50 yard trench and burying conduit (aluminum maybe? I don't know what is standard practice) and pulling a fiber optic cable.

Wireless Bridge
I'm actually using this setup inside my house as we speak. It's connecting the 2nd Floor with the "Datacenter" in the basement, at least until I can wire the whole house with Ethernet. A 24/7 wireless bridge is up -- I just had to look at the signal strength on both units and turn the power down to minimum.

Ubiquiti airMAX NanoStation 5AC Loco
2 @ $49 each

These are surprisingly cheap for what they offer. The "Loco" are the lowest power, smallest version of all of Ubiquiti's wireless bridge gear, but they can link 500 yards easily. Says they can do 10+ km but who knows...

The airOS web interface is really pretty and offers a lot of info and a color pic of the wireless spectrum so you can choose a channel that is the quietest. These support the "DFS" range of the 5 GHz spectrum that's shared with radar/airports/Navy, but most residential areas and consumer WiFi equipment don't use DFS so it's wide open. Having the wireless bridge on its own channel keeps the house network completely interference free.

These use a proprietary wireless "AirMax" protocol that's based on 802.11ac, and you secure it with a strong WPA2 password just for the bridge. Set it and forget it pretty much. Mine say they are linked at about 650 Mbps so real world speeds are a little lower than that, maybe 500 Mbps, but the most important thing I like is these are pretty reliable.

Only maintenance I've had to do is log in every 6 months and see if there's a firmware update. Close to 100% uptime.

24V Passive PoE Adapter (aka PoE Injector)
2 @ $6 each

They don't come with PoE adapters, so pick up a pair. The NanoStation 5AC Locos use a proprietary "passive" Power-over-Ethernet adapter so gotta buy separate injectors, unfortunately. Each injector needs 2 ethernet cables -- one goes to the NanoStation, and the other cable goes to your switch or router.

Mounting Brackets
2 @ 19 each

Optional if you want to use the official bracket to secure it either outside the house (and drill through the house) or to an interior wall and just have the units transmit through the exterior wall. I haven't used these mounts since my bridge is vertically through two floors.

Shed Switch --> PoE injector --> Shed NanoStation Loco ~~~~ wireless bridge ~~~~ House NanoStation Loco <-- PoE injector <-- House switch/router

(If you ever feel the need to upgrade what you got for the shed)

I'd give it til late 2024 or 2025 and they'll come out with NanoStation BE based on WiFi 7, I hope.

(For Ubiquiti gear, you get the full 2-year warranty buying from their site compared to buying from Amazon. I'm not affiliated with this company, just mostly happy with their NanoStations)

Edit: Forgot to mention these work best with line of sight since they use 5 GHz so your mileage may vary if you have heavy tree foliage or especially hills in the way, brick/stone exterior walls, etc.

Trenching and Burying Fiber
I'm using a short fiber optic run (6 foot, 2 meter cable) inside my house just in case lightning strikes our house again, my thinking is by converting copper ethernet to fiber optic then back to copper ethernet, the lightning surge won't be able to fry everything downstream again. (It came in through our cable modem through ungrounded coax.)

I think OM5 multimode fiber is about as cheap, but just as an example here's what I bought for my 1 Gigabit setup.

RamboCables 50m (164 ft) OM4 LC LC Multimode fiber optic cable
$59.99 Amazon (get the length you need of course)

I have the 2 meter OM4 cable from them and it's been just fine. Obviously might be a huse pain to dig a trench, bury conduit, then place a pull string through it, then pull a fiber cable between the house and shed. (I wouldn't bury Ethernet cable because of lightning risk and fiber is just as cheap.)

According to this article, OM4 can do up to 100 Gigabit speeds up to 150 meter length. LC is just a common connector.

If you don't have a fancy switch that has a SFP (1 Gigabit) or SFP+ (10 Gigabit) port, gotta buy an adapter. Here's what I'm running at home:
TRENDnet 100/1000Base-T to SFP Fiber Media Converter
2 @ $46 each

I chose these over the other couple brands on Amazon because they know when either the fiber or the ethernet links are down and send that signal down the connection so you know when it's down. These have been 99% rock solid for me 24/7 so far. No setup needed.

TRENDnet SFP Multimode LC module
2 @ 19 each

These are SFP modules (1 Gigabit) that you pop in the media converters.

1 gig fiber is cheap. 10, 25, 40, 100 gig would break the bank and be overkill for a WCG setup in the shed HAHA.

I'm bored and felt like rambling but hope this helps anyone who wants to go all out on bridging long distances with wireless or fiber.