Pole Barn WIFI & Phone service

[T Reno]

SO I have a 50' x 100' metal pole barn that is subdivided into 4 bays each with 1250 sq ft. The inside of each bay is finished with 8' up is particle board then the rest is metal including the ceiling.....all walls have 6" of blown in insulation as well as the ceiling, the ceiling is 16' in height. I pre-wired each bay with coaxial wire with a port in each bay.....

My question is if I get internet in to my bay via satellite should i be able to share the internet via WIFI to the other bays or would they require additional routers with additional cost to get internet service & WIFI phone service to each bay?

I called my local provider and all they wanted to do was sign me up and schedule an installation without answering my questions....it's a 2 year minimum contract.

Thanks in advance

 

[73surffisher]

You should always use a router to separate your equipment from the provider. Typically the router will have a firewall, albeit not the best but you can block anonymous internet request, disable the broadcast of your SSID etc.
Yes you would be able to share the wifi because of how the signal propagates, if you want the telephone number to be the same , dial tone from the provider into a wireless base phone , , you're good to go , , if they need to be different numbers, that will depend on the providers abliity to deliver multiple numbers AND the equipments capability to break out those into individual numbers if that the route your going .
Two years is a ******, , if the service stinks , your stuck

 

[Fueler]

I have a pole barn.
Using the internet I supply 3 computers and a TV w Roku wirelessly.
I use a VOIP phone. No special phone. Just a magic box convertor.
I have a Cell Phone repeater so I can send/receive inside the metal clad building.

Here is what you need after an internet connection.
A good, strong wireless router. I use this one.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/netgea...nd-wi-fi-router-black/6156904.p?skuId=6156904

Naturally any computer or tv will need to be wireless equipped. Most are these days.

Voip Phone
You need a provider and a magic box.
For a provider I use https://voip.ms/ Good service and ridiculously inexpensive.

Magic box
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/search...iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960&keys=keysagic box.

Cell phone repeater:
https://www.wilsonamplifiers.com/weboost-home-4g-cell-phone-signal-booster-kit-470101/
You may want to study up on their offerings. Ideally I would think that one that could be centered up high in the center of the building would be the best.
In my case I have an open floor plan so the above works fine for me.

Oh, and you may want to look into a good UPS to keep things as safe as you can from surges.

Well nuts, I just reread your post. With all those steel clad rooms you are going to have go cabled to each room from the above router. Actually if it is cabled you will not need one that fancy.

FYI Coax is fine for your TV antenna. I don't think you will have much fun with anything else as your internet modem, routers, computers tvs, etc use CAT 5 or CAT 6 cable.

You could use the coax as a fish string to pull the cat cable through where it is not accessible.


Well, wait. My reading comprehension is bad tonight. IF all those rooms are wood on the inside I would have your internet connection come into one of the rooms and place the wireless router in the corner where all the rooms meet. Easy wireless deal that way. Any metal in the way will shoot that down though.

 

[ard]

If these 'rooms' or 'bays' will be used by kids and family, then sharing the internet and a simple router with shared access is fine.

There are plenty of ways to do this, and I am sure you will get definitive advice on what to buy and install.

If you want separate services- even if you have one internet connection you can still route 4 separate wifi routers to each bay. Bit more work. Id have one router for me, 3 wired feeds to each sub-bay, they can decide how they will distribute it themselves.

HOWEVER- satellite *****. it is horrible. Do EVERYTHING you can to avoid it. Anyway to do fixed wireless internet where you are????

 

[matt_i]

I had satellite internet once too and hated it. Went thru the 2 year period and then shut them down. Coincidentally I moved at the same time, but I said never-again. I would have shut them off earlier except for that pesky penalty fee to exit the contract.

The coax isn't good for internet, its OK for TV signal. As mentioned above you want Cat 5.

I would suggest setting up a primary router on one end-bay of the building. Ideally this would have enough wifi strength to reach the center-left bay. You can always hard-wire a second router (via Cat 5 ethernet) configured as an access point for the other side of the building (right and center-right bays).

Relative to how the bandwidth is shared, the internet provider is going to give you some kind of "modem". After that you can put as many routers as you want at your own expense without them being involved, however they are parallel pathways in "data flow". So if 4 people are trying to watch videos the max flow rate thru incoming is divided 4 ways and this might be a problem. Sometimes there are different price points and dataflow speeds to consider...

