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John01
@myvzw.com

John01

Anon

Need cable solution, 1200-2000m between possible AP

Backstory is unreliable information that the house could get DSL when it was built 9 years ago. Now, we can't sell the house because we owe more than it's worth. One street over has comcast, but it's about 1200 ft away and through a small weed jungle and two ditches. A realtor at the top of our street used to work for comcast and somehow got connected.

I'm secretly looking for a permanent solution to finally be able to watch netflix and stop worrying about overages on a 10GB mifi card. My parents don't want me to worry about it, but at the same time, my tech life and social life are being caged. I'm computer savvy, but any friends with similar interests are PC (or console) gamers with fast, unlimited internet. I have one year left before college, and good parents, going away present, less tech worries, etc.

So far, I've found a few viable options, but I need more info on what and how.

Option 1 is to run a coax line, probably RG6 or RG11U with one amp. I know it would need a tap, the wire, the amp, and the modem, but I'm not entirely sure as to the configuration, and I don't want to waste 5000 dollars on having comcast do it.

Option 2 is what seems to be a MIMO wireless connection. I have no idea how far it reaches or how cost effective it is. I do know that on the lot of someone with a cable line, there needs to be a transmitter, and we need a receiver along with a modem.

Option 3 is to hire a contractor to arrange to put in wire at a currently unknown expense.

Option 4 is to give up and accept that the overages will cost either a high price or a cut in speed (to 150kbps) this is pretty much not an option for this thread.
Moffetts
join:2005-05-09
San Mateo, CA

Moffetts

Member

A ~5000 foot run of RG6? That's not going to happen, whether you do it or if you pay somebody else to do it.

Your best bet would be a point to point (LoS or close to it) wireless connection, but you would need to have available internet access on the other end of the link. That's going to be the hard part, logistically and legally.

Msradell
Premium Member
join:2008-12-25
Louisville, KY

Msradell to John01

Premium Member

to John01
How are you going to get a legal connection and the other street is the 1st thing you have to worry about. Comcast nor any other Internet provider will give you a access point on a pole or pedestal, it has to be at a given address. What is the distance you are talking about is the next question. In the title you say 1200-2000m but in the text you say 1200ft, that's a big difference. 1200ft is not a huge problem 6000ft is.

John01
@myvzw.com

John01

Anon

Right, sorry. It's feet. I got too used to using meters in physics and calc.

What sort of legalities are there? As far as I can tell, I can call comcast to check the options.

I also forgot to mention that my mom gets way stressed when I discuss or complain about our internet connection. I'd like to stay under the parental radar until I have a full solution at a reasonable cost.

John Galt6
Forward, March
Premium Member
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp

John Galt6 to John01

Premium Member

to John01
A wireless solution is a possibility if you have the LOS, and have someone who can host the feed end for you at their house (you'd have a separate acct).
TheMG
Premium Member
join:2007-09-04
Canada
MikroTik RB450G
Cisco DPC3008
Cisco SPA112

TheMG to John01

Premium Member

to John01
If you have line-of-sight, wireless would be the most cost effective solution and should work quite well.

Using suitable directional antennas at both ends, you'd be surprised how far WiFi can reach with line-of-sight.

That hardest part will be finding somewhere that Comcast will provision the service to, and that you can install the modem and WiFi device. If there are any neighbors within your line-of-sight that have access to Comcast services, I'd start there. If you ask nicely maybe someone will allow you to set up your modem and WiFi AP/antenna on their property. Then you just have to get Comcast to set up a second account at their address (yes, it is possible to have multiple cable internet accounts and modems at one address).
Body Count
join:2010-09-11
Columbus, OH

Body Count to John01

Member

to John01
you could bury a fiber cable and reach that length easily. Fiber can go far longer than that.. especially at DSL speeds.

leibold
MVM
join:2002-07-09
Sunnyvale, CA
Netgear CG3000DCR
ZyXEL P-663HN-51

1 recommendation

leibold to John01

MVM

to John01
said by John01 :

through a small weed jungle and two ditches

This is probably not what you would like to hear:

Is the weed jungle your own land ? If not, you will need the permission of the owner (no matter how neglected the land appears to be and how little you think the owner may care about it). If it is privately owned land you can always ask and may get lucky. If your line needs to cross public land I would be extremely surprised if you get the required permission.

