OK KITA 's - I 'm out of my comfort zone on this one so I need help from y 'all

[G+_Jason Eckelstafer]

OK KITA's - I'm out of my comfort zone on this one so I need help from y'all. I need a way to extend a wifi signal from inside my neighbor's house into my house. The wifi signal he's broadcasting is completely open (intentionally done by ISP). What device would I need and what type of configuration would I want to use? I'll include a crappy diagram showing the rough layout. Thanks in advance for the assistance.

 

[G+_Scott Snodgrass]

Need some context, do you just want to pick up their wireless network, or do your devices need to be on the same network?

 

Option 1) Use something like the Ubiquiti airMAX series in either point-to-point or point-to-multipoint.

 

Option 2) IPsec VPN to connect the two locations via WAN link.

[G+_Black Merc]

Distance(door to door), source router(ap) 2.4ghz or 5.8ghz, one device in your house or many on a lan, required or expected bandwidth, source router(ap) near a window, road traffic type(many large trucks or small infrequent cars)...

 

Many factors come into play when trying for long-range Wi-Fi connection.

 

Single laptop... Usb Wi-Fi client adapter with directional antenna, point to router in the window. Road traffic can effect connection to varying levels of hair pullout.

[G+_Jason Eckelstafer]

Scott Snodgrass - the distance is about 100'. I've spent tested the location I'll be mounting the receiver outside my front door. As for the second question, I'd actually prefer to have it broadcast a new network so I can control the security myself instead of it being open.

[G+_Jason Eckelstafer]

Black Merc - the sending router is 5ghz and I'm happy with the bandwidth I received when speed testing the location marked in the picture at the receiver. I would be using it like a normal network within my house so stuff like the TV and phones would access it. There's virtually no traffic on or road.

[G+_Black Merc]

So, a 5ghz Wi-Fi client device connected(rj-45) to wan/isp port of your home router... That's what I would do.

[G+_Jason Eckelstafer]

Black Merc - That's how the neighbor has been sending the wifi signal over to my house. I can't run a shielded cat-6 cable across the road to my house so we have to do it wirelessly.

[G+_Brent Vrieze]

This assumes you get enough signal at the outside of your wall to connect to his wifi.

 

I have done this with a Linksys WRT54GL router and the open source firmware of DD-WRT. I used the very old router because I have several of them and they run on 12 VDC and I run it off my car. dd-wrt.com - DD-WRT

 

Here are the DD-WRT compatible devices.

https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices

 

You set up one of the radios to receive the open WIFI signal from the neighbor and the other with any SSID you like with security on it. When I did this I did it the other way from WPA-PSK to open for special situations when I need to extend my phone hotspot.

 

There are some router specific things you may need to consider such as my WRT54GL would only work in "Repeater Bridge" mode not "Repeater" mode.

 

Here is the discussion on picking your solution.

https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeating_Mode_Comparisons

 

I used more instructions than these but they encapsulate it fairly well.

https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeater_Bridge

 

Once I read the part about only working as a repeater bridge with my device it all worked seamlessly. Another nice thing about a repeater bridge is the ether-net ports on your router work for wired only devices.

[G+_Ben Reese]

+Jason Eckelstafer this is my poor attempt at drawing what +Black Merc was suggesting.

 

You have a wireless access point that connects to his Wi-Fi - most APs will do this out of the box, but it sounds like you'll need an outdoor-safe, 5 Ghz device.

That AP will plug into the WAN port on your router. Configure your wireless network as you'd like, but it still won't be secure as long as all traffic is going through your neighbor's Wi-Fi.

 

There are devices that will do this all in one box. You could even connect a 5 Ghz Wi-Fi dongle to a Raspberry Pi and do it, but using the 2 separate devices should give the best flexibility.

[G+_John Sullivan]

Hello

You've gotten some good responses to your question, but I'm thinking they might be over your head, so to speak, as you said you are already out of your comfort zone just thinking about it.

I believe you said that you already tested the signal strength from your neighbor's router and found it acceptable. If so, I would simply use one 5 ghz router to connect to the neighbor, and then use cat5e cable out from that router into a second wireless router that you use for your home network. The first router makes the connetion via 5 Ghz and the second router provides 2.4 Ghz wifi to your house (as shown in your diagram)

Granted, this will take two routers, and it could probably be done with just one, but that will be a more complex setup and I think you would be better with a more simple approach, at least to start with.

This will also give you the ability to setup your home network any way that you want, but as others have noted, it will only be secure up to the point of your 2.4 Ghz router. Once data goes out over the 5 Ghz network, it will be un-secure.

[G+_Jason Eckelstafer]

Ok so I went and got a WiFi AP and it connected just fine to his network but there was one piece I didn't think of... It loads up a captive portal. I called up Netgear and they told me theirs won't pass the captive portal through. After some more research it looks like a simple travel router should give me the AP and pass through the captive portal. Thoughts?

 

I want to thank everyone again. You've been great.

[G+_Jason Marsh]

If the host AP takes you to a captive portal just once per device, then you may be able to connect with your laptop and then clone your laptop's MAC address to the "remote" AP you plan to connect with.

 

If it likes to bring you back to the captive portal occasionally, it may be the case that it doesn't present the captive portal to wired devices. If so, you may be better off adding an AP on their end, wired to the host AP/Router/Switch to bypass the captive portal and provide your own network management.