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My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

alienchow.dev

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Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#121

Post by sschueller »

alienchow wrote: post #32
bradgessler wrote: post #27

What’s the advantage of using fiber optics for home networking over 10Gbe Ethernet?

It's one of those "just because" moments. The idea was to future proof my home infra for a 25G NAS connection. Most ethernet connections tap out at 10G. While theoretically speaking Cat 8 cables can do 40G, hardware support for full 40G Cat 8 NICs is rare. Fibre is very very flexible with its potential bandwidth and SFP28 transceivers are relatively affordable (if you don't do what I did by using SMF. Home networks s…

I still prefer SMF over MMF. It also allows me to "move" where the city fiber comes in and patch it to another location without any active hardware. So I can for example move my router into another room.

I ran SMF and have no regrets. https://sschueller.github.io/posts/wiring-a-home-with-fiber/

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#123

Post by oakwhiz »

alienchow wrote: post #42
dbetteridge wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came to the thread to see if anyone else had mentioned conduit. It's cheap as chips and saves you a lot of future brick cutting or concrete breaking

I do have PVC conduits under the flooring. You can see the photos here: https://alienchow.dev/post/homelab1/ In theory I can pull a new cable through. But practically it might be tough due to the number of bends (shelter -> wall -> vent -> ceiling -> wall -> floor -> room). In the worst case scenario I can give it a try, but it's probably going to destroy the new fibre cable when I pull it through. For now the connec…

Bends ideally need pull boxes, but given the lack of pull boxes, you might be able to use fish tape where where fish rods / glow rods don't work, if you cannot get a pullstring / pull cable going.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#124

Post by ZeroConcerns »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #117
ZeroConcerns wrote: post #96

There's no link to the data sheet of the actual cable, but, yeah, looks like this should not have happened in such a short timeframe unless there's something really funny going on in that room, like ambient temperatures above 50 degC. Another thing that should not have happened is installing the cable in loops in this way: any 'building' or 'underground' type cable needs to be of the exact length required at the dema…

> Another thing that should not have happened is installing the cable in loops in this way: any 'building' or 'underground' type cable needs to be of the exact length required at the demarcation point... This hasn't been my experience with fiber entrance cables terminated by ILECs, Spectrum, and Lumen. They typically leave a significant service loop bound to the cable ladder or backer board-- usually 15-20 feet.

Depends on the type of cable assembly. If it's fiber strands inside a soft-ish plastic jacket (and most of the cable is in fact in conduit), a service loop is fine, albeit a bit pointless for most repair scenarios. For armored cables (which are significantly stiffer), you only do these loops in situations where you expect to need to replace significant sections (think 'getting hit by a falling tree' or 'particularly aggressive rodents') and you have the space.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#125

Post by bob1029 »

ericd wrote: post #41
bradgessler wrote: post #27

What’s the advantage of using fiber optics for home networking over 10Gbe Ethernet?

10GbE rj45 (normal ethernet jack) spf modules tend to burn power and get extremely hot, like to the point of burning you if you touch it - the manual for my switch said to leave adjacent ports unoccupied if using one of those. The fiber ones run cool to the touch. Also, not needing to rerun any cabling if we want to bump up speeds in the future, you just change the laser module on either end. These should be good to…

Fiber runs cool because it's operating well within the physical capacity of the channel. Copper needs an incredibly high signal to noise ratio to overcome the limitations of its medium. Copper will consume 5-10x more power than fiber for the same # of bits transmitted.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#126

Post by deno »

ZeroConcerns wrote: post #124
EvanAnderson wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another thing that should not have happened is installing the cable in loops in this way: any 'building' or 'underground' type cable needs to be of the exact length required at the demarcation point... This hasn't been my experience with fiber entrance cables terminated by ILECs, Spectrum, and Lumen. They typically leave a significant service loop bound to the cable ladder or backer board-- usually 15-20 feet.

