We received a call from a long time client regarding his home internet speeds. With the current connection constantly dropping out and facing disconnection of his ADSL due to the rollout of NBN, he came to us for a solution.
Changing from Satellite to Fixed Wireless NBN
If he switched to the NBN immediately, he was going to be given satellite – possibly the worst type of connection to go on. With limited data plans and high latency, it was going to be a hindrance to his business (and cause complaints from the kids!).
So we did some investigation and found that there was a 4G tower not far from his home (2.45km away) that was also an NBN tower. The problem however, was that his house was in a valley, with hills between him and the tower. Testing with a 4G router, we saw he was only getting 6Mbit/s.
He did, however, have a shed on higher ground. Testing from the shed, we managed to achieve 55Mbit/s!! After some tough back and forth with NBNCo, we managed to get his property reclassified for NBN Fixed Wireless, which offers unlimited data plans and connection speeds up to 75Mbit/s.
Connecting the High Ground to the Low Ground with WiFi
The shed, however, was still 200m from his house and there was dense bush-land in between.
A site survey located the most optimal path between the two points, with minimal interference and the design phase started. We decided to run a wireless bridge between the two points, opting for 2.4ghz for the bandwidth and penetration properties.
A pair of Ubiquiti Nanobeams to complete that 200m link and Unifi’s Aplifi routers for indoor distribution saw us with a clean 300mbit connection between the house and the shed, more than enough for the NBN and any future internet improvements.
Finally, fast internet
With the wireless bridge allowing us the install the NBN receiver in a more optimal location, the customer now enjoys speeds of 50 to 60 Mbit/s.
Now our client and his whole family get to enjoy much faster internet, and will no longer see the horrible buffering screen. If you need out of the box thinking, feel free to reach out to our team.
