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Resolved Question

Semi-Long distance wifi network.

Nov 13, 2011 9:20AM PST

Hello. I am in the process of moving my computer and xbox into my room and away from our living room. Currently it is wired to the router for best performance. I want to move them aprox 300 feet, and several walls, away and connect them wireless. Unfortunately our internet only comes into our house where it does now and running wires isnt an option. What would be the best products to get our internet into my room, with the highest performance connection possible for gaming and such.

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Clarification Request
Would this even work?
Nov 15, 2011 6:48AM PST

To give you an idea, my house is very large. I am concerned the amount of wiring would be too much to get a great connection, plus all the appliances between me and the router could cause interference, right? would in be better to go to a home pna system?

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house network
Nov 15, 2011 9:52PM PST

300 ft is huge distance. 300ft is about the limit of even copper ethernet. Indoor wireless is recommended you never exceed 100ft. Maybe if you had one huge room you could get wireless to travel that distance but like any radio signal the signal drop is exponential.

Power line stuff will work in most houses but if you really have a 300 ft run that implies your house could be in the 10000 sq ft range which is far beyond what any home product it designed for.

You have few options. You need to find some form of wiring you can use or you run new wire. If you have tv coax there are a couple of options to use that but expect to spend at least $5000. It most likely is cheaper to pay someone to run some ethernet cable for you.

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Alright. I am trying to avoid any new wires at all cost!
Nov 16, 2011 4:33AM PST

How would a system that piggie backs the phone line work? I'm having trouble finding one, but ive read alot about them. Or what about one of those super powered wifi antenas that they advertise for use on farms? Right now I am thinking about using powerline to get part of the distance, wifi for part, then I have a ethernet cable that is about 150 feet long that could get the last section. Would this all drastically increase my ping?

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phone lines
Nov 16, 2011 6:18AM PST

All depends on how many phone line wires you have. The first thing I would try and see if you can use the phone wire at 10m. you only need 2 pair. If you are real lucky you may actually have cat 5 cabling and can run at 100m. I would force one end to be 10m and see if it works. Couple rj45 wall jacks from home depot would be your cost to try it, less than $10. It will more than likely light up but you need to run data over it to see if it really works.

There are other devices that will run over phone wire. All depends how much speed you need. Pretty much the more speed the more cost. These devices are just doing what the phone company uses to deliver dsl or T1 circuits to your house. You can go many thousands of feet with these. You may be able to get older commercial stuff on ebay.

Your ping times will not increase in a way you can measure. If you can run 150ft of cable you should reduce your issues with the powerline.

Antenna do not increase the power they direct the power into a narrow beam. It may help to have one on each end but the key problem indoors is the walls absorb so much signal. You may not be able to overcome this. I would not try this option until all else has failed, even outdoors it does not take much foggy days causes significant signal loss.

Best Answer

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(NT) I'd look at Powerline networking.
Nov 14, 2011 1:27AM PST