We need to connect two buildings about 30 ft apart, but we are unable to run a wire because of what comes inbetween (staircase and elevator). How would you guys suggest bridging the two buildings? we need to be able to get speeds of 50mbits with this bridge. we looked into powerline ethernet, but from what i read, its too slow we thought about wifi, but i am concerned about interferences like microwave (these are two apartment buildings), 2.4ghz cordless phones, maybe the elevator?.. and anything else. the distance is very small ..do you guys think wifi would work? my goal is to get it done for under $75, even if we have to get used parts. any suggestions? thanks

I'm pretty sure wifi would work. If it were me I'd spend a little more than $75 and buy two antenna's like something from EnGenius (google it) and establish a nice point-to-point shot. With directional antenna, you'd suffer less from interference.

under $75? Good luck. Now if you are serious about connecting wireless bridging is an option though you have to consider weather. Snow and rain block the signal. You may get better performance with a directional [pointed at each other] antennas. Being only 30 feet apart I would run a support cable roof to roof. Then hang a cat6 cable off that cable. It would connect at each end with a gigabit switch. If you have the switches cost is about $150

I was considering this, but the buildings are 5 stories high and the connection needs to take place on the bottom floor. any ideas?

let me give you guys some more background, maybe it will help bring up some more solutions. we have a network with 7 hubs, all connected with about 12 apartments and providing internet. the internet goes from our central location with the router to each building via cat5 except the last building which i guess is too far for cat5 so the person who actuallly set this up decided to go with fiber optic. All wiring is under ground. Now,we have been having problems with our network so i decided to check things out and found out that the buildings have 10mbit hubs! (but we have a 50mbit internet connection) . so time to upgrade to 100mbit switches. the problem is that there is that the person used two 3com SuperStack II PS Hub 40 hubs with "3com TCVR Fiber module" and ran a fiber optic cable to connect the remote building to the rest of the network, but im guessing that changing the hub to this building will cost way more because i need some sort of fiber to ethernet converters. The good news is that the second to last building isnt that far from the last one so i can just BRidge from the second to last swtich to the last one (going underground would cost too much) [IMG]http://imgur.com/dmdgN.jpg[/IMG] what do you guys think? do you guys think i can use the existing undergound fiber optic cable by getting some sort of fiber to ethernet converter for cheaper than the wifi solution? we dont mind buying used form ebay or wherever.

There are six buildings. How many units per building? Do you know if the fiber is single or multimode? You need to know so you can get the right fiber module. 10mbps isn't your problem. First issue is connecting from main to buildings connections should have been 100mb to begin with 10mb to each apt. Second issue is hubs don't work as well as switches. Can you confirm the 3com is only 10mbps? If so that must be a pretty old model.