Wireless to Wired Help Please

Hello,

I have a problem. I am in a situation where lighting sureges down the 'phone line are costing me a fortune. The router goes, NAS and computer too. Twice this has happened. so....

What I would like to do is to have my BT home hub with WiFi switched on which connects directly to the 'phone line. In my study (where I house my computer, NAS and printer), I'd like to have a bit of kit that picks up the Wifi from the BT Hub then allows me to have ethernet connections to all my local kit. this way, all my local kit will be immune from the effects of lightning surges and worst case is I lose a router......I'd also like, if possible, for it to put out a further WiFi signal that would be a "guest" wifi with no access to my printer, NAS or computer.....children can be very nosey at times LOL.

Hoping for some suggestions, I'd be grateful for any help.

If lightning destruction is such a regular occurrence then you also need to consider that the destruction may also be due to damage via induced power down the mains cabling.

To do what you want you are looking for a wireless Ethernet bridge, but you also need to look at power surge protection for all your hardware. Though with lots of what is sold is more about buying the insurance they offer than true surge protection, since nothing is likely to protect kit from a direct lightning strike.

This is what I would do.

Get an ADSL/VDSL modem, a HG612 3b is cheap on eBay and will do the job, then get a media convertor, again they are cheap on eBay, £15 for one delivered.

Then get yourself say an Edgerouter X SFP, a suitable SFP to match your media convertor and a length of fibre optic cable. You now have a none electrical path between your telephone line and the bulk of your network. For WiFi add in UniFi AC Lite/LR or AC Mesh as desired.

The most that can now get blown up is in theory your modem and media convertor. Though this is not strictly true because the lightning surge could come down your telephone line, out through the power supply onto your mains and back into your computer equipment.

I would therefore look into getting a separate circuit for your modem/media convertor and have proper lightning surge protection fitted to it and possibly the whole house. That will require a qualified electrician to fit. It is absolutely not something you can DIY no matter how competent you think you are (that's me speaking as someone who practically rewired my house over the course of 10 years fixing a lot of dodgy stuff along the way).

You could of course just get a FTTPoD connection and that would be an end to lightning surges down the telephone line However if you have overhead power supply you can still be goosed unless you get proper lightning surge protection for that as well.

A direct strike to your house has a good chance of setting in on fire. Even if it does not you will need ALL the wiring in your house replacing and a major amount of redecorating, as the current going through your house wiring can blow the plaster off the wall!!!

Sounds like a perfect job for a Mikrotik if you don�t mind putting some time and effort in to learning how to set it up. If you go for a model with both 2.4 and 5 GHz WiFi and Ethernet ports (hAP ac lite or similar) you�d be able to configure one of the radios to bridge to the BT home hub, the second radio to provide WiFi and of course wired devices could use the wireless ports. Mikrotiks are not for the faint hearted but they are incredibly flexible in how they can be configured and very affordable.

Edited by deleted (Mon 15-Apr-19 20:41:44)