Being in a rural location, broadband internet availability here is limited to radio-based systems (ie, cellular & point-to-point) rather than wire-based systems (like cable & DSL). We decided to go with a point-to-point system, which required a line-of-sight connection to a tall radio tower. With all of the trees in the area, we initially put up a TV tower attached the house and later a free-standing 70' tower beside my detached garage. Since a free-standing tower is fairly expensive to install, many people do not opt for this system. However, my ISP uses my tower as a repeater there are 3 antennas on this tower:
- high speed antenna that communicates with another network tower
- omni-directional antenna that provides internet service to nearby residences
- uni-directional antenna that provides internet service to a group of residences farther away.
All 3 antennas are connected to a switch mounted in a box on the back of my garage. I am connected to the internet at that [tower] switch and the router is installed in my detached garage because that building is between my internet tower and my house. Because my router is connected to the high speed antenna via the switch, I should have much higher connection speeds than the other customers using this tower.
When I built the garage, I connected it to the house with a buried PVC conduit. I ran the same outdoor Ethernet cable that goes to the antennas on the top of the tower from my router to an Ethernet internet distribution panel in the house via the conduit. The Ethernet distribution panel consists of a couple of Open House H628 Termination Hubs and a couple of 10/100 Mbps switches ( D-Link DSS-8+ and Linksys EZXS88W), all of which been working fine for well over 10 years.
I had been using several routers over the years but I've had to replace them as they burned out.
- D-Link DI-704P
- Linksys BEFSR81
- D-Link DIR-601
- D-Link EBR-2310
I have a D-Link DAP-1650 as the Wireless Access Point (WAP) for WiFi access in the house, which is connected via cable to my Ethernet panel. My house was built with a foil vapour barrier (see Faraday Cage) so the DAP-1650 doesn't have a very strong WiFi signal outside.