Sharing a connection via wifi?

OK so my household does not have an internet connection and BT has no plans to give us one and neither will Virgin.
Anyway someone in the next street has volunteered for me to get a Virgin cable business connection installed at their property which according to Virgin they would allow sharing on.
So in theory what equipment do I need in order to share this connection from his house to mine. About 200 metres distance between us as the crow flies so can I do this with external wifi kit? Presume we both need some kind of mast, could these be simply attached to our existing aerials?
Excuse my ignorance I havent a clue and I am desperate for home broadband. Would really appreciate some feedback.
Cheers.

If you can see a part of each others building then Wi-Fi with right antenna should work and set up what is termed a wireless bridge

5GHz if the distance is not too far is best, as less interference from surrounding networks.

http://www.solwise.co.uk/wireless-outdoor-bridging.htm is a place to look for a lot of stuff and worth asking for their advise on what will/won't work for the distance you have.

If no clear of line sight possible then generally Wi-Fi is no good over something like 200 m

Thanks for the info. I have clear line of sight to his roof, so I will give these guys an email thanks.

Ubiquiti is well worth a look.

http://www.ubnt.com/distributors/

I know of several small villages where they have installed Ubiquiti based systems to provide access to the local population.

I can recommend Solwise, I run a village Wifi system using their kit and it works well.
You just need two of their units, one set to transmit and one set to receive.
Line of site is essential, no trees in the way.

Seconded. There are thousands of customers with service delivered using Ubiquiti kit in North Yorkshire, and plenty more else.where.

If you are going to use the UK upper 5GHz frequencies (aka band C) you need an Ofcom license (it is relatively easy to get one), however if the spectrum in your area is fairly clear the UK mid 5GHz frequencies (aka band B) should be OK.

For 200m with a directional pair of antennas then band B will certainly be adequate in terms of power. It will also reduce others trying to intercept it

An initial scan using a inSSIDer will show how much use there is on the 5MHz spectrum - if it is busy then move to band C and get a license.


I wonder if the OP has also considered splitting the cost with immediate neighbours - provided the service is forecast to be fast enough.

Hi guys thanks for the posts.
The line will be a 152mb business line. I have line of sight, so what kind of speeds could I expect. Some of the neighbours probably would be interested as they are without too. But 152mb wouldnt be good enough to share would it?
Could someone be kind enough to show my links to the kit I would need over on Solwise?
I'm a complete novice with networks so dont really know where to start. Would the router to the business line need to be in the hosts house?

Sorry, just out of interest why have BT Openreach refused you a telephone line?

It doesn't say they have.

OK, thanks.

I believe Ubiquiti equipment will support that sort of speed across the link - however it is dependent on quite a few factors including range and other transmitters

152 Mb would be reasonable to share with a couple of neighbours - just set up rules about hogging bandwidth or large downloads. You could install a switch and manage that directly or put receiving antennas at their properties and have the switch at the source ...

This is where you need real detailed expert advice ... give Solwise a call and also a Ubiquiti reseller and see what bpth can offer.

OK so my household does not have an internet connection and BT has no plans to give us one

But a quite sensible question is "why"?

200 metres from a virgin cable connection in the next street sounds as though a broadband connection really should be available?

Unless the OP could tell us why? Could save significant expenditure on wireless kit which may not be necessary.

In reply to a post by greenglide:

OK so my household does not have an internet connection and BT has no plans to give us one

But a quite sensible question is "why"?

200 metres from a virgin cable connection in the next street sounds as though a broadband connection really should be available?

Unless the OP could tell us why? Could save significant expenditure on wireless kit which may not be necessary.

My neighbour's Virgin connection is actually outside my drive under a small metal cover. They refused me a connection because "your garden is too long" - at 50m. If they refuse to provide one as close as mine, 200m away in another street might as well be on a different continent.

In reply to a post by MHC:

They refused me a connection because "your garden is too long" - at 50m.

They? BT or Virgin? OP is on about BT.

In this case Virgin.

The OP actually refers to both BT and Virgin:

BT has no plans to give us one and neither will Virgin.

What I find difficult to understand is the OP's comment that "BT has no plans to give us one" given that the OP clearly lives in an urban area given the availability of VM a street away. I can only assume that this means there are no plans for FTTC (or FTTP) or that the phone line is EO. In both of which cases BDUK may yet come to the rescue.

The majority of the Ubiquiti kit has 100Mb ethernet interfaces, the wireless interface will easily keep up with this using a wider channel at that distance if the spectrum is reasonably clean. There probably isn't much point getting larger devices with gigabit interfaces as the VM service is contended and possibly traffic shaped.

You could support dozens of people with that bandwidth unless they spend all their time doing speedtests and running torrents, the bigger issues are liabilities arising out of others downloading illegal content, ensuring fair use of the service, billing, support, etc.

In reply to a post by greenglide:

OK so my household does not have an internet connection and BT has no plans to give us one

But a quite sensible question is "why"?

200 metres from a virgin cable connection in the next street sounds as though a broadband connection really should be available?

Unless the OP could tell us why? Could save significant expenditure on wireless kit which may not be necessary.

Virgin will not come onto our estate despite the fact the end of their connection run is 50 metres from my house. They quoted me £200,000 for installation on our estate. BT have quoted us £25,000. Neither of which is viable as a lot of people here just are not bothered about internet so this is why I have to take matters into my own hands, or just move house!
I'm quite happy to spend a few thousand getting a reliable connection up and running, especially if I could sub-let some of the bandwidth to other neighbours for a small fee.
Our council is not signed up to BDUK so they are not coming to our rescue either.
I will give solwise and Ubiquiti a call, thanks for your comments.

Edited by deleted (Mon 20-Oct-14 16:03:29)

A further thought. You have identified someone willing to host your connection, it is any way feasible to run a cable between the properties or are there other properties, gardens, paths or roads in the way.

Yes at 200 metres I confirm a pair of NanoBeam16 configured for 30MHz channel width would be plenty, as long as it is true LOS (not just a small gap though some trees).

In reply to a post by cadmunkey:

I'm quite happy to spend a few thousand getting a reliable connection up and running,

Now there is a dangerous statement. If you are willing to spend money you might like to investigate free space optics like these as an example, but it will be pricey. If you can run a cable, copper (such as cat5e or cat6 cable is going to be pushing it at 200m and may not work as reliably as you may like, but that distance is well in the range of OM3 multimode Fibre cabling, which will be much cheaper than free space optics, and if you get armoured cable more reliable than wireless.

In reply to a post by cadmunkey:

especially if I could sub-let some of the bandwidth to other neighbours for a small fee.

Sharing a connection becomes quite complex quite quickly, and I would consult the services of a solicitor to draw up contracts for usage before even contemplating that sort of endeavour. Technically it is also not easy, and if you set it up you will be the one people come to with problems when things go wrong regardless of whether it is your fault, or even under your control.