From personal experience, a "ditch" can be a far bigger issue and you have to cross two of them. At a previous company I received a proposal for joining a fiber optic loop. The offer was very attractive (high bandwidth, low cost) from a top tier telecommunications company. There was a good number of interested commercial customers (this being an industrial park in silicon valley) but that particular loop was never build. I later found out that the telco had missed a ditch that they would have had to cross during their initial survey and feasibility study. It was an easy to miss barely visible indentation below the weeds and I don't recall ever seeing any water in it. Officially however it is an "overflow storm creek" and at that point a simple dig and bury went right out of the window and got replaced with mandatory environmental impact study and whole bunch of associated bureaucracy (at which point the telco walked away from the project, not so much because of the added cost but because of the years it would take to get all the required permits).

Where would you run the coax cable to (options 1 or 3) or where would you install the wireless transceiver (option 2) ? Comcast will allow you to bring a suitable coax cable (if you follow their specifications properly) to the edge of your property which may enable you to save some installation cost compared to having them bring it all the way into your house (it depends on the size of the property whether this would really save you any money). However they will not terminate the cable connection anywhere outside of your property (such as a utility pole). Keep in mind that amplifiers and transceivers need electric power too. Unless there are other facts you haven't mentioned, I don't see how any of your options are viable.

Realistic options:
- talk to comcast and get a quote for bringing service to your property. However given that they don't currently have service on your street be prepared for a large installation charge.
- talk to your neighbors (not just next door, but the entire street) and see whether any of them would be interested in comcast service if they could get it. Your chances of comcast extending their service into your street significantly increase if you can show a good number of new subscribers (especially if they are willing to pay a share of the installation cost).
- check whether there are any wireless isps serving your area.
- switch to a carrier with an unlimited data plan.
- spend more time at your friends places (those with fast, unlimited Internet)

John01
@myvzw.com

John01

Anon

As far as I can see, the weeds are on our side of the fence, and the ditch is too deep to cross. the map shows two, so I assume the same on the other side, overgrown weeds at the back of the property.

I had previously spoken with the network admin at my school, which now uses 100mbps fiber optic. he said that fiber was expensive. I'll look into that today to check the expense.

We could ask the closesr house on the next street over to run a tap so we could access (and pay for) a comcast connection. I suspect that we'd use this as an excuse to finally clear the ditch and put a white pvc pipe about 6" below ground level across the ditch to make it to the other side.

we live on a private road, so going across the regular ditches is not a problem if we run 2000 feet of coax down the road and even under the ground asphalt that nobody asked for.

there are about 12 neighbors, 2 of which have cable, probably one or both of which tapped a line. Ten people on a .75 mile private road makes for a hard argument, especially if they don't talk and might not want cable.

there are cell companies but no carriers with unlimimted data.

I've only ever been to a few friends houses when I was younger. I've been mostly asocial for a few years and have no idea who considers me that close of a friend.
John01

John01 to John Galt6

Anon

to John Galt6
Well, not exactly LOS. Our next door neighbor's property used to be a tree farm, and then about 2000 feet through a few more trees. I'm not so sure that they'd be kind enough to host their end of the wireless either. how could we butter them or comcast to place the transmission end?

I just got info that comcast put cable through the street on either side of our road. two houses have no interest in cable, so they wouldn't chip in.

At the other end, there's a vacant property that has a line. About 2000 feet on the same side of the road. Probably cheaper to run a line that way, but I don't want to be ripped off by comcast. Is there a cost estimate or multi-year commitment estimate?

cowboyro
Premium Member
join:2000-10-11
CT

1 recommendation

cowboyro to John01

Premium Member

to John01
Forget about going 2000ft with RG6.
RG6 has an attenuation of 5dB/100ft @700Mhz. That's 100dB for 2000ft, basically your signal is for all practical purposes a big fat 0.
For that kind of run you need trunk cable or the attenuation will kill all your signal. You're looking at $1000-1500 in cable alone.

tschmidt
MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Consolidated Com..
·Republic Wireless
·Hollis Hosting

tschmidt to John01

MVM

to John01
Anything that long is going to be expensive and involves more engineering then you expect, both civil and electrical. As has been pointed out since the connection to Comcast is not on you your property they will probably refuse the connect.

If I were in your situation I'd fully explore what ISP services are available in your area. Most states are participating in Federal broadband mapping project. If your state does my find there are additional options, perhaps ADSL, but you may be too far, or one or more wireless ISPs.

If that does not pan out next option would be to talk to your neighbors that have a high speed connection and see if they are willing to share it with you. If so you could set up a Wi-Fi connection with directional antenna are modest cost.

