Point-to-point wireless bridge
Two Unifi Device Bridge Pro units, one per building, carefully aligned on clear line-of-sight. No relay stations needed at this distance.
Case study
Two buildings, connected wirelessly over 800 metres
A client with two buildings 800 metres apart wanted a single network, without the cost and disruption of digging in cabling. Pantronic IT solved it with a Unifi Device Bridge Pro — a wireless site-to-site link with full VLAN support.
800m
Wireless distance
2
Buildings, 1 network
0m
Cable trenched
L2
VLAN trunking
The challenge
One business network, split across two buildings
The client had a main building and a second location roughly 800 metres away. Both needed to sit on the same network: the same VLANs for data, telephony and guests, the same firewall, and central management from one environment.
A cable connection between the two buildings wasn't an option. A public road runs between them, and 800 metres of trenching means permits, a contractor, and a timeline of weeks to months — for costs out of proportion to the problem.
Two separate internet connections with a VPN tunnel between them was technically possible, but that results in a slower, less stable and harder-to-manage network than one physically joined network.
One logical network
Both buildings needed to behave as a single network, not two separate sites joined by a VPN.
VLANs intact over distance
Data, voice and guest VLANs needed to work in the second building exactly as they do in the main one.
No digging
No permits, no contractor, no weeks of waiting for a physical cable connection under the public road.
Centrally manageable
One Unifi environment where both buildings are visible and manageable, without separate routers or per-site settings.
The solution
A wireless bridge that behaves like a cable
We mounted a Unifi Device Bridge Pro on each building: a point-to-point wireless bridge with clear line-of-sight between the two locations. The bridge operates at Layer 2 — to the rest of the network, it's invisible that there's no cable.
VLAN trunking (802.1Q)
Every VLAN running at the head office — data, telephony, guests — is tagged and passed across the bridge. Building B is, network-wise, simply an extension of Building A.
One Unifi environment
Switches, access points and the bridge itself all sit in the same Unifi controller. One dashboard, one login, no separate configuration per building.
Firewall stays central
All traffic from Building B runs through the same firewall as Building A. No second firewall, no second security policy to maintain.
Fast to deliver
From aligning the bridges to a working, tagged connection: days rather than the weeks trenching would take.
No digging, no permits
No contractor, no municipal permit for crossing the public road, no resurfacing afterwards.
The result
Two buildings, no noticeable difference from one network
Staff in Building B notice nothing about the distance: the same VLANs, the same printers and network drives, the same firewall rules as at the main site. For IT management, it's one network to maintain, not two.
The client saved the cost and lead time of trenching 800 metres of cable, while keeping the full control and segmentation a cabled connection would offer — thanks to VLAN trunking over the wireless bridge.
Sound familiar? Or is something similar coming up for you — two locations, an awkward cable route, or simply a network that's outgrowing itself? We're happy to think through what's possible.
Technology used in this project
- 2× Unifi Device Bridge Pro (point-to-point)
- Unifi switches with VLAN trunking at both sites
- Central Unifi Network controller
- One central firewall for both buildings
- 802.1Q VLAN trunking for data, voice and guests
Multiple locations, need one network?
We're happy to help work out whether a wireless bridge, VPN or leased line best fits your situation.