Getting internet to the garage

So I'm about to build a 30x60 shop building in my back yard. Building will be approximately 40' from the back corner of my house. My modem/router is another 30' towards the interior of the house.

Steel buildings aren't particularly wifi (or cell phone for that matter) friendly. I figure I have two options.

1. Some kind of wireless transmitter and receiver from the house to the building and then tie that to a router/wireless in the shop.

2. Run a Cat6 cable off my home router to the building and connect to another router/wireless.

I found some shielded bury suitable cat6 for around $70 for 100'. Is there any advantage or disadvantage to either option that I don't know of? It seems like cable would be the least expensive option and probably easiest to setup.

Thoughts?

 

Running wire to the new building and installing a Wireless Access Point (WAP) will be the most cost effective AND the most reliable way to get network access.

 

Run the CAT6 - you can send a helluva lot of data over CAT6. Could stream your TV to garage etc, for instance, if you ever wanted to get around to it.

 

That's kind of what I was thinking.

Looking around at the wireless products has my head spinning. Bridges, repeaters, blah blah blah blah

 

Follow up question

I've got a Netgear N600 router. The hard line runs 10/100mbps.

The cat6 is capable of Gigabit right? Does anyone make a gigabit wifi router so I can take advantage of the extra speed moving data from the computers in the house to whatever in the garage?

 

Sure. The Netgear N900 has gigabit ports, and is a good router. You can replace your existing router with it quite easily.

You do NOT want a second router. You need a WAP in the garage connected to the CAT6, not a router or a range extender. If you want multiple gigabit ports and wireless in the garage, get a gigabit switch and the WAP.

 

Ah, yes. The quest to extend porn downloading capabilities to the remote garage. "Honey, I'll be out in the garage working on the bikes. Don't come out there, the fumes will be pretty bad." :up:

 

Wireless Access Point?

 

Post #2

 

I would advise using underground conduit for the CAT6 (separate from your power supply to avoid coupling issues) to allow future upgrades if necessary.

 

We had a very similar issue but it was a pole barn not a shop.

We started with wireless from the house internet connection as that is what was recommended buy a buddy who is a CCIE and how the big shops do it.

After dumping to much money in to it and issues with getting the wireless to work consistently and get solid performance we ended up running physical cable.

The guy has a tractor so we did not have to dig by hand.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Alfa-Wireless...UTF8&qid=1399105561&sr=8-6&keywords=alfa+wifi

it WILL work....if you still have issues put this on the roof

http://www.amazon.com/Alfa-Weatherp...UTF8&qid=1399105868&sr=8-3&keywords=wifi+dish

 

Instead of a WAP look into cascading two routers instead. Usually a lot simpler and many routers are already setup to do it.

 

Outside plant cable is always your best option! Installing conduit will allow you to replace it if you need to. But you can install a bridge and get reliable service. Cost however can be an issue.

 

I'm going to be in the market for a separate garage on my property in the near future.......I'm interested to see the specs for yours. Any details/website?

 

My solution was more a case of using what I had in hand then anything else.

The router has 3 antennae, I broke one off, spliced a 75 ohm 25' cable in between and poked out the antenna in a corner of the garage. It works very well, went from intermittent signal to full bars.

Mindewe, this was an attached garage...

 

Good point. Noted.

Bridge?

Nothing unusual. Pre-engineered steel building from ACI (http://www.acibuildingsystems.com/). Segregating a 20' bay to be enclosed as well as a mezzanine above it for storage, and a full bath.

If you were interested in design specs, I can share a digital image of the plans.

 

No, it's actually more complicated.