Depends on the type of cable assembly. If it's fiber strands inside a soft-ish plastic jacket (and most of the cable is in fact in conduit), a service loop is fine, albeit a bit pointless for most repair scenarios. For armored cables (which are significantly stiffer), you only do these loops in situations where you expect to need to replace significant sections (think 'getting hit by a falling tree' or 'particularly…

Both tree and rat took out my fiber so the loops are definitely useful. If your fiber goes through your whole house it's significantly less work to only have to reconnect one end instead of redoing the whole run.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#127

Post by nubinetwork »

sschueller wrote: post #118
nubinetwork wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't regard them very well personally... I bought a bunch of DAC cables from them, only to have them start emailing me under the guise of assigning me a "account manager"... I blocked their domain from my mail server and told them to never contact me again.

They offer to provide you with personalized service and you block them? What do you do when you walk into a high end watch or clothing store? FS provides account managers and they are very useful if you are working on a project as they can guide you and help you.

Is it too much to ask to just be able to buy things without being chased around by someone?

I have a Newegg business account (and maybe a few more for other pc stores, I'd have to check), but I literally never have them trying to get me to buy things. /shrug

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#128

Post by ErroneousBosh »

russdill wrote: post #4

If you buy a consumer product labeled "military grade" you are buying snake oil. And not just snake oil, incredibly over priced snake oil.

If you buy a commercial product labelled "military grade", you are also buying snake oil.

"Military grade" is generally shit. It's built down to a price, manufactured the cheapest possible way, so they can get the lowest possible tender submitted. Bonus prize if the manufacturer is owned by either someone already in government, or with close ties to someone in government.

The only "military grade" devices I own are some woefully unsuccessful radios, which failed in the market because they were actually good - easy to use, reliable, and easy to repair - which made them about 5% more expensive than the cheapest option which was made by a company part-owned by the government and part-owned by someone who donates heavily to the Conservatives.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#129

Post by Sesse__ »

ZeroConcerns wrote: post #96

There's no link to the data sheet of the actual cable, but, yeah, looks like this should not have happened in such a short timeframe unless there's something really funny going on in that room, like ambient temperatures above 50 degC. Another thing that should not have happened is installing the cable in loops in this way: any 'building' or 'underground' type cable needs to be of the exact length required at the dema…

> any 'building' or 'underground' type cable needs to be of the exact length required at the demarcation point, fastened properly to prevent movement and terminated on a proper patch panel (can be a one-port box-type thingy for small setups)

How exact is exact? :-) I once had to reterminate some fiber that was cut and terminated to exact length, which means there was literally two centimeters from the wall to the connector. I literally had to squeeze the fiber splicer up against the wall to have a chance at splicing on new pigtails, but I had two mis-cuts and I was hosed. :-)

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#130

Post by OneDeuxTriSeiGo »

culi wrote: post #62
somat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Military-grade just means it has a spec, now, I will admit having a spec is nice, very nice. but in general it says little about the actual quality of the item. And if the spec can't be found or there is no spec. Probably best to stay away, in those cases they are not even selling you the snake oil but the sound of it sloshing in the bottle.

There is no legal requirement for it to refer to MIL-SPEC. More often than not it is just pure marketing without any actual spec tied to it

Yeah if you see something labelling itself "MIL-SPEC", that's grade A snake oil bullshit.

That said military spec stuff is actually generally a good sign that something is of higher quality than random off the shelf garbage but only if you know there's a specific spec you want it to work with. And most of the time you aren't even necessarily looking for a MIL-STD (standard) but rather a MIL-PRF (performance rating/spec).

So like if something is "MIL-SPEC" run. But if you see say a spool of fiber that is "MIL-STD-1678 compliant" and more importantly "MIL-PRF-49291 compliant" and "MIL-PRF-85054 compliant", that's probably a really good sign that it'll do its job. The former PRF documenting perf requirements for the fiber itself and the latter PRF the cabling/sheath's corrosion and deterioration resistance.

It's the military so odds are it'll probably cost extra for that and it'll still kinda suck but it'll suck in exactly the way they promised.

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