Cross posting this from DIY sub-forum based upon a recommendation that I may get more help here...

I'm seeking this advice for my dad, I have no idea if this is possible but he asked me and I said I wasn't sure but I would check. Google search is coming up with lots of irrelevant answers which leads me to believe it is either not possible or not very common if it is possible.

My dad runs a farm & a couple businesses related to the ag industry. He uses a significant amount of data on his cell-phone plan providing a data uplink on real-time monitoring devices. The primary device is an iPAD that is used to monitor planting/harvest/chemical applications etc on the ag fields. 90% of his fields are within a 2 mile radius. He has high-speed fiber optic internet service available at a very affordable monthly rate at the main farm which is centrally located to most of the ag fields. Is there any type of long-range broadcast internet that he can use to provide a wifi type link to the monitoring equipment instead of the cell phone carrier data plan?

The terrain is flat and mostly open. He can place an external antenna ~65' high if it is outdoor rated, or ~60 feet high under a tin roof (in the barn) if it's not outdoor rated.

Requirements:
Range: Minimum range: 1 mile; Goal range: 2 miles; Dreaming range: 5-10 miles (is that possible?)

Must be able to be used on mobile devices that are not necessarily in the same place at any given time (IE, has to hit a moving target).

Must be reasonably affordable ($1500-2000 is the point at which it would be cheap for him to continue paying for the high-use data-plan).

Must not require any overly burdensome licensing requirements. Licensing isn't an issue as long as the fees/training/knowledge/hassle are reasonable.

Other notes: If 1 mile broadcast range isn't feasible it's possible that he can set up multiple stations 3/8-3/4 mile from one-another and utilize multiple broadcast antennas and use long-range directional antennas to get the wifi to each broadcast station but cost of multiple stations would likely go up pretty sharply...

Is this possible? Am I asking in the wrong place?

Possible? Yes.

$1,500 - $2,000? Nope.

Can you provide some more details? How is it possible and what type of equipment/cost are we looking at?

Are there other ways to skin the cat?

I'm sure Ubiquiti has a solution that would work but I'm not well versed in their products to give you a list of hardware to buy and how to set it up.

Is there just one ipad that gets moved around by person or truck, or multiple devices all connecting at once? If just one, i could see a setup with a directional antenna mounted to the truck pointed back at an antenna at the main building

With the exception of new white space uhf spectrum, all current commercial solutions will require line of sight or near line of sight.

With clear LOS it's very do able with off the shelf components...getting clear LOS is a bitch however.


A 1 watt radio with a high gain antenna can push a couple hundred Mb. You need a similar radio and high gain antenna on both ends. An iPad or other handheld devices doesn't have balls enough to reach out more than a couple hundred feet.

I am well versed in point to multi-point.  I have a team that could engineer this for you, you're going to be paying big-boy money.

I've done 2/3 of a mile through lots of trees with these and got usable connectivity.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006M1PKWY?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=od_aui_detailpages00
I'm guessing they will probably work for more than a mile line of sight with no trees or objects between them.
They are rated outdoors and use PoE, easy to setup and use.
At more than a mile I doubt these will give you enough bandwidth to watch Netflix but you could read your email.
Not anything that would work with mobile stuff unless you have a power inverter in your car.
ETA: If you are asking these questions in here you will need to hire someone who knows how to do this.

Multiple devices but the ipad is the main bandwidth consuming device. I'll be a bit more specific. During planting/harvesting they consume a huge amount of bandwidth on the ipad and it doesn't get much use the rest of the year. IE, they have to carry a fairly large data-plan to handle the ipad but only during the peak times; most of the available data is "wasted" when they are in the off-season. If they can get the ipad onto a wireless network etc they can drop the data plan down significantly...

The issue with a directional antenna is that the target will be moving, literally moving. As the ag equipment works it way back & forth across the field it could travel as much as a half-mile perpendicular to the beam of a directional antenna. If that 1/2 mile is in close-proximity to the base-station the angle variation could be nearly 180 degrees out from 1 end of the field to the other...


What is clear LOS? Nothing in the way at all?
What is near LOS? Just a few trees and maybe the odd residential type building in the way occasionally?

If my definition of near LOS is correct I believe this would be a near LOS situation. This is flat (really, really, flat) and open (~90% open farmland, ~8% sporadic forestland, ~2% residential properties) land. A clear line of site from 10` mast mounted on barn roof to antenna mounted on top of tractor/combine/etc could be established for about 95% of the area within the 2 mile radius and the other 5% would only be momentary passes behind a few trees etc.

Adding an additional antenna/radio on the other end is not a problem. There are already a million other electronic gadgets running, what's another one?


I may need some help, but I'm not  a networking dummy, I'm just not very familiar with newer hardware capabilities as it's not something I've had to deal with. I've successfully setup a full home network with a mixture of wired/wireless devices, security cameras with server, and networked printer. But stepping into the world of long-range seems a bit more daunting to me primarily in the hardware choices, I'm sure with a little guidance the setup itself is not above my knowledge level and if it is I have resources I can tap into for networking assistance.

Just filling in some of the blanks here;


Use outdoor antennas. Forget about putting an antenna inside a building for data, let alone one with lots of metal in it or any metal sheeting.


