Internet geek question....

[AJMD429]

1. My daughter would love to move in next door (we own the house and would sell it to her).

2. My wife wants grand-babies nearby to spoil.

3. I want my grandkids to grow up where I did here on the family homestead.

4. My son-in-law is a State Trooper but grew up in the city, so is heavily into some "warcraft" gaming that needs fast internet.

5. Our own internet options are only:
... a) satellite and
... b) cellular.

BUT.....I have a friend I lost track of who moved out west and built his own microwave relay so he could beam internet to a neighbor 3 miles away who had a landline DSL, so I know people who know how to do stuff can make things happen.

The questions then are:

a) how 'fast' does the 'gaming' internet need to be for stuff like he's into...?

......and...

b) are there ways to do it if there is no land-line (although there is DSL only 1/2 mile or so down the road)...?

[vancelw]

For online gaming the ping time needs to be low. Otherwise you're a half second behind all your competitors. Not good in anything requiring fast reactions, like first person shooting games.

I'm not aware of a satellite provider that can do it. I've been on satellite for 12 years with different providers and it's slow to bounce off a satellite, especially during peak traffic.
If you find a sat provider that can really handle online gaming, please let us know. I'll switch in a heartbeat.

[Rusty]

There's no way that will be cost efficient unless you can find a digital provider that can install a business class line. Maybe the son in law can find another hobby in the country. Air rifles are a lot of fun. Maybe he could practice his first person shooter skills on the local tree rat population.

[jeepnik]

No offense, but what adult determines where they will live based on internet speeds unless it is job related?

[vancelw]

No offense, but what adult determines where they will live based on internet speeds unless it is job related?

Adults are a lot younger than they used to be...

Most of them don't even know how I watch TV without cable or a satellite.
"What do you mean, 'broadcast'?"

[AJMD429]

No offense, but what adult determines where they will live based on internet speeds unless it is job related?

There's a whole nuther world out there; people from that world think it is strange that I'd choose a place based on how easy it is to get a concealed-carry permit....!!

[wecsoger]

Satellite will *never* have low ping times, it's basic physics. Satellite is 26,000 and some change miles away, 52,000 for the signal to go up, then back down, plus any milliseconds spent in the electronics routing about.

Serious gamers will only accept broadband (coax) cable, or a home fiber optic connection, both will bring the ping times down to single digits.

DSL would even be less than acceptable for the bandwidth

There are a couple sites to go to that you can punch in your address and it will give you a list of local providers. Have you tried that? Sometimes you'll be surprised.

[AJMD429]

Yeah I knew satellite was out, but was wondering if there is fiber or other fast stuff a half mile or so down the road, how feasible it might be to extend or hook in to that.

[wecsoger]

You could try these sites

http://www.high-speed-internet-access-guide.com/

http://www.theispguide.com/

https://internetprovidersbyzip.com/

and they may have something in your area

If 'someone down the road' has a good broadband connection but it stops there, there are wireless extender solutions. They put up a 2.5 or 5 Gig dish or yagi antenna on outside of house, you do the same, antennas about $50 per. Of course they would have to be willing to share bandwidth and get a wireless router with an external antenna connection.

[Rimfire McNutjob]

It is reasonably feasible with a pair of access points with antennae with directional gain like a patch or Yagi style antenna. Most AP's and extenders come with isotropic antennae ... radiating more or less equally in all directions and thus limiting the distance. Most also have at least two antenna ports which they switch between to overcome multi-path interference issues. Many are also now dual-band ... 2.4GHz and 5GHz ISM bands and will often have 3 or 4 antennae.

Let's say a person has high-speed internet in the 50Mbps+ range and you're about a mile away with line of sight to them. They could run an AP in their house and use one of the antenna ports at 2.4GHz to drive a directional gain antenna pointed toward you. You would have an extender at your house with a matching antenna on one port which would connect to their AP and extend it into your home for some distance.

So you may have a problem finding an antenna to do the job. The ISM band has limits on how it can be used and the FCC has thus required WiFi devices to stay within design limits. So to keep them from being used at longer ranges, they make manufacturers use RP-SMA or reverse polarity SMA connectors on the antenna ports. This make it difficult for the average person to apply a high gain antenna to such a device. There are licensed installers that can put lawful extending devices in place for this type of situation but it will probably be costly.

Such a setup would add a couple of hops to a packets path and a few milliseconds of latency. Not the end of the world though. In this case the latency is packet handle time in the device buffers, and not transmission distance like you'd have with satellite.

Here's an example of a Yagi for the 2.4GHz ISM band.

And here's a patch antenna with less gain in the same band ... but smaller and perhaps easier to mount.

[harry]

Try giving these guys a call: http://www.freewave.com/
We use their radio's to connect our gas flow computers to our intranet
Just an FYI, Freewave supplies almost all interface for the .gov UAV's

[gcs]

Get those grand babies coming and I'd be surprised if he has any free time anymore to play war games...

[JohndeFresno]

VERY LITTLE FREE TIME to read all of the above answers, so forgive me if this has already been covered. In direct response to the question, see this:
https://support.speedtest.net/hc/en-us/ ... games-etc-

Includes this answer:
"...Online Video Games

Recommended: a low ping (less than 100 ms)

For playing video games online, download and upload don't matter as much as ping, which measures how responsive your connection is. The lower the ping to servers and other players, the less lag you will have in your game. To lower ping, connect your computer to the router using ethernet instead of Wi-Fi, and avoid downloading/uploading files while playing games...."

Based on your apparent area's ISP providers, it appears that your son-in-law would have to rely upon "Single Player" mode for his gaming.

[Old Ironsights]

... (NO NEED TO QUOTE IT ALL ...

According to my .edu IT wonk brother, with just such a setup between Uni and House... This is 100% correct.

It will cost a chunk to set up right, but will be cheaper than laying Fiber....