Long-distance wireless networking
Together with some friends I’ve recently tested a temporary wireless network link between Graz and Leutschach, spanning a distance of over 57 kilometers. Using Ubiquiti 5GHz equipment we quickly achieved a stable link with a throughput of about 20 Mbit/s …
Equipment used: Ubiquiti AirGrid M5 HP (27 dBi) – Website, Specs
At a price of about 75 € in contains just about everything one needs for such a link; a 27 dBi grid antenna and a built-in transmitting module capable of putting out 25 dBm at 5Ghz, connected with a standard network cable and powered via passive PoE ..
See below for an excerpt of our iPerf performance tests. By the way, I can recommend using the xJPerf GUI for that 😉
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 |
[ ID] Interval      Transfer    Bandwidth [276] 320.0-321.0 sec 2313 KBytes 18951 Kbits/sec [276] 321.0-322.0 sec 2479 KBytes 20307 Kbits/sec [276] 322.0-323.0 sec 2384 KBytes 19531 Kbits/sec [276] 323.0-324.0 sec 2465 KBytes 20191 Kbits/sec [276] 324.0-325.0 sec 2022 KBytes 16565 Kbits/sec [276] 325.0-326.0 sec 2442 KBytes 20006 Kbits/sec [276] 326.0-327.0 sec 2329 KBytes 19079 Kbits/sec [276] 327.0-328.0 sec 2421 KBytes 19832 Kbits/sec [276] 328.0-329.0 sec 2419 KBytes 19820 Kbits/sec [276] 329.0-330.0 sec 2578 KBytes 21118 Kbits/sec [276] 330.0-331.0 sec 2295 KBytes 18801 Kbits/sec [276] 331.0-332.0 sec 2565 KBytes 21013 Kbits/sec [276] 332.0-333.0 sec 2489 KBytes 20388 Kbits/sec [276] 333.0-334.0 sec 2545 KBytes 20851 Kbits/sec [276] 334.0-335.0 sec 2388 KBytes 19565 Kbits/sec [276] 335.0-336.0 sec 2453 KBytes 20098 Kbits/sec [276] 336.0-337.0 sec 2248 KBytes 18419 Kbits/sec [276] 337.0-338.0 sec 2261 KBytes 18523 Kbits/sec [276] 338.0-339.0 sec 2425 KBytes 19867 Kbits/sec [276] 339.0-340.0 sec 2289 KBytes 18754 Kbits/sec |
And some pictures (sorry for the bad quality) ..
Video-Skype & Link benchmarking
Line of sight? Yeah, right..
Antenna alignment
All in all it was quite a success; I wouldn’t have imagined to get the link up and running within seconds and to be able to achieve a real 20Mbit/s throughput over a distance of more than 57 kilometers that easily. We even greatly reduced output power without any noticeable impact on link performance; I do wonder how far these antennas would reach at peak output power …
(Yes I know one could calculate it but testing is much more fun) 😉