Where does the data go?  How much of it is there?  MUST it be real time?  Why?  What do other people do if it's real time requirement? (You are taking video of plants growing? And then doing flamethrower air strikes on weeds? Why the urgency?)  You aren't the only folks that bought the data gathering devices, what do the other customers do?


No way in hell you are getting 5 miles with a moving target.  You'd need base stations for that. Though, five or six drop points with DSL lines to each and lesser quality wifi might work.


Why is everything being funneled through a tablet?  That's... not sensible... or is the ipad the display of all the data gathering by the devices in the field?  What is the person looking at the data getting by being out there in the field?  Why not sit on the porch with some lemonade while someone else drives the vehicle?


You'll need a Wifi booster in the vehicle, the antenna on the ipad is not going to cut it.


Have you asked the cell data provider about it?  Tell em you are going to cut the it off completely by finding another solution and maybe they'll give you a break on price.


You need two diagarams;  1 of the actual layout like a map.  2nd one of the network and data connection, the devices (how data, what data, are they even capable of getting an IP address? etc.) and that can show what limitations you have so someone can come up with a plan.  Start by going to the software/device manufacturer web site and seeing what their sales stuff says about it.  There might be a diagram you can show the wireless people what you are doing.

I do precision ag and IT, are you trying to use connected farm and or RTK corrections via wifi?  DCM-300's?

So I'm getting into this with a background in long distance networking. 8 miles...that's easy (using relatively low cost Ubiquity Nanostations) when the AP and subscriber are stationary and you have LOS with a relatively low noise floor.

With RF, the narrower the channel the more "efficient" the system. So a 10 MHz channel will be better for the distant shot than a 40 MHz channel...however you'll get about 1/4 of the speed the radio is rated at the most.

What you'd be better off looking at is something like a 900 MHz GE iNet-II or (if you can find one) a 900 MHz GE MDS. These radios run on the 900 MHz ISM band but are aided by effective 900 MHz mobile antenna (+5 dBi and +8 dBi) options. The problem, 2 Mbps is about as fast as you'll get out of them. You're almost not going to be able to find a solution that will allow you use the devices without an extra AP inside the truck.

Considering that is how he currently runs this equipment (as specified in the OP) yes, it would be easier. But it may not necessarily be the most economical. The issue is that the equipment uses a lot of bandwidth during the peak farming seasons (April/May & Septembe/October). To ensure he doesn't exceed his data usage ($$$$) he has to run a fairly high cost plan but that data is only utilized a couple months of the year but he pays for it all year. It could save him ~$100/month if he utilized something other than the wireless data plan.


I could try to come up with a diagram to help visually.

That being said, part of the reason he wants a broad-area type network is because he has several farm buildings at various locations that he would like to also have internet access at. His thought process was to use directional antennas to get web access to all those locations (5 total "auxiliary" locations within 2 miles) but then he pondered if it was possible to get a broad-area network that could kill an extra bird (the data-plan for the ipad) with the same stone by just providing a blanket coverage over the area.

Is there any type of "tracking" directional antennas? IE, a directional that can "track" where the base-station and/or mobile equipment is and continuously re-aim if necessary?



I roughly know what RTK is but the rest of that doesn't mean a great deal to me. I live several hours from dad and I'm pretty much completely disconnected from the farming operation. I could hop in the equipment and drive it but I have no clue how to operate all his gizmo's and gadgets anymore as they have all been improved since I was part of the farming operation.

ETA, more info: He was told that the "Seed-Sense 2020" monitor system he has for spring planting requires the ipad be connected to the cloud. That is all he can tell me (he isn't a technology guy, my younger brother is the one that runs all the gizmos and gadgets for him).

The buildings shouldn't be too difficult if you can get the radios up high enough (propagation software comes in very handy) to have LOS. Mobile use is going to be difficult though as most mobile 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz antennas aren't built extremely well for distant usage while mobile.

We understand that the buildings won't be an issue, he was just looking to kill that extra bird (mobile platform) with the same stone. If he can't do that he'll keep doing it the way he has been doing it and just go with directional antennas to all the buildings... LOS shouldn't be an issue with the flat, open terrain and considering that most of these buildings are at least 20 feet high if not more (the old farm barns at 3 of the locations are 40-60 feet high).

Thanks for the advice guys, it's looking like this probably isn't economically feasible with current hardware offerings.

This sounds like it's what he needs, but I'm betting these aren't very cheap:

http://www.arubanetworks.com/products/networking/outdoor-mesh/

Before you spend money and time on this your dad needs to call me or a knowledgeable precision ag dealer. There is a company out there that specializes in ag cellular plans with several carriers. wifi is nice no doubt about that but who will manage it and install it?

Need to know the specific requirements including all devices before a solution to the problem can be formulated.

He's close friends with the local precision ag dealer. He's checked all the options for that one. It's more cost effective for him to add the extra data to his existing cell/data plan than it is to do a special plan just for that.

That being said, you seem more knowledgeable on this particular application. Is there any reason that he cannot forgo the data plan and store the data locally on the ipad etc then allow it to upload at home?

There are cheaper (not quality-wise) ways to mesh networks. Personally I avoid MESHing at all costs but for extending networks where speed isn't as big of an issue it's not a huge deal.

Most Micro-Tik routers can be setup to MESH APs (and they start for about $20 for a router capable of doing that).