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My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

alienchow.dev

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Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#81

Post by madaxe_again »

jandrese wrote: post #13

Looking at the pictures it looks like the fiber itself might be inside of that spiral metal conduit in the middle and the outside is just abrasion protection. There are way too many strands for that outside bit to be the fiber. It's obviously bad that the outside plastic disintegrated, but it looks like the buried cables might be fine. I have a similar problem on my car where the 12v wiring is disintegrating like thi…

The metal coil will hold the actual fibre itself, yes - after a few more layers of protection. This is what is usually called “armoured” cable and is suitable for suspension and direct in ground. Dunno why he’s using it indoors.

Honestly, this writeup is… weird? Dude doesn’t know you can terminate fibre at home with like $50 of gear?

I had the fucking fox attack a freshly laid 500 meter line, literally the day before I was going to stuff it in conduit and bury it. Didn’t just break the fibre, she (I know this fox, well) chomped it into pieces, hauled on the exposed Kevlar, generally had a party.

Did I despair? Did I launch a baby complete with bathwater into the sun?

No. I bought a cleaver, some alcohol wipes, some stripping pliers and a whole bunch of mechanical terminators.

Needn’t have worried. Repaired it, outdoors, first attempt, in the rain, and have since buried it - no problems five months on.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#82

Post by crote »

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…

"10GBASE-T runs hot" is only half true.

The real problem here is that 10GBASE-T is ancient. The spec dates back to 2006! And worst of all: it only saw lukewarm adoption by the datacenter industry, so there hasn't really been a reason for manufacturers to refresh their lineups. This means that SFP+ transceiver you buy in 2026 might be using chips manufactured using a 20-year-old node. No wonder it is running hot!

2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T are essentially using the same technology, but you don't hear anyone complaining about it running hot: hardware for this only recently started to become available due to consumer demand, so any hardware for that is being manufactured using more modern technology, which means a lower power use.

It's still going to consume more power than fiber, but a modern 10GBASE-T SFP+ transceiver should not be burning hot.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#83

Post by unsnap_biceps »

Animats wrote: post #71

Would that be this item? [1] The product description and SKU match. It's not clear who "FS" is. A reseller? A manufacturer? They seem to be in Singapore. There's no excuse for the external plastic sheath disintegrating. They must have formulated the plastic wrong. The terms specify a 30 day warranty. Here's a catalog of real mil-spec fiber optic cables.[2] This is overkill for home applications; you put these in a fi…

FS is a US company. They are a fairly reasonable option for third party networking equipment. We run a ton of their SPF+ transceivers in our racks, as they're significantly cheaper than OEM parts and indistinguishable in operation and we've had excellent support the handful of times we needed it over the years.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#84

Post by aarmot »

gleenn wrote: post #64
isoprophlex wrote: post #48

This is why you always bury a rugged, big diameter tube, and run the cables inside of that.

My friend also always runs multiple string lines through during construction. Later if a wire breaks or you want an additional cable or upgrade, you attach your new wire to a string and pull the string from the other end all the way through. If they had done this, they could have simply dragged a new fiber optic cable through.

You can pull the wire and second string together so you have always a single string in conduit.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#85

Post by fulafel »

bradgessler wrote: post #27

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

Ethernet can be run over copper or fiber cabling, it's not an alternative to fiber networking. Assuming you meant what's the advantage of fiber over copper: you can use faster speeds, longer distances less power on fiber plus it's not electrically coupled.

(speeds: 100 gig today, but faster speeds are coming.)

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#86

Post by lostlogin »

askvictor wrote: post #51
jmward01 wrote: post #23

Anyone in the US military that has bought 'military grade' Bates shoes and pulled them out of a locker after a year just to see the soles disintegrate can likely tell you the value of 'military grade'.

Shoes need to be used, or the rubber and/or glue holding the sole on will deteriorate.

And because they are military grade they need to be used for some military stuff.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#87

Post by crote »

bradgessler wrote: post #27

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

10G is looking to be the end for twisted-pair copper.

25GBASE-T and 40GBASE-T were standardized 10 years ago, but there are still basically zero products available with support for it. The datacenter market just wasn't interested and chose to use fiber and DAC instead. Worst of all: it requires Cat8 cables and is limited to 30 meters. This means it can't reuse existing cabling, and doesn't have the reach for many home applications - OPs blog post mentions the longest run in their apartment being 55 meters.

Combine that with the general death of wired networking for home & office use, and it is extremely unlikely the market of hardcore tech enthusiasts is big enough to warrant massive investments into developing some kind of 25G-over-Cat6-for-100m standard.

10G is pretty much the standard for high-end gear these days. This means any kind of future-proof setup needs to be prepared for a future upgrade to a fiber-based technology.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#88

Post by mkj »

Fs.com are a well regarded company. The OP should contact them and see if there's a recall on those cables or something. Sounds similar to what happened with some mains power cables sold by a hardware store in Australia.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#89

Post by madaxe_again »

kev009 wrote: post #15

There are very survivable fiber cables designed for stage and A/V setups for instance, and even "real" military grade ones. But the common thin LZSH stuff is surprisingly resilient in my experience, so long as it didn't kink the OP would probably have been fine with a "standard" cable. In any case I would always try to place fiber in a place where it can be re-pulled.. conduit, tray, or a plenum. I bought a big spool…

You can kink the shit out of fibre and it’s fine. Like, I’ve accidentally managed ~15mm diameter loops while pulling and then proceeded to yank on them. The Kevlar takes the brunt. Only time I broke a fibre was when it was me and two other guys pulling on it as hard as possible - and instead of moving it went “ping”.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#90

Post by madaxe_again »

bananadonkey wrote: post #75
kev009 wrote: post #15

There are very survivable fiber cables designed for stage and A/V setups for instance, and even "real" military grade ones. But the common thin LZSH stuff is surprisingly resilient in my experience, so long as it didn't kink the OP would probably have been fine with a "standard" cable. In any case I would always try to place fiber in a place where it can be re-pulled.. conduit, tray, or a plenum. I bought a big spool…

The contractors were probably dubious of that resiliency given their lack of experience. I recently ran fibre in my house and have to say I was pleasantly surprised that fiber patch cables (unarmored) can survive a good pull through a duct.

They can survive a 500m pull (in 100m stages, or the friction is too high) in mud and rain, through active water line.

Honestly, fibre, even unarmoured with just a standard Kevlar & HDPE sleeve is hardy stuff. When I first started mucking around with it a few years ago I was like “don’t breathe on it too hard”, now I’m like “tie the fibre in a knot on the bullbar and pull it with the truck”.

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