Paddock Networks

Guide · power in the paddock

Powering network gear where there's no power point: PoE, DC runs and solar.

The best spot for the antenna is the top of the hill, and the nearest power point is four hundred metres away at the shed. Every farm network hits this problem: the places gear needs to go (hilltops, gateways, yard corners, tank stands) are exactly the places nobody ran power. You have three realistic options: carry power up the ethernet cable, run low-voltage DC, or go solar. Each one works inside its limits and fails badly outside them. This page is how we choose between them on real installs.

Last reviewed: 18 July 2026 · by Alien IT Solutions

Option 1: PoE, power and data up one cable

Power over Ethernet is the first choice whenever it's possible, because one cable does both jobs. A PoE injector or switch sits at the powered end, and the access point, radio or camera at the far end runs off the same cable that carries its data. No electrician, no second trench, no batteries to age. It's the same move that gets internet to a shed with no power.

The limit is distance: ethernet is rated to about 100 metres, and that's a data limit as much as a power one: past it, links get flaky in ways that look like anything but a cable problem. In practice that covers a mast on the shed, an AP on the hay barn, or a camera at the yards near a building. It does not cover the hilltop.

For a point past 100 metres, don't stretch the cable. Either place a powered midpoint (a small switch in a box at a building along the way) or change method. A wireless hop plus local power at the far end beats a 180-metre ethernet run every time; the marginal cable will burn more of your life in intermittent faults than a proper link ever will.

Bench notes worth having before you buy: match the PoE standard to the device (802.3af/at/bt and "passive 24V" are not interchangeable, and the wrong pairing can kill gear), and use outdoor-rated shielded cable with drip loops at every entry.

Option 2: the long DC run, and why voltage drop kills it

The tempting move for a point 150–300 metres out: a 12V supply at the shed and a long figure-8 or twin-core run to the device. This is the option that fails most often, and the killer is voltage drop.

Every metre of cable has resistance, and at low voltage the losses are brutal. Drop scales with current and distance, and at 12V there's no headroom: lose a couple of volts down the run and the device at the far end browns out. The failure is nasty because it's marginal: the radio boots fine on the bench, runs for weeks, then reboots every afternoon when transmit load peaks or the cable warms up. Voltage-drop reboots masquerade as firmware bugs, interference, and haunted gear. Measure the voltage at the far end under full load before blaming anything else.

Two real fixes:

  • Thicker cable. Doubling the copper halves the drop. Works for modest runs, gets expensive and awkward fast.
  • Higher voltage, converted at the far end. Send 24 or 48V down the cable and put a small DC-DC converter at the device. Quadrupling the voltage cuts the current to a quarter for the same power, which slashes the loss. This is the same logic PoE uses (it runs at ~48V for exactly this reason), and it's why our default for any deliberate long DC run is 48V down the wire, converted to whatever the device wants at the far end.

If you're pricing a 300-metre trench and heavy cable, price a solar kit for the far end first. It often wins.

Option 3: solar, sized for the worst week, not the average day

Past cable reach, solar plus a battery is the answer, and the way most first attempts fail is sizing from averages. Average daily sun is a fiction that includes the sunny fortnight; your network dies during the cloudy week in July, and a link that drops for three days every winter is a link nobody trusts.

The rule of thumb from our installs: size for the worst week of the year, not the average day. Concretely:

  • Panels: roughly double what an average-day calculation suggests, so the system still harvests enough on short, overcast winter days to run the load and put charge back.
  • Battery: days of autonomy, not hours: capacity to carry the full load through several sunless days in a row while the panel contributes almost nothing.

Network gear makes this harder than sensor work because it never sleeps. An AP or backhaul radio draws its watts 24 hours a day, so every watt of continuous load is a big number of watt-hours per day before you even start on winter derating. It pays to pick low-power gear for solar sites and to resist hanging "just one more thing" off the box; each addition ripples through panel and battery size. For the full worked sizing maths on a small link, our wireless-links arm covers it at Long Range WiFi.

One more field lesson: heat, not electronics, is the usual killer at solar sites. Put the battery and electronics in a vented enclosure, out of direct sun: shaded by the panel itself, on the south side of a post, whatever the site offers. A sealed box in full sun cooks batteries and halves their life; ventilation and shade are free capacity.

Choosing in one pass

  • Within 100 m of a powered building: PoE. Done.
  • 100–300 m and a cable path exists: higher-voltage DC (or midpoint PoE), converted at the far end, never a bare 12V run.
  • Past that, or no cable path: solar, sized for the worst week, in a vented shaded enclosure.

The short version

PoE carries power and data on one cable but honours ethernet's ~100 m limit. Long 12V DC runs die to voltage drop: go thicker, or better, send 48V and convert at the far end. Beyond cable reach, solar works if you size panels at roughly double the average-day answer and give the battery days of autonomy, because the cloudy winter week is the design case. Keep the electronics vented and out of the sun.

General guidance from install experience: loads, latitude and site shading change every sizing number; check your gear's specs before buying.

Who builds it

Paddock Networks is the whole-property connectivity service of Alien IT Solutions, an Australian IT, networks and connectivity company with more than 18 years behind it. Powered points in the right places are half of one network for the whole farm; the plan starts with the connected farm guide. For the link itself over serious distance, see Long Range WiFi.

Put the gear where it works, not where the power is.

Tell us where the dead spot is and where the nearest power point sits. We will work out PoE, a proper DC run or solar for the spot, and give you a straight answer with no pressure. Get a quote.