/tom

John01
@mycingular.net

John01

Anon

No DSL, I get an error message every time I check.

My neighbors are also without cable or dsl, but some choose to go without.

What dbi at 2.4 or 5 ghz would work through 2000 feet plus obstacles?

Can someone provide an estimate for the cost of running cable? Would it be cheaper to pay a contractor? Would it be easier or cheaper to convince comcast to put in a small mimo location than to run cable? Could we pay a neighbor for space or hosted connection?

darkwish
Free Knight
Premium Member
join:2003-09-12
Fairfax, VA

darkwish to John01

Premium Member

to John01
Since you are going off to college next year, can you just bear with it for 1 more year?
02778712 (banned)
join:2013-07-08
MA

1 recommendation

02778712 (banned) to John01

Member

to John01
If it were me I'd go around and talk to all my neighbors and get them to agree to go in for it so your entire street gets wired. Now you have 6-10 people who want service so the cable company can justify doing the work. Also if they charge you to hook up the street now you can split those costs 6-10 ways.

If that fails and you manage to get it somehow I'd suggest getting a business account and trying to resell wifi to your neighbors to recoup some of the costs.
eagleknight
join:2002-11-08
Troy, OH

eagleknight to John01

Member

to John01
Look at Ubiquiti. They make Air Fiber, but I think that would be out of your price range. Their airmax line can be line of sight wireless with many antenna options.

norbert26
Premium Member
join:2010-08-10
Warwick, RI

norbert26 to John01

Premium Member

to John01
said by John01 :

No DSL, I get an error message every time I check.

have you tried calling the phone company. Since your parent's house is on a private road the data base may have an error. or there may be another data base problem with the phone company website. If DSL does turn out to be available your father (or mother) whoever is paying the phone will need to add it for you. Otherwise if there is no cost effective way / simple way to obtain a BB connection you said you were going away to college in a year just how much trouble / expense are you willing to put out / aford for one year service. I don't see any of your run a cable to either street into weeds / vacant lots as feasible options. Only thing i see feasible is you got a neighbor on one of those streets in range thats willing to let you share WI-FI .

leibold
MVM
join:2002-07-09
Sunnyvale, CA
Netgear CG3000DCR
ZyXEL P-663HN-51

leibold to John01

MVM

to John01
said by John01 :

We could ask the closesr house on the next street over to run a tap so we could access (and pay for) a comcast connection.

I have heard of ISPs that permit their customers to share a connection (typically through wifi) with the ISP providing the necessary router to keep each homes network separate. I do not know whether comcast offers anything like that.

As for the cost of fiber optic cable versus copper (coax or twisted pair), the cable itself is probably twice the cost (based on a quick look at 1000ft bulk pricing). However if you do go the wireline route, fiber optic cables may well be cost effective overall since even consumer grade (less expensive) equipment is expected to handle 100Mbps over a 2km distance with multimode fiber (thicker fiber and LED optical interface). For even higher bandwidth and longer distance you would need to use singlemode fiber (this requires special tools for splicing and terminating the fiber as well as more expensive equipment with laser optical interfaces). The fiber cable is also immune to interference and eliminates any potential electrical hazards.

From a pure cost perspective the wireless option is always going to win. If gaming is your main objective you would want the fiber optic link (lowest possible latency).

SparkChaser
Premium Member
join:2000-06-06
Downingtown, PA

SparkChaser to eagleknight

Premium Member

to eagleknight
said by eagleknight:

Look at Ubiquiti. They make Air Fiber, but I think that would be out of your price range. Their airmax line can be line of sight wireless with many antenna options.

May be OT but I was wondering about this. They have it in Ireland and it's high cost but they also have something they call Fixed Wireless. My sister-in-law has it and the house we rented had it. It's 4 dn/1 up for about $55/mo. I've never seen it over here any one hear of it
Jackal1
join:2010-08-10
Lincoln, NE

Jackal1 to John01

Member

to John01
Fixed wireless isn't unusual in rural areas. We have it around here in a lot of the smaller towns. The provider mounts an omni antenna on the grain elevator or water tower, and then the small antennas at the farmsteads get aimed at that point. Seems to work pretty well from what I hear, but you aren't going to see 50Mbps download speeds or anything like that. Probably 10M or less, but still broadband.

Based on the OP's statements, it would be worth looking into. Or, there's always satellite broadband if you can stand latency (i.e. just using it for streaming video and web surfing, not online gaming).

