Recommend 2 APs for wireless bridge

[PrimaryTech]

Hi all,

 

One of the schools I support has a wifi bridge connecting 2 buildings. The APs used are 2 old DLink 54G units and I'm looking for replacements as the rest of the site is Gig linked and the bridge is causing a bottle neck.

 

Any recommendations?

[synaesthesia]

https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap-ac-outdoor/

[PrimaryTech]

Forgot to say, indoor APs with external antennas 😒

[plexer]

https://www.ubnt.com/airmax/picostationm/

 

B

[m25man]

You need to use Point to point for bridging so Unifi is no good for this.

Unless you are prepared spend a couple of thousand gigabit is probably out of your reach but the new Ubiquiti Nanobeam AC units will get you well into 600mbps (1200mbps full duplex) for around £180 a pair.

 

These things are totally awesome smaller than a Unifi AP with all the bits needed to mount them included.

 

With full DSS on 5Ghz I don't think there is anything else that does this for the price.

[snagrat]

Do you need to stick with WiFi? How big is the gap between the buildings?

 

I would look at a RepeatIT Trinity link.

[PrimaryTech]

Yes we had quotes for overhead fibre / Cat6 link but it was cost prohibitive (1 - 1.5k). The outbuilding only serves 2 - 8 clients so a wifi bridge is the better option for us. A 300mbps link would be fine if they had Gbit ethernet connections.

[synaesthesia]

Is that just a bottleneck thing, @m25man ? Have been using externals to bridge a couple of points for a while and they work well, but that's only for limited use.

[Oaktech]

I've got a pair of these running at home - for internet and logon they're fine, i get just over 30mbps full duplex out of them... APC Propeller 5

 

My old place has a pair of these: LigoWave LigoPTP 5-23 MIMO PTP PRO Wireless Bridge 220Mbps running everything except login (AD on site, but not storage) for the primary school at a shade under 100mbps full duplex.

[mowgli82]

have you considered a laser link if there is line of sight, they will run a gig. They don't work too well when its snow though.

[Joanne]

I've been looking at a wifi bridge for connecting 2 buildings about 50m apart (a church and a community centre) - it's just to provide internet, so I was thinking the Ubiquiti stuff looked ideal and at less than £200 much cheaper than cable.

 

Would I also need an AP in the remote building with these bridges? Or does one side also act as the AP?

[midweek]

I used a couple of Ubiquiti Nanostation M's to bridge a 100M gap (and replace the 200M cat5 cable someone had decided to bury in a big circuitous, inaccessible route).

 

It's only for a couple of clients so I wasn't too fussed about the speed but so far the link has been rock solid.

[Oaktech]

I've been looking at a wifi bridge for connecting 2 buildings about 50m apart (a church and a community centre) - it's just to provide internet, so I was thinking the Ubiquiti stuff looked ideal and at less than £200 much cheaper than cable.

 

Would I also need an AP in the remote building with these bridges? Or does one side also act as the AP?

 

You'll need an AP one side too...

[IrritableTech]

You'll need an AP one side too...

 

Worth noting though that I found when fitting an M5 bridge, you can plug a Unifi UAP straight into the second M5 port and the injector will power both devices saving a socket!

[Simcfc73]

I have 2 Deliberant MACH 5 units pointing at each other over a distance of 50 meters or so. They look like old BSB disks but are rock solid, the AP is built into the antenna and its easy to setup.

[m25man]

Worth noting though that I found when fitting an M5 bridge, you can plug a Unifi UAP straight into the second M5 port and the injector will power both devices saving a socket!

 

The secondary port has PoE pass through however there are strict technical parameters that must be met to ensure you do not damage the unit or the 24v device attached.

[Chris_]

Worth noting though that I found when fitting an M5 bridge, you can plug a Unifi UAP straight into the second M5 port and the injector will power both devices saving a socket!

 

It's only the Nanostations that have a 2nd LAN port with POE passthrough, not the cheaper Loco units. Also, they are only supplied with a 24v 0.5a injector, it's recommended upgrading to the 1a version if you're going to make use of the POE passthrough port for AP/camera.

[IrritableTech]

Thanks @Chris_ & @m25man for the info. The AP and annotation in question have been running happily for over a year, so I guess I was lucky?

[Joanne]

I have another question... can you mount the wireless bridge APs inside?

[IrritableTech]

I have another question... can you mount the wireless bridge APs inside?

 

I've done this yes, but obviously signal levels will drop. I've setup two nanostation bridges, one outside to inside a window around 40meters, and one inside to inside through two walls about 20m. Both rock solid.

[Joanne]

Yeah I asked the company that were selling the kit. He recommended turning down the gain as I only need it to travel 50m and the ones I am looking at do 15km!!!!

 

I'm looking at the M5's

 

http://www.4gon.co.uk/ubiquiti-simple-pointtopoint-wireless-bridge-kit-p-5440.html?gclid=CjwKEAjwqLWrBRC-_OaG-IfL0kASJAAbzKsVlac4A-dVM39RO8iYVmEPBL9BDnaVNyJhao_AyCwErxoCKb_w_wcB

 

and then one of these for the other side http://www.4gon.co.uk/ubiquiti-unifi-uaplr-p-4749.html

Edited June 2, 2015 by Joanne

[Joanne]

As if it's been a year since I did that install. The ubiquiti kit went in and did the job brilliantly. Thanks 😊

[Haptic]

Which Access Points do you use on site currently and how far away is the building? I only ask as if the building isn't too far away you could mesh an AP to serve 8 people in that building - you would lose half the throughput but they could connect to it and you wouldn't need a network point in the building either, just power to plug the AP in. So no need for a point to point link. Just an idea and I know this is available on Ruckus AP's. We see this a lot when facilities add a mobile classroom to the school field or there is one building on site with no network connectivity, but a few clients do need to work from there.

 

I am not by any means saying implement a whole new solution for this issue at all and as we all know (from past posts on the forum) the Ruckus solution is more expensive than Ubiquiti! However, I would look at current features on your existing Wi-Fi set up so as to try and utilise a feature such as this rather then pay for a bridge on top.

 

Hope it helps.

 

Chris

[mtillbrook]

so, in the old days we used to use Netgear access points with an external antenna connected for wireless bridges. These are still a decent option to my mind. The speed is just dependent on which model AP you go for but the 802.11n or 802.11ac points are reasonably priced. The benefit with this type of setup is that you can set it all up in the lab beforehand.

If you wanted to go up spec a bit, i've recently supplied and installed a Ruckus solution which is a matched pair of access points that you mount the AP outside. You just need to run a Cat5e to them and supply PoE. Work brilliantly and really simple to install. Came to about £1500 installed.