FTTS (Fibre to the shed)

[cpvh]

Hi All,

I have settled on running my mains cable to the shed in buried conduit and have decided a fixed network link makes sense.

I was going to run CAT5 (naughty but cheap (or so I thought)). But it turn s out you can get pre terminated fibre patch leads for next to nothing.

Kenable list an LC-LC in (IIRC) 50/125.

Would this be suitable (Probably with some kind of connector converter) to use with a pair of cheap 10/100 media converters?

Or if not, what spec of fibre should I go for (that will ideally do nowt in the short term, 10/100 in the medium term and GB in the long term (unless GB media converters are also silly prices now, in which case I?ll n ot bother going 10/100).

[spuorgelgoog]

Depends what you mean by silly money, GB is £80 on ebay, £160 ret ail

Multimode (MM) LC fibre.

Owain

[cpvh]

Silly = In budget.

Maybe £50 a pair tops.

Looks like I?ll continue using the power link adapters for the time being.

So it?s just a question of which fibre to put in for future use.

[Theo]

I looked at this recently. My favoured supplier of bits is FiberStore. What I'd do is have a switch with an SFP (1Gbit) port at each end, which allows upgrading to SFP+ (10Gbit) in future. SFP+ switches are getting there but still slightly on the pricey side. An alternative is a SFP+ network card in a PC at each end, which are about £20 on ebay these days.

Into the SFP(+) port goes a transceiver that then connect to the fibre. If I look for those:

they come in 1310nm and 850nm versions, various single and multimode fibre, mostly with LC Duplex connectors.

If I then want an armoured patch cable:

a lot of these are aerial or indoor cables not intended for burial. They do sell direct burial cable, but unterminated. I supposed you could bury some and then worry about terminating later - it's easier to run unterminated cables through holes.

However if you want a patch, something like this might go in a duct:

and that's 1310nm single mode.

As to costs and single mode v multimode:

So I'd line up a setup of transceiver, connector, patch cable before buying. If you treat 'SFP' as your termination, that should then plug into any switch.

Theo

and if you wanted a 400Gbps point to point link:

[George Miles]

d have decided a fixed network link makes sense.

ns out you can get pre terminated fibre patch leads for next to nothing.

o use with a pair of cheap 10/100 media converters?

in the short term, 10/100 in the medium term and GB in the long term (unles s GB media converters are also silly prices now, in which case I?ll not bother going 10/100).

[jrwalliker]

and have decided a fixed network link makes sense.

urns out you can get pre terminated fibre patch leads for next to nothing.

to use with a pair of cheap 10/100 media converters?

t in the short term, 10/100 in the medium term and GB in the long term (unl ess GB media converters are also silly prices now, in which case I? ll not bother going 10/100).

You can do the job very cheaply. A TP-Link MC220L media converter (which has a socket for an SFP transceiver) costs about £20 new and operates at 1Gbit/s ONLY. Or you can do as suggested and use switches at one or both ends which accept SFP modules such as Netgear GS110-TP. I'm sure there are cheaper switches that will work. You can have an MC220L media converter at one end and an SFP capable Gbit switch at the other Multimode (850nm) SFP transceivers can be bought from eBay for a pound or two each. Single mode ones are rarer but can also be bought for a few pounds. Pre-terminated patch cables are cheap. For example you can buy a 57m LC to LC multimode patch cable for £20 on eBay. Some more expensive switches are picky about which SFP transceivers they will work with (purely for marketing reasons). Neither the MC220L or the GS110TP have any connection to the i2c bus in the transceiver, so they are unable to detect the make of the transceiver. This means that they will work with any 1Gbit transceiver.

I have found that 10Gbit transceivers work fine in 1Gbit sockets, as do

4Gbit fibre channel transceivers.

In theory, an underground duct should be fitted with water-protected fibre, but in reality the shed will probably rot away before ordinary patch cables are affected by water as the link margins are quite large over the short distances involved.

So, if you go for 1Gbit-only operation with media converters and SFP modules the budget is around:

2 x £20 media converters 2 x £2 SFP transceivers 1 x £20 45m fibre patch cable Total: £62 + some postage

John

[jrwalliker]

:

t and have decided a fixed network link makes sense.

turns out you can get pre terminated fibre patch leads for next to nothing .

r) to use with a pair of cheap 10/100 media converters?

owt in the short term, 10/100 in the medium term and GB in the long term (u nless GB media converters are also silly prices now, in which case I? ?ll not bother going 10/100).

Ignore my arithmetic! £64 + some postage

[Paul]

There must be some reason for putting the demarc in the shed. Is it because doing a demarc at the house or garage is too messy ? Here, a garage interior wall is where the demarc and equipment goes.

Knowing what I do about fiber, I'd select CAT7 as someone else suggested :-) If you're going to pull fiber through a conduit, it should be by itself, and the conduit has to be big enough so that the captive connector will slide through too. (That's because home users are not likely to enjoy terminating their own cable, or using a $5000 fusion splicer.)

