Question : 2nd Wireless link between 2 buildings approx 100m apart

Good day all,

I am in the preliminary phase of setting up a 2nd wireless link between our 2 buildings (approx 100m).

We currently have a pair of 11mb 2.4 Ghz Cisco Aironet's that take care of our VOIP phone system. This system is rock solid and I preferably do not want to remove or alter it.

We want to be able to pass large 3D models/drawings between sites and have been doing so using our internet connections and a VPN. This is painfully slow and tends to lead to either the user getting completely frustrated or the document control system crashing leaving documents checked out with no easy way of checking them in again.

I have come across some 5Ghz 54Mb bridging kits and intend to use one for data transfer, specifically: http://www.wifigear.co.uk/viewProduct.aspx?Product=04CAC7C3-175D-4E42-9ABA-03826197AB0B&Category=92727C01-F39D-4D7B-AB11-35FD62097EF1

I have a few problems/queries though:

Will the 2 wireless networks interfere with each other. I am aware they are on different frequencies but the only place to mount the new antennas would be very close to the current ones, and the 'beams' would cross.

Will I be able to configure the new wireless to be IP address' only (I have minimal experience in wireless bridges)? The last chap who set up the networks here conveniently used the same names for the servers on each site. Hence the VPN is IP address' only to get around this and the wireless for the phones is distributed on a separate switch at the second site.

Finally, there are some trees between the 2 sites. The current wireless seems to be in the only position that just about gives it line of site. The proposed position for the new wireless would mean going through the trees, is this going to impact the speed/reliability much over 100m?

I hope I have been concise enough for someone to give me some advice.

Kind regards

Answer : 2nd Wireless link between 2 buildings approx 100m apart

First thanks to all who have commented on this.

After some more research I found that the current wireless link was actually running at 54MBps and quite capable of transfereing data at the same time as VOIP.
Also something no-one mentioned was that I would need a router to be able to get traffic to flow between the two subnets.

With this in mind there was no need for an extra wireless link, just a device to route between the two subnets. I had a look at Cisco routers and some linux software routers, all of which were either very complex to configure or very expensive to buy.

Solution:
I purchased a second network card for a Windows Server 2003 box that only runs a small DB for £5.
I attached the second network to the new network card and installed and configured Routing and Remote Access on the 2k3 box.
Within 5 minutes or so I had traffic flowing between the two companies. Computers on each side can only be accessed by IP address and I am acheiving 20MBps throughput as stated by Ikalmar.

The document control software is alot happier now and is very usable.