How to Get WiFi to Your Shed, Paddock or Granny Flat in the Southern Highlands

This is one of the most common jobs we do across the Southern Highlands. You've got a great internet connection in the house — whether that's Starlink or NBN — and you want it to reach the shed, the granny flat, the Airbnb cottage, or the back paddock. Here's how we do it, and what determines the right approach for your property.

The short answer: wireless bridges

For most rural and semi-rural Southern Highlands properties, the best solution is a point-to-point wireless bridge. This is a pair of outdoor units — one mounted on the house, one on the shed or outbuilding — that create a high-speed wireless link between the two points. Think of it like an invisible cable stretched across your property, delivering full-speed internet without any trenching or underground cabling.

We use UniFi airMAX units that can reliably cover distances from 100 metres to several kilometres, depending on terrain and line of sight. Most Southern Highlands farm setups fall well within range.

What about just getting a WiFi extender?

Consumer WiFi extenders (the little plug-in devices from JB Hi-Fi or Bunnings) work reasonably well inside a home. For getting signal to an outbuilding 50–200 metres away, they generally don't work. The signal degrades too quickly over distance, and they're not designed for outdoor use.

A proper point-to-point bridge is a different category of hardware entirely — it's designed to shoot a focused beam of signal across an open distance with minimal loss. The speed at the other end is essentially the same as at the source.

Do you need line of sight?

Ideally yes, though not always strictly. A clear, unobstructed path between the two points gives the best results. In practice, we can often work around gentle terrain by mounting units at height — on a roof ridge, a mast, or in one memorable case, up a tree. Dense bush or a hill in the direct path does create challenges, but there's usually a solution involving intermediate relay points.

What if there's no power at the outbuilding?

This comes up often on larger properties — a paddock camera location, a water pump shed, a remote gate. We solve this with solar-powered setups: a small solar panel, a battery, and a low-power wireless unit that runs indefinitely without mains power. We've installed these in some very remote corners of Southern Highlands properties and they work reliably year-round.

What about underground cable?

For short distances (under about 80 metres), running a buried ethernet cable is often simpler and more reliable than a wireless bridge. The cable needs to be gel-filled (waterproof) and laid in conduit. We've done runs from 10 metres to over 100 metres, and for permanent structures close to the house it's often the cleanest option. For longer distances or when trenching isn't practical, wireless bridges are the way to go.

What can you connect once you're there?

Once you have a wireless bridge or cable link to an outbuilding, that location gets its own local WiFi access point. Everything at that location connects to it just like they would inside the house — streaming, computers, smart devices, security cameras. We've built setups that cover an entire farm with seamless roaming: you walk from the house to the shed and your phone never drops or reconnects. It just works.