Wifi distance question.

[micro]

I live 15 miles from the nearest wifi tower in my town, 8 miles as the crow flyes. The company that offers the wifi in my town also carries my cell phone.

In my yard i get 1-2 out of 5 bars on my cell phone, and halh the time inside my house i can get a signal.
It will cost me $100 usd for a guy to come out to my house and set up wi-fi, including the router. It is still $100 (usd) even if i cant get a signal.

I have looked on the internet for antanes and have found an interesting one that is made from a soup can, also i have seen some screw on, corded type antane that i can buy, to place outside of my house, to hopefully get a better signal.

http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

So my questions are...
#1 how far can i be from the wi-fi tower?
#2 is a cell phone on the same band as wifi? (if i get reception on my phone will internet work?)
#3 Is there a particular router that i should get to recieve better reception?How far away do they get a signal?
#4 biggest of all questions. Is there a way to see if i get reception before i pay a guy to come out?Would i just have to go buy a router and hook it up and see if i get reception?
#5 what percent signal is about the lowest sttrenth i can have and still get reception.Does the signal strength limit my kbs download or upload?

I had considered using a laptop with a wireless card, but i figured that without the antane they would only transmit up to a couple hundread feet!

 

[FamilyFriendlyGaming]

My advice is to go to www.nintendowifi.com. They can help you better than I could. I can tell you what we have. We have DSL, and a wireless router. I want to say that within 30 feet is the best range to be with the Nintendo DS to the wireless router. As far as what kind of bars you will get with the router - I really have no clue. Most of the time playing on wifi I got good connections. There were an occassional bad one; but I don't know it it was on Nintendo's end, or their end.

 

[theartist87]

This is probably not the normal type of wifi that many people are used to hearing about, but rather, something similar to this: http://mesanetworks.com/

They place a small dish looking thing, or transmitter usually on your roof, it beams the signal back and forth between the tower. As long as you have a direct line of site with the tower, you should be able to get the service (I sell Mesa Networks service here).


Most likely, a normal router would not see that network, so that is not a way to test it. The best thing to do, is just see if you have a line of site. If you do, like I said, then I believe 8 miles should be fine....

 

[micro]

I am speaking in terms of what theartist87 said. Im not quite sure if i have line of sight or not, if i dont i think i am fairly close, thanks for the link as well i am checking into it.

I live in montana and i am 800 feet higher than the antane and there may be a mountain slightly in the way. I know that they have 2 antanes and 1 is close to line of site, but i will get a location from them and find out for sure.

The reason i am realy checking into this is i live in a good spot for radio reception, i can get stations from towns 100 miles in about any direction. If you go more than 1 mile in any direction from my house you cant pick up the stations anymore.

 

[RevDavid]

I use an actual soup can and I can tell you that it works like a charm. You can find a model that looks like it's made out of a Pringles can. It looks a little more professional but my soup can works just as well.

 

[micro]

thanks revdavid, thats good to hear, i found that i could get wifi with line of site, but i need to be 100 feet higher altitude to seee into the vally and see the fiwi tower. It is good up to 20 miles (using there special antane).