 

[biggziff]

Yes you can. Ubiquiti's Unifi equipment can do this easily (as can others) Do not buy off the shelf equipment. Today, you can buy true enterprise level equipment at just above Netgear pricing. I install this stuff for clients just like you every day (well...I have guys who install it) It's easy enough that anyone can do it.

 

[Fueler]

Satellite: Yup, the others are correct. Avoid if possible. I had it for 5 years and learned to work around it's deficiencies. However if it is your only choice there is much to learn in order to live with it.
1: regardless of what they say videos are out. Anything live, no chance. And more.

2: you will learn to buy get out of jail tokens to bail it out. 3: you will learn how to download things in the middle of the night using the bonus zone to avoid getting throttled. 3: Never call "you can call me Bob" techline in India. Use the internet for help.

Hughesnet Gen 5 version promises a lot more than the Gen2 I had. They are good at promises.

I would look around the hood for a sat dish and ask the owner what they think and what they can actually do on a daily basis.
Something to ask in case Hughesnet cleaned their act up.
1: Do speeds stay the same after 30 days or did they mysteriously drop?
2: If you do use up your allotment and you will is it still usable for browsing? Mine wasn't. It was worse than dial up.

Look around for other choices.
Is there a line of sight service available? They are called WISPs. Those usually broadcast from a cell tower or grain elevator. If you can see one or the other from your location you are a candidate.

Much, much better. I have that kind of service now and no complaints. It is not affected by weather and Cost is much less than Sat. also.

Good luck.

 

[Fueler]

Yes you can. Ubiquiti's Unifi equipment can do this easily (as can others) Do not buy off the shelf equipment. Today, you can buy true enterprise level equipment at just above Netgear pricing. I install this stuff for clients just like you every day (well...I have guys who install it) It's easy enough that anyone can do it.

Just curious. How good is this type of equipment about getting a signal through metal walls?

 

[biggziff]

Just curious. How good is this type of equipment about getting a signal through metal walls?

RF is RF and anything that will attenuate RF will attenuate RF. Nobody can change the laws of Physics...yet. Creative placement of devices, antennas, etc. can mitigate this to some degree. Many of these companies have developed devices that can work around things like metallic wall coverings or other difficult materials. Let me know what the project looks like and I may be able to point you in the right direction.

 

[kbs2244]

Broadband to rural areas is a hot subject in the political arena.

Check with your local State Representive office on any plans.

 

[Duker]

Pole Barn WIFI & Phone service

I will toss in a couple comments as I just went through this process as well a few months back in my Barndominium.

I read most of the horror stories on satellite and particularly those of Hughesnet but if I wanted internet other than my phone, Satellite internet was my only option so I went with Hughesnet Gen 5. The target is 25Mbps down and 3mbps up. On average I am at that level. I was fortunate in that the installer was great and went through every part of my system looking for ways to improve. I have not had an outage yet in internet even through some bad storms which is more than I can say for my direct TV. We have only had a couple of instances where streaming a movie was an issue and we watch one or two most every weekend.

I am spoiled as I have 1Gig at my “city” house so it definitely is an adjustment in patience and expectations. It’s a viable option but not a great option.

Like Fueler I had to add a cell phone amplifier to get a signal inside my metal building. I went from no bars to 3-4 bars with a Wilson amplifier so I would highly recommend that if you have issues there.

As for other choices, 2019 might be my next opportunity to improve service as 5G roll out for Houston later this year and phones will be ready by Q1 ‘19. With that increase in speed it should handily surpass my satellite speeds even at 2-3 bars.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[standard235]

A single router, a switch, and multiple access points all joined to a single controller (or a CloudKey if we're going Ubiquiti here) is what you need to have contiguous access throughout the facility. Like previously mentioned, RF is RF.. metal and RF don't play nice, which is why you need a real mesh network so your clients on wireless can roam between AP's flawlessly.

If you're trying to divide things up where you are playing a pseudo-provider (wanting to segment their traffic from yours) then you can simply up your router ante and go with something like a Ubiquiti Edge Router 4 which will do a single WAN to 3 individual LAN's.

Oh, and you want Cat 5e. Not Cat 5, unless you're ok with being limited to 100Mbit as you need quality 5e to do gigabit speeds over LAN.

This is certainly my wheelhouse. Network Administrator for huge hospital by day, in the garage by night.