Need advice on a wireless solution

[Nitro]

Greetings, This isn't really windows related but I am looking for a large for which deals specifically in wireless solutions.

I live in a rural area of British Columbia and while there are several high speed options inside town I have about 10km outside and cannot use the DSL / Cable options offered there. Recently a wireless tower was placed ontop of the highest mountain here and this looks to be a viable solution. However, the only place that I can put the antenna to face the mountain is about 200ft away from the house and this computer.

The antenna that points at the wireless station atop the mountain is powered via the ethernet cable that runs from it. The installer told me that it probably wouldn't reach 200ft and still maintain enough power for the antenna. If it was I would just run an outdoor cat-5 to the house. Therefore, I think my next viable solution would be to use some sort of wireless option.

What I was thinking was to run the cat-5 from the antenna to a wireless router (Linksys WRT546) that I could mount on the outside of the building in some sort of clear plastic box, and upgrade the antenna to some sort of outdoor omnidirectional deal. There is a clear view from the outdoor router antenna to the house. The question/problem I have is I would like to have a wired solution inside the house as I have several other items that need to use ethernet (x-xbox, ps2, linux box) that I don't want to use wireless with and would be easier to hookup with wires. Is there any way to do this? Could I have another wireless router in the house connect to the wireless router on the outside building?

If you have any other options of getting the internet from a building 200ft away to the house I'm all ears.

Thanks for any support.

[jcnoernberg]

I would like to have a wired solution inside the house as I have several other items that need to use ethernet (x-xbox, ps2, linux box) that I don't want to use wireless with and would be easier to hookup with wires. Is there any way to do this?

wireless routers usually have hard-wired ethernet ports as well on the back.
Are you sure the tower that was put up is for wireless internet? I've never heard of such a system...

[Nitro]

I don't think you understand what the system is.

On top of the building outside there is a commercial strength antenna that points directly to the mountain which is quite a ways away. They provide this antenna for me to get the internet. From that antenna there is an ethernet cable that usually goes into your computer or router inside your house. However the antenna that they setup is too far away from the house to simply run a long cable to my router inside the house. So I am looking for alternate ways to get the wireless internet from the commercial antenna about 200ft away to the house.

[Variable]

Sure, what you want is a wireless AP for the outside and then inside you could simply buy another wireless router, it will have ports for wired connections as well. Then again you could go wired, either way is fine. The only issue you would have is with two routers. The new Linksys routers may be able to negotiate just fine out of the box. But sometimes two routers can give you trouble.The problem is NAT. If you turned it off on the far router you would be fine I think. AP's just pass traffic so thats a safe bet for the outside router.

The best option is to run a cable. If you could rent a trencher up there and just run the cable and power at the same time that would be great. What I wonder is how do they get power to the antenna? If there is power there already then you could simply hook up a wireless AP and build or buy a directional antenna.You don't want an Omni directional antenna, you want a directional antenna. I hear pringles can ones work really well. You can find the plans for these on google easy enough. If you have line of sight and a rifle with a scope you could create a mount for the directional antenna and sight it with the scope. Here's the thing, what about snow and winter storms? The times when you will want the internet the most will be when your socked in and can't go out, wireless may suffer. That would be my only concern. I don't know how inclement weather would effect the 2.4Ghz signal.

V

[Nitro]

The power is run through the cat-5 cable. I would run a cable all the way to the house except after the 200ft of wire I would have to run there wouldn't be enough power to run the antenna. The line of sight is fine, there is nothing blocking the house from the outdoor building. The outdoor building also has power wired in it so I could hook up a wireless router easy enough. I guess what my major question is, can two routers connect to ecahother, ie the one in the house will connect to the one outside with no problems.