{"id":89,"date":"2020-02-23T15:49:01","date_gmt":"2020-02-23T15:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anthonyparkes.co.uk\/?p=89"},"modified":"2026-06-03T18:21:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T18:21:49","slug":"unifi-wifi-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anthonyparkes.co.uk\/?p=89","title":{"rendered":"Bypassing the ISP: How I Built a 200m Wireless Fiber Bridge Over a Canal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After three years of enduring legacy DSL speeds, I finally hit my breaking point<\/sup>. I couldn\u2019t take the daily pain of a measly 800 kbps upload and a restrictive 16 Mbps download ceiling anymore<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I approached the fiber providers, the answer was a flat refusal: \u201cWe will not install fiber to your location due to the infrastructure cost.\u201d<\/em>

Faced with permanent digital isolation, I decided to take matters into my own hands. If the ISPs wouldn\u2019t bring the fiber to me, I would go out and capture it myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The Blueprint: Shooting Data Over a Canal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My plan hinged on a workaround: finding a location that could<\/em> get high-speed fiber, and then beaming it directly to my property. Luckily, a friend living 200 meters away had access to a full FTTP connection<\/sup>. The only problem? Between our properties sat a canal and two massive, industrial-sized buildings blocking a straightforward path<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After conducting some RF environment testing, I mapped out a viable Line of Sight (LoS) and selected my hardware<\/sup>. I deployed a pair of Ubiquiti NanoStation 5AC Loco<\/strong> units to build a dedicated 5GHz Point-to-Point (PtP) wireless bridge across the 200m gap<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the wireless link was established, I had a 300 Mbps fiber line provisioned at the host site<\/sup>. Using the NanoStations to handle the final 200m leg back to my house, I successfully bypassed the copper lines completely<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Result:<\/strong> I instantly jumped from a sluggish 16 Mbps DSL line to a roaring 200 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload speed<\/strong> at my terminal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Hardware Stack<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To keep the installation clean, reliable, and highly resilient against power drops, I selected a compact, enterprise-grade hardware stack<\/sup>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Power Resilience:<\/strong> The entire network core, including the router and the wireless bridge, is backed up by a dedicated DC UPS battery system to guarantee zero downtime during localized power flickers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wireless Link:<\/strong> 2x Ubiquiti NanoStation 5AC Loco operating a high-throughput 5GHz PtP link across the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Routing & Switching:<\/strong> A Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X. By leveraging PoE (Power over Ethernet) passthrough, the router powers the local NanoStation directly, keeping external cabling to an absolute minimum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local Access Point:<\/strong> A Ubiquiti UniFi AC Lite handles the internal wireless distribution within the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has now been 6 months since this custom wireless backhaul became my primary internet connection, and the performance has been absolutely flawless<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether pushing the connection to its limits with heavy 4K video uploads, streaming high-bitrate media, or dealing with the strict latency requirements of VR gaming, I have yet to experience a single drop, lag spike, or delay<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even more impressive is how the airOS link handles the unpredictable British climate. As you can see from the dashboard metrics, the signal remains locked in at an incredibly stable $-54\\text{ dBm}$<\/sup>. This setup has quietly hummed along through dense snow, torrential downpours, and severe storms packing 50mph gales<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the traditional telecom infrastructure failed to deliver, a little bit of homelab ingenuity and two 50p-sized ideas proved that you can build your own gigabit-ready future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After three years of enduring legacy DSL speeds, I finally hit my breaking point. I couldn\u2019t take the daily pain of a measly 800 kbps<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":877,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-fullwidth.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-infrastructure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthonyparkes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthonyparkes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthonyparkes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyparkes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyparkes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyparkes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":876,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyparkes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions\/876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyparkes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthonyparkes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyparkes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyparkes.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}