Hello, a question for the computer tech's

I have a cable for broadband linked to my folks house which is only about 4m away from mine (they don't mind me doing this btw), they've just moved house to another one that's now about roughly 120ft away. I was going to use some sort of directional wireless link between the two buildings to keep using their broadband but they are quite expensive. There's not much data going between the buildings, I think we're on about 55mbs and used mostly for Netflix and the laptops.

Since we own all the land anyway including the drive I was thinking why not just get a longer cable and bury it? would there be any signal issues with 130ft of internet cable??? I've never measured these distances btw just going by my calibrated eye's...

Any other idea's would be helpful, cheers

surprised that the antennae are expensive, however it would be possible to achieve similar using the small stick antenna on the router and an old bean can!

Stay with me, it's easier than Blue Peter. Having opened the can on both ends, slit down one side and unroll until an approximation to a parabola is arrived at, adjust the position of the antenna until it is at the focal point and hey presto something like 10x better reception/transmission. Do it at both ends for complete directivity. It will be fiddly and may require things like some printing of a parabola to use as a template. It will only work if you can align them too.

More simple and with less gain is a corner reflector, as it sounds this is placing the antenna in the corner of two flat reflectors, think tin foil over cardboard, and again adjust the antenna position and align for maximum signal.

Fun to do, google will find many pictures, that in true Blue Peter style, have been made earlier.

good luck

Cat 5 cable is good for about 100m without needing a booster. I'd always go for cable for connection, especially for video streaming as wireless can get very irritating.

cable it will be best by far. I have a 50m cable elevated to my workshop and a second to another outbuilding 25m in the other direction.

As others have said, ethernet cable will be fine and the best option.
For info, the phone cable that goes from socket to router degrades very quickly as soon as it starts getting any kind of length on it

I would use a wireless link with directional antenna. If you go the cable route, make sure it's good quality and designed to be buried.

Nothing worse than wireless over large distances, stick with cable - buy a really top quality one and put it in a conduit. 120ft is a walk in the park.

the is an external grade of cat5 cable, supposed to be more weather resistant.
you can also get armoured cat5

thanks for the replies and the bean can idea

Since we own the land I think I'll be going with the cable option, it'll take a couple of hours to bury but should be fine

Thanks

I bought a 40m Cat5 cable from eBay for about £13. Cheapest one I could find and ran it around my house and in at the other end. Couldn't be bothered to bury it or cover it.. It is completely open to the elements and in FULL all day. It's been covered in frost, rain, snow and ran over. 3 years and 7 months later - absolutely fine.

Likewise I've had a £5 50m cable buried in concrete up my garden for the past 5 years with no issues.

these work well, ubiquiti point to point