StillLearn
Premium Member
join:2002-03-21
Streamwood, IL

StillLearn to SparkChaser

Premium Member

to SparkChaser
said by SparkChaser:

May be OT but I was wondering about this. They have it in Ireland and it's high cost but they also have something they call Fixed Wireless. My sister-in-law has it and the house we rented had it. It's 4 dn/1 up for about $55/mo. I've never seen it over here any one hear of it

The search term you would want is WISP or WISPs. »Wireless Users Chat has a lot of WISP discussion.

For the OP, Clearwire »www.clear.com/ can be a good option if you happen to be in a good coverage area. I tried it for a few months. Not bad, but not as good as U-verse-- especially for VOIP. Good price. No contract.

SparkChaser
Premium Member
join:2000-06-06
Downingtown, PA

SparkChaser

Premium Member

Jackal1 See Profile StillLearn See Profile thanks for the info. I've never seen it around here. Maybe I just haven't looked hard enough. It seems great for rural, semi-rural areas.

UHF
All static, all day, Forever
MVM
join:2002-05-24

UHF to John01

MVM

to John01
Check out Millenicom. Unlimited data for about $70/mo. I think they have a forum somewhere on here too.

nunya
LXI 483
MVM
join:2000-12-23
O Fallon, MO
·Charter

nunya to John01

MVM

to John01
The chances of getting it done for less than $5K is slim to none. First of all, forget about RG6 and RG11. They aren't even close for 12 kft. It will have to be hardline. As mentioned, you will have to have easement rights to the POA.

I do these kinds of installations for people. I've run a few feet of coax in my days. Rarely - and I mean rarely - does it ever work out. You have to consult with the CATV before making any plans. They may tell you that you are wasting your time.
Normally, if the cableco agrees, what I end up doing is just trenching in a conduit for the cableco to pull hardline through. I have have hung coax overhead (at the customers expense) and the CATV company tied in the splitter / equalizer and the tap at the end. They WILL NOT maintain the lead and made it very clear.

IMO, your best bet is to give Clearwire a try, if available.

John01
@mycingular.net

John01

Anon

It's 2k feet.

Thanks, but I'm sold on wireless transmission if we can get the transmission side up. A bit of latency, but more cost effective. Going to look for the airgrid combination.

I'm used to 3mbps dsl at my dad's office, so even 10mbps would be 3x faster than my experience.

Would comcast subsidize part of a setup for a few year commitment?

For those asking, this is more than greed. I don't like to leave my parents going without after so long with an unreliable connection.

fluffybunny
@teksavvy.com

fluffybunny

Anon

the obvious thing you need to get is satellite broadband. get hughesnet or similar and a dish. point it at the sky. job done. lots of RVs in the boonies have it. Its also probably going to be your cheapest cost unless you find a cellular carrier with unlimited.
pulling a huge amount of cable or some such method is much much more expensive and will cost tons more than a sat dish + equipment or a cell card connected to a tomatousb router like an asus rtn66u.

John01
@mycingular.net

John01

Anon

I've considered sattelite, but it's just as if not more limited.

shdesigns
Powered By Infinite Improbabilty Drive
Premium Member
join:2000-12-01
Stone Mountain, GA

1 recommendation

shdesigns to fluffybunny

Premium Member

to fluffybunny
I don't see how satellite would be any better. It still has caps like cellular.

fluffybunny
@teksavvy.com

fluffybunny

Anon

well the choices are basically :
1. cell service - probably $100/mo - capped at 10GB or whatever with low latency.
2. wildblue, hughesnet or similar satellite at 15/2 - $100/mo - capped at 40GB with high latency.
3. Spend $5000++ and weeks of effort on burying a huge amount of cable, hopefully without pulling permits, doing maint on it, running PVC pipes etc in the hope of getting a comcast cable connection which will probably be around 25megs at best with low latency.
4. Find a good spot to shoot a microwave beam or wifi link between two points which will be interrupted with rain, trees swaying etc. and requires constant alignment and headache to a neighbors property who may or may not continue it after a while since they are the ones providing power to feed it. probably requires $1000-$2000 worth of equipment, nice neighbors who dont mind you chopping trees etc and putting large poles up on their grounds.

John01
@mycingular.net

John01

Anon

It uses 2.4ghz at 16dbi. Since 16dbi can go over miles with a straight shot, what would some obstacles be for under half a mile distance?

Airgrid seems to have a 90 degree radius and can be found at 70 per.

Does it work just for internet, or can it work for tv also? Pretty much whether it uses coax or ethernet.