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Something a bit different to the usual home networking and internet questions / challenges / solutions
My old man's finishing building a narrowboat in which he plans to live.
I've done a lot of internal wiring with nice FTP Cat6 to a plethora of RJ45 sockets around the place.
One thing which we're still to determine is how best to obtain internet access over a 3G/4G antennae.
He's currently been living in a caravan so already has experience with mobile internet - using a mixture of USB 3G dongles and also a few Huawei E5573 4G receivers, but with variable amounts of success which I've put down to mainly being in a bad reception area. He has three dedicated SIMs, so pretty flexible solution with two levels of backup possible. I seem to remember they're on different networks too which has proved really handy as we still don't have national roaming. None of that will help if he's in a dead area of course... And, as he'll be arguably even lower to the groundI want to figure out what's the best way of doing it.
With the wiring we have in place, we have a few options:
- Get a pure 3G/4G AP with seperate aerial inputs. Get a seperate Ethernet-only router (no WiFi). Get a dedicated WiFi AP. Arguably the most flexible as we can mix and match and should one device fail, only the services it provides will be affected. Reliability is an issue of course as getting something delivered is out of the question with constantly changing addresses! The wiring allows for this - see drawing.
- Getting something that's purely a 3G/4G access point (essentially a 3G to RJ45 wired ethernet bridge), then have a classic WiFi router with a WAN port into which the 3G / Internet plugs in. That gives a lot of options on the WiFI router front. Need to figure out what best to obtain for the 3G/4G net access. But as it disassociates the 3G/4G point from the router, it also means that can be outside as most of them are weatherproof.
- Getting an all-in-one 3G/4G WiFi router. Least favourite option: would require weatherproofing unless aerial section can be at the end of an RF cable.
As far as the wired connections are concerned, as we have quite a few ports, I've planned for a seperate unmanaged L2 GbE switch where all the network points and WiFi AP plug into. So port count on the router bit isn't a real concern. There will be servers, media players, IP cameras, etc all plugging in.
The blue cables below are the Cat6 network ones arriving where the study is and where the network patch panel / switch will be. The WiFi AP is potentially in the middle of the boat - where the loopy cable is between the two skylight holes. Whilst we could use the WiFi on the router, if the router is in the study at the back, reception probably won't be that good at the front of the boat hence the idea of putting it somewhere in the middle.
The biggest question is how best to have mobile internet. The existing Huawei E5573 units won't really work inside the boat and cannot be placed outside as they're not weatherproof. He currently has a proper 3G/4G aerial which plugs into the Huawei E5573 unit, but receptions is often worse than using the Hauwei on its own. I don't know what the aerial is right now (it's buried in the back of a trailer!)
So, ideas welcome
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Originally Posted by tfboy
