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Forum Discussion
kpinisetti
Dec 05, 2023Aspirant
Wifi in a Metal Building
HELP !! I have a 80x240 Metal horse barn half of it is riding arena and the other half is stalls. The middle of the barn is a lounge where my local internet companies fiber cable comes into. I have t...
CrimpOn
Dec 05, 2023Guru - Experienced User
kpinisetti wrote:
HELP !! I have a 80x240 Metal horse barn half of it is riding arena and the other half is stalls. The middle of the barn is a lounge where my local internet companies fiber cable comes into.
You are SO lucky that the ISP fiber was installed to the middle of the barn. Most of the posts about "metal building" involve people trying to get from their house to the barn.
In your case 240ft is simply too great a distance for WiFi to cover. Every system is different, but Netgear recommends placing their satellites "about 30 ft." from the router. This is clearly a compromise:
- The closer satellites are to the router, the stronger the 5G WiFi signal which provides, but the amount of additional coverage will not be impressive.
- The farther satellites are from the router, the more additional space will be covered, but at some point the 5G backhaul signal will no longer provide adequate signal to get solid performance.
With largely open space, WiFi will provide decent performance out to 40-50 ft. Thus, with the router in the middle of the building (120ft.), satellites could be placed at 40, 80, 160, and 200 ft.
A barn has an additional advantage: it is much more convenient to 'hard wire' devices than in a conventional building. Satellites can be wired to the router, which makes placement a lot easier.
Another issue is electrical power. The Orbi residential units are designed to connect to regular wall outlets. There are commercial systems which power satellites using Power over Ethernet (PoE) which means that both the data signal and the power use a single Ethernet cable.