We live on a farm. There is one residential house with a hub inside. This has two Ethernet cables running underground to an office building and a portacabin in separate locations, which then connects to little hubs which extend the WiFi into those buildings.
We now want more WiFi to reach another area even further away. This is so we can run CCTV cameras. If it’s not possible we will have to get SIM card cameras and pay monthly.
But, before we do, what else can we do? I don’t think we should really be running anymore Ethernet cables off the existing hub elsewhere as, could it overload it? It just seems a lot for one residential hub.
Could we get openreach to do something?
Any ideas PLEASE throw them my way!
If it’s just for CCTV, then look at using POE (power over ethernet) which will allow you to run just a single cable to each camera as it will do data and power. You will probably need a switch or router that provides POE, assuming your current one doesn’t (extremely unlikely if it’s a residential one, particularly from BT). Just check the distance you need to cover for compatibility.
I like Ubiquiti’s stuff, and they have specific setups for POE switches, cameras, and recorders for CCTV and are pretty well regarded. You can continue to use your BT hub, just plug it in to the Ubiquiti setup, no issues with capacity or anything else. If you can’t run a cable, they also have long range wireless bridges that might work for you, although you will need power at both ends (not needing power is why POE is so compelling if you can make it work).
Get wifi antennas. My buddy was beaming internet to his parents place 5km away with 300mbps speed. As long as there is straight shot sight line you can beam fast wifi across your property easily.
A former customer of ours had directional antennae. They were flaky and tended to get hit by lightning.
How much further away are we talking? Running a line shouldn’t be an issue, but if it’s more than 300ft you should be looking at running fiber instead.
Running additional Ethernet cables will not overload anything. If you do not want to that , line of sight point to point WiFi works good. Especially in a rural areas without interference from other devices. We have good experience with Mikrotik. Reach out to them with specifics and they will recommend the appropriate devices
