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If you get the chance, always run more extra network fiber cabling

utcc.utoronto.ca

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Re: If you get the chance, always run more extra network fiber cabling

#121
post #15

I just had this experience. I had a 200ft run between my house and barn. The original builder put a direct bury ethernet between the two and it failed. I dug a trench, put in a conduit, pulled 2 fibre lines and left a pull string in. I recently had the primary fibre fail and am now on the backup. If I need to pull new ones in the future I can do that pretty easily through the conduit.

I used to consult for an ISP that put direct bury in a region where it snows 1/3rd of the year.

It was profit generating. They would offer to put conduit in for an extra fee, the customers always said no, then they would be back to install conduit and cable in the spring after the ice had killed the cable.

Re: If you get the chance, always run more extra network fiber cabling

#122
post #52

I was under the impression that once laid, fiber is the most stable and future proof between all mediums (barring physical damage). After all it won't rot, stain or degrade like copper. It's plastic, mostly.

Depends on timescale.

Like if you are in an area that has frequent natural disasters or just heaps of construction work, you will find that RF is more stable and future proof.

Also, you can get issues with cable bends and terminations. Which are simple to fix, but often go undetected by cheap fiber carriers.

I manage a couple pair of dark fibre for a customer, and the fibre runs through a couple of suburbs that are under constant development. And they have near monthly half day outages, and quarterly 1 - 2 day fibre outages.

Like others have said, backhoes hunger for the glass.

Re: If you get the chance, always run more extra network fiber cabling

#123
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does multi mode sound like it should carry more bandwidth but from context seems to be the less interesting option?

Mode is simply the wavepattern of the light traveling through the optical fiber. Multimode means there are a few different wavepatterns traveling down the fiber, they tend to potentially interfere and its not as efficient of a use of optical power. In singlemode, this is a lot harder to do and requires better optics, the light is in one pattern, power is efficiently allocated to that pattern, and thus the light can b…

Rather than interfering with each other multimode suffers mainly from modal dispersion as the modes do not travel the same path and some take a shorter or longer one, so the signal is spread out.

Re: If you get the chance, always run more extra network fiber cabling

#124

Yeah, we got a new house built 4 years ago and one of the biggest regrets is not enough ethernet outlets (running fibre in the house isn't practical yet) and power outlets in various places. It is really hard to think of all the places you would want them ahead of time unfortunately and as each has a cost you don't want to incur it unnecessarily. But my biggest regrets were: - Only a single ethernet port in the basem…

> running fibre in the house isn't practical yet

I think it is. A pair of switches and a single run isn’t that expensive and it’s truly beautiful.

But… I still wish I’d put in 2 cables and not one.

Re: If you get the chance, always run more extra network fiber cabling

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People commonly use the word "Ethernet" to mean "Ethernet cable", as in a copper cable with an RJ45 on it, not just "Ethernet protocol", which is used over both copper and fiber alike.

It's interesting how long twisted-pair cabling has stuck around, to the point that it's associated as being the physical medium for Ethernet. Ethernet started with coaxial cables, but soon lost its association with those as twisted-pair was cheaper & easier to work with. And it's stayed that way for so long that a CAT-5 cable with RJ-45 (really RJ-38 but that's excessively pedantic) connectors is an "Ethernet cable",…

> RJ-45 (really RJ-38 but that's excessively pedantic) connectors

If we're being overly pedantic:

- the RJ numbers refer to not just the connector but the pinout and such

- the RJ (registered jack) numbers refer to just the "jack" side, not the "plug" side

So even though an "Ethernet" cable has plugs on it that fit into an RJ38X jack, its wrong as well to call it an RJ38 plug:

- different pinout

- the plug is the mechanically the same, but pedantically it isn't correct to call any plug a registered jack, because it's a plug not a jack

- the jack is mechanically different; an RJ38X jack shorts pin 1 to pin 4 and pin 5 to pin 8 when there's not a cable plugged in to it (this makes it a "series jack" instead of a regular "jack").

                        Name  | Mechanical jack                  | Mechanical plug
    47 CFR part 68 (registered jacks)
                        RJ45S | miniature 8-position keyed jack  | miniature 8-position keyed plug
                        RJ38X | miniature 8-position series jack | miniature 8-position plug
    ANSI/TIA-568 (Ethernet)
                        T568A | miniature 8-position jack        | miniature 8-position plug
                        T568B | miniature 8-position jack        | miniature 8-position plug
I don't believe any registered jack uses a miniature 8-position unkeyed jack (but scanning through 150 pages is a pain and for some reason Ctrl-F isn't working reliably in this PDF).

