I work from home and am erecting a home office in the garden later this week. Its about 100m away from the house and outside range of the current wireless connection. I’ll be running power up there and need to get internet / email connectionas as well. Presumably, I cant just run a length of CAT5 in the same trench as the power without interference and I dont really want to dig 2 trenches a metre or so apart. Suggestions for an IT illiterate muppet would be appreciated.

WiMax or Homeplug.

Im just checking homeplug range…

Also a friend was asking the same just this morning and Im just asking a mate what the name of a wimax equipment supplier is he knows…back in a tick.

http://www.homeplugs.co.uk/ range is 300m apparently

NB dont use a separate breaker box in the shed.

Directional wifi antenna? You can get little dish-like things that can extend your range to the kind of distances you are looking for.

I’d go for the directional wi-fi – as above homplugs need to be on the same ring main to work and I think that regs won’t allow that for a shed.

you can get shielded cable so if you are laying a new trench anyway you could probably get a way with it – would give you the fastest connection as well.

BT do these:
http://www.businessdirect.bt.com/products/netpro-10dbi-omni-directional-outdoor-antenna-6JRL.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=product+search

but youd need two.

wwaswas – homeplugs dont need to be on the same ring main, but they must be on the same phase.

I would have thought you would want to put in a breaker if you are doing it properly. I would just drop in a separate tube for a Cat 5E. Use external grade as normal will break up in a couple of years (unless its completely dry, unlikely) still if you put a tube in you can always upgrade or reoplace in the future. As long as the Cat 5E isnt in the same tube as the power it will be fine. Put in 2 and you can use the other for telephone.
If you really wanted to go to town and do it properly, put a fibre in, you can get pre terminated. so can DIY it as long as youre careful.

+1 on the directional wifi, it’s probably the easiest option. 100m is a friggin big garden though, you’re right on the limits of a cat5 connection at 100/full, and way over the lenght limit for 10 gigabit ethernet on cat6. I think even if you ran it in a seperate trench, you might start to get issues at that length. If you want to run a ground-based connection, you might find fiber is better, and that should be un-affected by electrical interfierance

There will be breaker and MCB box in the house and shed so probably rules out the plug ins. Antenna sounds interesting – how does that connect to the existing router modem thing – CAT 5 ??

Android – When you say ‘tube’ I take it you mean conduit. Surely it needs to be somethin ‘special’ to prevent interferance

Surely it needs to be somethin ‘special’ to prevent interferance

whatever you do make sure you lay your cables going in the right direction 😉

Stoner – ah, knew there was a restriction.

So directional Wifi is the easiest and most practicable solution ? I can just expect the connection speed to be a bit slower.

I think you can just connect one antenna to your router via an RJ45 plug/cable and then in the shed bung another wireless access point on or plug into your network card Im guessing.

marcus – I’d do some test before committing or at least get someone to sell you the kit ont he basis you can take it back – there’s so many factors that can influence wireless raneg and 100m is quite a long way with no boosters.

5lab did you used to be a hexus regular?

fork out for suitable cable while you have the trench open, i would suggest.
temperamental wifi is a ballache compared to a good old hard wired connection.

i would be kicking myself if i couldnt get the wifi to settle properly, and had filled in the hole.

Can’t you just shield the network cable? Get some cheap copper pipe (as used for water) and run the cable in that, maybe earth the pipe. (No idea if this will work, but sounds good).

I can just expect the connection speed to be a bit slower.

Won’t make any difference to surfing and email. Only if you want to copy files off other computers on your network.

Which I would not let it do if I were you. I’d keep work and home on different subnets inaccessible from each other…

Get some cheap copper pipe (as used for water)

100m of copper pipe? That’s going to be tricky and expensive!

what do you want to do over the network? just use internet? If so you shouldn’t really notice a hit to network speeds, if you’re copying large files etc though it might be a bit time consuming

eta : copper pipe for plumbing is around £2/meter, so pretty costly (and a pain in the arse) to lay it for 100m just for some cables. Might find fiber is cheaper

There’s also mobile broadband dongles to consider. If you have good signal they are very quick. You could switch your whole home deal to the 3 network if signal allows. They replace your home wired broadband with a wifi router with a dongle hidden in it, and you get unlimited downloads for a flat fee just like your traditional home broadband. The advantage there is that you can get multiple dongles on the same plan, so one to serve your home network and another to take down the shed.

Would be a great solution if you have strong 3 signal.

Fibre, with one of these at each end:

http://www.lanshop.co.uk/productcategorydetail.aspx?categoryid=52917

Shouldn’t be more than £1/metre for fibre cable, although you’d want it some sort of conduit.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/103215

heh, i was just going to the same thing.

run it down the same conduit as the mains cable. fast, reliable, and you get to have fiber optics in your house!

My suggestion’s the easiest tho 🙂

Just for surfing and emails so no file sharing etc. Poor signal strength for broadband dongles.

Fibre optics sound a bit scary !! Its getting to the stage where I might get BT to put in a separate line !!

Cat 5e will be fine in plastic tubing. If you look in an office building it has miles of Cat 5E running right next to power in 3 compartment trunking (which is made of PVC) I can send you white papers and documents to back up the fact it will work, or you can just take my word for it…. 😀

100m Pre term fibre should be about £400 100mbps media adapters about £150 for the pair.

Are you on commission for posting thread resurection links?

Are you on commission for posting thread resurection links?

A couple of others as well – I call SSPPPPPAAAAAMMMMMMMMM!!!! 🙂

Just duct the cat 5