best solution for rural internet access

[thomastein]

hey guys.

i'm in the process of moving 2 miles outside of town.  The company I work for has a large tower on the edge of town that I have a clear line of sight to from my new house.  We don't have any options for high speed internet access, so my idea is to use Aironets (AIR-BR1310G-A-K9) to connect to my company's network to use for internet access.  (We have a 28mb cable internet connection at work).  According to Google Earth my house is almost exactly 2.5 miles from the tower.

Just wanted some input from you guys if you knew of a better option and/or if I should go with the integrated or external antenna.  I found a refurbished set on eBay with 16dBi Yagi antennas for $779.

Thoughts?  Am I barking up the right tree?

[Justin Kurynny]

thomastein,

1310s will work, but the integrated antennas will probably be just fine--you'll likely run into trouble if you use external antennas and you don't take special care to run and seal the connections properly. The 1310s are 2.4 GHz, so beware of interference from other 2.4GHz devices, of which there are many. At 2.5 mi., you might consider a 5GHz p2p link instead.

Also, beware of Cisco gear on ebay. A guy I know bought a "refurbished" wireless lan controller on ebay for a smoking deal, literally: the unit smelled like fried electronics and would not boot.

If you want to buy used/refurbished, consider doing it through a certified reseller, which you can find with this tool:

http://tools.cisco.com/WWChannels/LOCATR/openBasicSearch.do

Justin

[thomastein]

Thanks for the input Justin, I'll do some more digging.  I appreciate your feedback.