So my parents, through some amusing twist of fate, ended up renting two apartments on different floors of the same building. One apartment is on the 1st floor, and one is on the 4th. They're almost perfectly parallel with each other vertically. Both of them and myself agree it would be stupid to pay for two internet connections. What do? My first thought was power line networking, but both places have different meters and are on completely separate circuits so that seems to be out(potentially? Does anyone have experience with connecting that way between houses next-door on the same pole, or apartments in the same building? i feel like i've heard of that working)
I also thought of some sort of wireless networking solution, but i feel like you'd need high gain, directional antennas facing the ceiling in the lower apartment and the floor in the upper one for that to work, and even then it likely wouldn't work that well. It seemed like i'd be buying a bunch of moderately expensive hardware(extra wireless routers on both ends, likely with DD-WRT so i could set one up as a "client" and plug things into it, high gain antennas, etc) just to test out something that might not even work.
The absolute last resort is running a 100ft+ ethernet cable out the windows, or drilling tiny holes in the wall and filling them with silicone after the cable is poked through and just running it down the exterior of the building. But that one is tentatively nixed because it's a fairly upscale building and the management would likely flip(although it on a non-visible from the street "back" side of the building) and the fact that the place is getting new siding in the next couple months, which would likely involve them just ripping the cable off.
I can't even really express how dumb i think getting two cable internet accounts for people who essentially watch netflix and hulu and do nothing else is, and screw the fact that's what the ISP would want them to do. I'm determined to come up with a workable permanent solution here. The throughput of one line is more than enough for two streams(or more) of video streaming with some headroom on top of that, i've already tested it, so that's not a concern. One of my only concerns with the "huge wireless antennas at both ends" type of setup is that i've done that sort of thing before from the basement to the top floor of a fairly large house, and also horizontally in a fairly long flat ranch style house. And while the connection was stable the throughput was poop.
Note: Experience in network engineering and deploying/managing commercial networks. Any silly or complicated solution is fine as long as it isn't prohibitively expensive(max budget say... $100, less is obviously better)
So yea, thoughts?
I also thought of some sort of wireless networking solution, but i feel like you'd need high gain, directional antennas facing the ceiling in the lower apartment and the floor in the upper one for that to work, and even then it likely wouldn't work that well. It seemed like i'd be buying a bunch of moderately expensive hardware(extra wireless routers on both ends, likely with DD-WRT so i could set one up as a "client" and plug things into it, high gain antennas, etc) just to test out something that might not even work.
The absolute last resort is running a 100ft+ ethernet cable out the windows, or drilling tiny holes in the wall and filling them with silicone after the cable is poked through and just running it down the exterior of the building. But that one is tentatively nixed because it's a fairly upscale building and the management would likely flip(although it on a non-visible from the street "back" side of the building) and the fact that the place is getting new siding in the next couple months, which would likely involve them just ripping the cable off.
I can't even really express how dumb i think getting two cable internet accounts for people who essentially watch netflix and hulu and do nothing else is, and screw the fact that's what the ISP would want them to do. I'm determined to come up with a workable permanent solution here. The throughput of one line is more than enough for two streams(or more) of video streaming with some headroom on top of that, i've already tested it, so that's not a concern. One of my only concerns with the "huge wireless antennas at both ends" type of setup is that i've done that sort of thing before from the basement to the top floor of a fairly large house, and also horizontally in a fairly long flat ranch style house. And while the connection was stable the throughput was poop.
Note: Experience in network engineering and deploying/managing commercial networks. Any silly or complicated solution is fine as long as it isn't prohibitively expensive(max budget say... $100, less is obviously better)
So yea, thoughts?
