If you’ve ever tried to get a reliable Wi-Fi signal across a working farm, you already know — this isn’t your typical home network job. When the folks at a local farm reached out, we knew we were in for a fun one.
Out with the Old
Before we could build anything new, we had some demolition to do. We pulled out roughly 1,000 feet of old Cat5 cabling that had been run through conduit across the property — outdated, undersized, and not up to the job anymore. Along with the cable, we replaced 4 junction boxes that were well past their prime.
In their place, we pulled 500 feet of new Cat6A through conduit, including a 300-foot run that directly replaced the old Cat5 backbone. Cat6A handles gigabit speeds with plenty of headroom to spare and will hold up through Ohio winters without any issues. Clean runs, proper boxes, done right.
The Wireless Backbone
Where trenching wasn’t an option, we let Ubiquiti’s Wave technology do the heavy lifting.
For the longest stretch, we deployed a 2,000-foot wireless beam link between the barn and the back gate — nearly four-tenths of a mile of locked-in, point-to-point wireless. Then for the second leg, we used a UDB Pro paired with a UDB Pro Sector to bridge the 1,000-foot span between the field gate and the back gate. The UDB Pro Sector is a beast for this kind of application — it’s purpose-built for long-range outdoor point-to-point links, handling wind, rain, and temperature swings without breaking a sweat. Both links are stable, fast, and completely weather-tolerant.
That said, we’re not afraid to trench when the job calls for it. In one section of the property we trenched right around 400 feet to get cable in the ground the right way — using direct burial outdoor-rated cable built specifically for underground installation. No conduit needed, just the right cable for the job, buried and protected. Wireless is great until it isn’t, and having that hardwired backbone in critical areas means the network isn’t going anywhere no matter what happens above ground.
Switching and Power
The network runs on multiple Ubiquiti Enterprise switch and Enterprise 8 PoE switches distributed across the barn and both gate locations. These aren’t your average switches — they push multi-gigabit speeds, handle Power over Ethernet for all the access points and cameras on the network, and give us a clean managed interface to monitor everything from one place. No unmanaged consumer gear anywhere on this install.
Wireless Coverage
For Wi-Fi, we deployed multiple U6 Mesh access points throughout the barn and gate areas. The U6 Mesh is a great fit for agricultural environments — it’s designed for outdoor and semi-outdoor use, handles the heat and dust of a working barn without issue, and delivers solid Wi-Fi 6 coverage across a wide area. We also added a U7 Pro Outdoor unit for the open outdoor zones, bringing Wi-Fi 7 capability to the property for maximum speed and efficiency as more devices come online.
Cameras
The property is covered by 11 cameras strategically placed across the barn, gates, and entry points. Three of those are PTZ cameras — pan, tilt, and zoom units that give the ability to remotely move the camera view, zoom in on a specific area, and cover a much wider field than a fixed camera ever could. That’s a huge advantage on a property this size where you need flexibility in what you’re watching. All 11 cameras feed back into an on-site Network Video Recorder so footage is stored locally, always accessible, and not dependent on the internet staying up.
The Result
From one end of the property to the other, a local farm now has a unified, fully managed network. Old Cat5 gone, new Cat6A in the conduit, clean junction boxes, fast Wi-Fi in and around the barn, reliable wireless links stretching over 3,000 feet to both gates, and full camera coverage across the whole property — all feeding back into one managed system.
This is exactly the kind of job we love. Big property, real challenges, clean professional solution.
Got a farm, warehouse, or large property that needs proper coverage? Give us a call — we’ve done the hard ones.