(ANSI/TIA/IEC calls them "modular" jacks/plugs, while the FCC calls them "miniature" jacks/plugs, but same thing. Well, same thing the way that CAT-5 and CAT-5e are the same; same, but with different specified tolerances. And just saying "Ethernet" or "568" isn't specific enough here; CAT-6 requires an IEC 60603-7-4 connector, while CAT-5e only requires an IEC 60603-7-2 connector; even though most people would call those the same, they have different tolerances. I don't care to compare the FCC's 47 CFR part 68 requirements with the IEC 60603-7-{2,4} requirements.)

Re: If you get the chance, always run more extra network fiber cabling

#126
post #29
post #9

Originally thought this was excessive, but at least 4 per outlet/room. Saves buying a bunch of smaller switches. 1 for a switch (Although VLans can help) 1 for telephony if required 1 for media devices / peripherals 1 extra Optional fun use of HDMI over ethernet for more runs. Behind TVs, you can break it down, or just run a bunch of runs.

I routinely wish someone had designed a power outlet shaped switch that runs on POE. But some brands would run too hot for an enclosed space and a Netgear one would burn your fucking house down.

There are some depending on the number of ports you're after. I'm not sure if it would run directly on Poe, but maybe PoE could be converted to USB power to run something like a GL-iNET device or something that sized.

https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-b3000/

A bigger issue with ethernet presently and for the last while is unreasonable prices on 10GbE both adapters, switches, etc.

Sticking with other mediums for now for 10GbE

Re: If you get the chance, always run more extra network fiber cabling

#127
Not as a serious other-side but I knew an engineer associated with ARUP and during the time of Canary Wharf being in design, the plenum spaces were re-sized twice as a function of emerging pre-fibre burdens.

I believe now, there is probably the equivalent of 3 or more floors of unused space, consumed by oversize plenum in the light of emerging fibre.

I do believe fibre probably is a sensible end road for "small enough" and so pulling more of it, for the same radial bend and cable diameter probably makes sense.

Also bear in mind "re clocking" by tuning the lambdas and deploying new lasers is a thing. That 100 pair fibre can be re-clocked across it's lifetime and be the equivalent of 1000 pairs in equivalent bandwidth, by the time you're done.

Re: If you get the chance, always run more extra network fiber cabling

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about this and it is very expensive. And do I need 10G really? I do not think so. I did calculated few things when I was thinking about 10G and most probably I will not saturate 1G for few years. And with phones ans laptops mostly WiFi is used anyways. So can I ask you what is the advantage for using 10G equipment in your case? Even something really dull like network card costs around 100€.

10G is awesome for (1) downloading steam games - many are +50GB these days, (2) downloading Ollama models, (3) downloading ISOs, (4) downloading app/OS updates and (5) I have a NAS also on the 10G network for media backups. I have symmetric 3Gbps fibre to the home via Bell Canada and it reports 4.5Gbps via fast.com.

I’ve got Virgin cable and can pull 6Gb a minute from fast.com. Your hypothetical 50Gb steam game would take a whole 9 minutes assuming steam can saturate my connection. So that’s like enough time to hit start download , make a brew and come back to the pc. Why bother.

Re: If you get the chance, always run more extra network fiber cabling

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yup, always run extra everything Cables ain't free, duct capacity is finite and duct rental from the local incumbent is costly too... Please calculate the financial optimum of pay now vs. pay later - taking into account growth, various forms of attrition, cost of capital, opportunity costs and appetite for risk. Or everyone would be running 1152 strands cables everywhere. But then I see that from a telco perspectiv…

Or, take the money you would spend calculating that, and that's the amount you spend for your margin.

Haha, I'll tell that to the outside plant capacity planning team !

But seriously, I'm telco-biased, and it seems that the article has a small scale hosting... Different worlds. At small scale, sure - the bigger cable is a rounding error.

Re: If you get the chance, always run more extra network fiber cabling

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yup, always run extra everything Cables ain't free, duct capacity is finite and duct rental from the local incumbent is costly too... Please calculate the financial optimum of pay now vs. pay later - taking into account growth, various forms of attrition, cost of capital, opportunity costs and appetite for risk. Or everyone would be running 1152 strands cables everywhere. But then I see that from a telco perspectiv…

Duct capacity is finite, but fiber cables are tiny and they are very nearly free compared to the cost of having them run.

Not quite tiny - a basic armored (rats !) 12 strands cable may be around 10-15 millimeters, whereas similarly specced cables in the 500 strands range might reach 20-30 mm. In crowded Paris downtown, it adds up fast. On the countryside, that is a lot more weight to hang on poles.
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