Long Run Ethernet or Fiber

[dgeezer]

This isn't really related to SageTV, except that my wife would like to watch recordings in the office.

I am in the process of building a new house in the country. We are also building an office for my wife's business on the same property. The 2 buildings will be approximately 600' apart. Currently we share one network between her office, which is currently in our garage, and our house.

Does anyone have any experience with doing this? It seems that I have 2 options. One would be using cat5e and placing a switch in the barn which is almost halfway in between the house and the office and thereby keep each cat5e run to 300'. Maybe, the horse needs internet.... He already has power, lights and water.

My other option seems to be to run a fiber cable between the house and the office. I can find fiber optic jumper cables on the internet that are 200M (650 ft) long. I could run this through conduit between the two buildings. I know that I would need an adapter at each end. This would probably cost about $500.00 plus the conduit and the digging, but I would save 50 to 60 per month for an additional internet connection.

[bcjenkins]

The fiber run could be considered a business expense (consult cpa/tax attorney) 100 meters is the max length for gig. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabit_Ethernet

B

PS - A conduit would be ideal regardless as you never know what you may want to do in the future.

[drewg]

Originally Posted by dgeezer

I know that I would need an adapter at each end. This would probably cost about $500.00 plus the conduit and the digging, but I would save 50 to 60 per month for an additional internet connection.

If you already have switches that accept fiber modules (gbic, sfp, etc), you should be able to find the modules on-line for considerably less.

If you're running linux, a lot of the sub $25 10 year old NICs pulled from servers and sold on ebay will work just fine, as they mostly have old chipsets that are well supported. Just make sure you avoid things with a PCI-X connector, unless you have PCI-X slots. (Note that PCI-X is **not** PCI-Express, which is abbreviated PCIe). PCI-X was common for server grade GbE NICs of that vintage.

Drew

[wubdich]

I would recommand to use a fibre optic connection (or a leat unshielded twisted pair cables but never any kind of shielded twisted pair cables) because you will not have any issues with different ground potential / ground loop, which is not so uncommon bewteen different buildings.

Using armored cable would also be a good idea (rodent protection, water, ...).

Regarding to the length you are talking about multimode fibre should be sufficient - there is no need to use the more expensive monomode fibre.

If you have a clear line of sight between the two buildings you could use a WLAN-Bridge which might be easier to install (no digging ...)

[brainbone]

A gigabit switch in the barn using Cat5e seems the least expensive option with the benefit of net access in another building. Who knows, you may want a web-cam in the barn someday, or an IP phone, or...

If you go this route, think about connecting a UPS to the switch in the barn, just in case.

In any case, I would lay conduit from the house to the barn and then from the barn to the office. If you later decide you need fiber, or even another run of Cat5e, it's easy to pull through. Just don't clip it when you pass it through the barn if you want a continuous run to the office.

[Fuzzy]

I also think a wireless bridge setup, with some high-gain directional antennas would probably be the easiest solution. Some wireless bridge antenna systems can connect up to 5 miles.

Of course, if you aren't against doing the hardwired approach, it will be more stable, and much more future proof. A long underground run like that, with PVC conduit, wouldn't be difficult to lay, but I would definitely recommend using higher-schedule pipe, and a J-Box at least at the mid-way points. Pulling cable, even through straight pipe, 300 feet is no easy task. A J-Box in the middle makes the pull that much easier.

[dgeezer]

Thanks for the suggestions. I hadn't thought about the webcam in the barn but I really like that idea. It would be nice to be able to check on things over there from my laptop. We've got to trench from the house to the barn to the office anyway. I want to run water from my well to the barn and the office as well as a new 220V feed for the barn. It currently has a piece of Romex strung between a couple poles and another old building which is falling down. I will probably have a trench with a water line and at least 2 runs of conduit 1 for power 1 for data.

Fuzzy, I have also considered wireless. The lowest priority would be getting SageTV to stream between the buildings so I'm not too concerned about bandwidth. The most important consideration in my opinion is to be able to backup the office pc's to a server that is kept at my house. The only problem would be that I don't have true line of sight. The two structures are at roughly the same elevation but there are a few large trees in between. Maybe, I'll get a couple woks (wokfi) and see what happens....

If the wireless link was faster than my ISP then we shouldn't notice a difference in either place. It's not a huge operation , but we do have 4 people online at the same time every day.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by dgeezer

If the wireless link was faster than my ISP then we shouldn't notice a difference in either place. It's not a huge operation , but we do have 4 people online at the same time every day.

If you plan on doing backups over that wireless link, depending on the size of the backups, you may not be happy with the performance.

A wireless link may be a relatively inexpensive option to get net access if you need it in a hurry. If you can wait, go the wired approach. Wired will have higher reliability and, due to more available bandwidth, greater flexibility for future options.

[Zippster]

No matter which options you choose, seeing as though your building new, dig a trench and toss a couple lengths of conduit in, the pvc is cheap and will accommodate years of upgrades and add ons.
Extra tip, make sure you always leave a fish string in it, so if you pull a new line, attach another string to it so one is always in place.

[dgeezer]

I thought I'd post my results in case anyone ever comes across this thread looking for a similar setup. We haven't moved in yet but I have finished the cabinets, counter tops,trim, doors, plumbing etc and now I am finally working on the important stuff. Networking and TV!

The county inspector chose the location for the water well and it happened to be about 450' from the office and about 200' from our new house. I wanted to serve both buildings from one well so I trenched and ran a water line to each location. I buried a run of 1-1/4" conduit in the trench with a junction at the well head. I probably should have used 1-1/2 inch conduit, since the pre-terminated fiber has a fairly large head wrapped in plastic.
I purchased a 750' spool of pre-terminated 6 strand fiber optic cable from this site along with 2 10/100 media converters here. I used a shop vac to suck the pull string through the empty conduit and pulled the cables in the two runs (office to well, well to house). I pulled the fiber, a run of cat5e and a regular cable tv coax. The cat5e is not for networking but is to run an extension for the business landline.

The fiber seems to be working great. The network speed seems fine. I have an HDHomerun in the office attached to the TW cable and I can watch clear QAM stations using the silicondust software on my laptop in the new house. No dropouts or problems whatsoever. So, I should be able to put my SageTV server in the office and then set up the clients in the house and have a working remote system. Plus, I have loads of expansion options with the fiber portion. I am only using 2 of the 6 strands and I can also get gigabit media converters if I find the 100 mbit is a real bottleneck.

I was hoping to be able to receive the Cable TV signal at my house and be able to locate the server there but so far it doesn't work. My wife also still watches cable without going through SageTV about half the time. I have an amp attached to the cable at the office and then about 700' of coax running to my house. When I scan for clear QAM at the house I only get 2 channels. One pay per view movie preview channel and another Time warner premium ad site. Of course, they are both clear as can be..... My next step is to search around a little and find some info on sizing amps to long cable runs.

Thanks for all the suggestions

[wubdich]

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by dgeezer

I pulled the fiber, a run of cat5e and a regular cable tv coax.

Options. I applaud you sir.