How to communicate over long distances using WiFi
WiFi technology was first developed over 25 years ago to provide a wireless network connection inside a building. Since then the technology has been greatly improved and WiFi is in use to provide outdoor wireless links and can communicate over several Km with directional antennas that are installed on towers with a clear line of sight between the antennas.
WiFi Internet is available in most outdoor hospitality locations such as campgrounds and RV parks. However WiFi communication distances are short when connecting with mobile phones and laptops because the WiFi technology installed in mobile devices has a poor antenna which limits the range of communication.
Guests are frustrated that they have to walk to the “WiFi area” to get a WiFi signal that will connect them to the Internet. The maximum distance between a WiFi antenna and a mobile phone might be in the range of 50m to 100m because of the limitations with WiFi technology.
People ask the question; why can’t WiFi connect the same distance of a few Km that mobile phones can?
There are several parts to the answer of this question, and these are listed below:
- The mobile phone signal is about 200 times more powerful than WiFi; the FCC sets a low power limit for WiFi to minimize interference.
- Mobile phone antennas are installed on the top of tall towers to be visible over longer distances.
- Mobile phone tower antennas have a design called ‘sector’ that radiates much further than a WiFi stick antenna, however sector antennas are big and heavy.
- Mobile phones operate on exclusive frequencies that the operators purchase licenses for, this ensures that there is no interference; WiFi signals have a lot of interference which reduces the range.
- Mobile phone tower radio equipment is much better quality than WiFi equipment, which extends the distance of communication.
Vacation, travel, hospitality and other types of businesses that provide WiFi Internet for guests and visitors can extend the range of the WiFi network by building what is called a wireless distribution network. The range of a WiFi antenna to a mobile phone is still 50m to 100m, however many WiFi antennas are installed.
Each WiFi antenna is connected back to a central point by a point-to-point wireless link that can communicate over a much longer distance, providing that there is a clear line of sight between the antennas. Each WiFi antenna and point-to-point link is like the spokes of a wheel.
The diagram illustrates several points of the wireless network design.
First a connection to the Internet is required. A Starlink antenna is shown in the diagram, however this can be any type of ISP service. The best service is a fiber connection. For a better performance two ISPs can be connected to a Guest Internet product that has dual WAN, such as the GIS-R6/R10/R20 or R40. The Guest Internet controller will provide load balance and fail-over, which will add the two ISP speeds to permit more users to connect to the network.
The users connect to the WiFi provided by the Guest Internet equipment. The Guest Internet GIS-K7 is shown below and in the diagram; this is popular to provide an outdoor WiFi service.

Any Guest internet indoor or outdoor wireless product can be installed to provide the WiFi. When it is necessary to cover a larger area a Guest Internet gateway controller such as the GIS-R2 or GIS-R4 is installed with 2 or more wireless access points connected to it.
When the WiFi area has to be located a distance from the ISP Internet connection a point-to-point wireless bridge provides the wireless connection between the ISP service and the remote WiFi location. The WISPzone CPE120 wireless bridge is shown in the diagram and below.
The wireless bridge link must have a line of sight between the antennas. Any obstacle, such as a tree, will block the wireless signal.
An Ethernet switch can be connected to the ISP service so that several devices can connect to the ISP service as shown in the diagram.
The Guest Internet wireless and Ethernet controllers provide access control to the Internet service. Each provides a login page that requests the user to enter a code, or purchase a code on-line using a credit card. Guest Internet provides several methods to provide code for users that include printing vouchers, having a point of sale terminal using the Guest Internet GIS-TP1 receipt printer as shown below, and charging credit cards online.

There is one alternative to the wheel and spoke network design, and this is the mesh network design. The mesh network has limited data speed at the far points of the network when compared with the wheel and spoke design.
We will describe the mesh network in our next post.
Stay tuned!