And the conduit cannot exceed the bend radius, so no sharp turns. There are some fiber patch cords available, with excellent bend radius (they're rubber coated rather than a harder material). I only had a couple of the nice patch cords in the lab, bendable down to six inch radius. Some other harder-shell materials, tend to kink if you stress them too much.

For systems here, there's a section on dslreports.com , where solutions to problems with the fiber demarc have been discussed. Our fastest system delivers at 1.5Gbit/sec, which is surely a strange choice for a limit. Subscribers on the 1Gbit/sec option, don't have to worry their pretty heads about anything, as the demarc and equipment are tailor made for the home install. But to get the benefit from paying extra for 1.5Gbit/sec, that required a lot of faffing about, and someone on dslreports figured out how to get a benefit from it. Whereas most users would be getting 1Gbit/sec while paying for 1.5Gbit/sec.

There is usually a canonical forum, where a couple installers, and some experiences first-adopters hang out. The make and model number of the termination equipment, might make a good keyword for Googling.

Paul

[Dave Liquorice]

And be suitable for pulling rather than blowing. Conduit is cheap, holes in the ground to put in aren't (either in time/effort or fiscal).

There are field termination systems available that don't require fusion welding, epoxy or polishing. Very quick, couple of minutes and simple to do. Still not cheap though, tool kit about £700, connectors about £8 each...

[Theo]

For me I'd run twisted pair (cat6a, there's not a lot of benefit to cat7)

*and* fibre. Fibre will give you all the ethernet bandwidth you want, just upgrade the gear on the ends as needed. Twisted pair copper is useful for conveying some things that aren't ethernet, such as video, analogue phone, TV aerial, doorbell, etc. You /can/ stick a box on each end to turn those things into ethernet and back again, but why do that if you just put a cheap balun on the end and run them down twisted pair?

Theo

[cpvh]

Lots of food for thought.

I used to have a job with a high faultin title with networking in it. And the Network Manager above me reckoned running CAT5 outside was a no no (min d you, Openreach seem to do ok running twisted pairs outside!

There is vey minimal bandwidth requirement at present, the shed is only use d occasionally and there isn?t a PC in there at present. There is an old BT hub which is lit up via a pair of powerlink type adaptors providi ng a 10ish Mb link back to the house. (Measured with Speedtest on my phone the other day and achieved approx 10Mb in each direction.

I hadn?t considered the bend radius issues,

I will give this all another dose of thinking about.

[cpvh]

Having had another look in the bay of the flea, flat CAT7 patch leads seem to be pretty much immune to bend radius issues.

I might go for one of them.

[Theo]

I'd look carefully, because some flat cables aren't actually twisted pair. They get away with it as a patch cable because they're short and they aren't up to spec, but you won't notice if only a few packets are being lost.

Also beware ebay and friends, where they just make up a bigger number to make them look better without actually being up to spec. I'd buy from a reputable supplier.[1]

Theo

[1] is where my most recent cabling stuff came from, but there are lots of others like that

[John Rumm]

You can get exterior grades of CAT5, with a tougher sheath, and a few armour wires in there...

[John Rumm]

Also take care that its proper copper and not Copper Clad Ali (CCA) or copper clad steel (CCS)...

[polygonum_on_google]

d have decided a fixed network link makes sense.

rns out you can get pre terminated fibre patch leads for next to nothing.

o use with a pair of cheap 10/100 media converters?

in the short term, 10/100 in the medium term and GB in the long term (unles s GB media converters are also silly prices now, in which case I?ll not bother going 10/100).

What about a simple TP-Link N300 Wireless Outdoor Access Point? (Or similar - there are other makes and models.)

If your shed is not too, too far away that would likely do your shed and pr ovide good wifi access across your garden.

[cpvh]

Having thought some more (and compared the outside diameter of the mains cable with the inside diameter of the trunking). I as m now thinking to run a separate conduit with Proper CAT6a and / or fibre.

[Cynic]

I've got 9 cctv cameras and a ptz control pair running in 3 cat 5 cables ea ch cable around 60 metres length. Routed through the house loft, down the o utside wall and underground in pvc conduit before emerging into the various farm sheds. 1 of those is copperclad steel the others solid copper. Apart from an early failure of my termination attempt to a balun on the steel eve rything has worked just fine. Cameras are locally powered. Is the reluctance to use cat 5 outdoors just pedantry?

[Dave Liquorice]

Probably comes from no exterior grade Cat5 being available when it first appeared and the soft PVC insulation not taking kindly to UV. May even have been slightly porous.

Having said that I've got some ordinary installation Cat5 outside "temporally", semi shaded south facing. Been there for not quite a decade . Hasn't fallen apart yet, still soft, pliable and works.

[Nick Cat]

+1, + another 1. Always throw in a couple of cat5s even if you don't need em. The cost is trivial, and it only takes one time later needing to put cable in to realise how foolish it was to not chuck em in first time round.

NT