Once, in the 90s, we were having intermittent network failures in our data center. I kept trying to troubleshoot it with the fluke, but the problem kept moving. When I pulled up the raised floor, I discovered that rats were eating the exterior sheath of the network cables. That was some fun troubleshooting!
The minimum bend radius of any good fiber is way less than cat6 at this point.
G.657A1/B1 = 10mm
G.657A2/B2 = 7.5mm
G.657A3/B3= 2.5mm
CAT6 = 25mm
Flexible cat6 = 15mm.
Fiber surpassed copper for flexibility almost 2 decades ago (G.657 was introduced in 2006, but let's call it 5 years before all forms became common).
Even G.652 was only 25mm and standardized in 1984.
You could, but you might as well just use armoured fibre if you're doing that !
Some of the low core-count CSTA stuff out there these days could almost have you thinking its unarmored if you didn't know. Not at all bulky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4wzJSInvww
the above is from 12 years ago
I've seen some g.657.b3 patch cords and work done for FTTH installs that are absolutely atrocious and yet continue to function properly.
They are all proprietary in their coatings for sure, but it's made to a standard. The only thing is that it's not guaranteed compatible with old G.652 fiber if you try to fusion splice it.
You can get G.657A3 that is, if you want.
But this is representative of A3/B3 cables for sure, and easy to get.
AT&T fiber and Google Fiber actually use this particular stuff in their standard deployments.
Under the covers, most of the glass is usually corning clearcurve zbl (OFS actually makes their own i believe, but for others, less common).
The most common consumer cable these days is G.657A2/B2, which is easily capable of what you see in the video.
As for pricing, i'm not sure what you are paying, but this particular stuff is also easy to get (for a consumer) at 20 cents a foot or less. 1000ft is usually 200 bucks or better. Their are idiots on ebay trying to sell leftovers from fiber installs, but if you go to any really fiber cable seller, that's what you'll pay.
Here are totally custom cuts of 1.6mm outer for 0.25cents/foot: https://www.fiberinstrumentsales.com/tlc-simplex-sm-clearcur...
if you want 3mm outer, it's 0.35cents/foot: https://www.fiberinstrumentsales.com/tlc-simplex-sm-clearcur...
FIS is usually expensive, too. I didn't look hard since that seemed "cheap enough" already.
You can certainly get A1/B1 cable for like 18 cents/foot instead of 20, but if your contractors are crushing cables, seems a bit penny wise, pound foolish.
I also wouldn't run simplex cable, as it doesn't make sense anymore.
As expected, 6 fiber versions of the above cables are only marginally more expensive.
Kinda insane.
Fun fact 1: When you don't have a proper OTDR fiber tester to check for breaks, you can shine a laser pointer down the fiber and see it projected out on a sheet of paper on the other end (you might have to call the person on the other end).
Fun fact 2: If the other end is plugged into a transceiver, don't look at the fiber end directly; instead, look at it through your phone camera. If all is working correctly, you should be able to see a faint purple light out of one of the strands.
P.S. always remember to roll it if no link initially :)
Let me fix that for you.
Don't look at the fiber end directly, always assume it is plugged in unless you can see the other end yourself with your own eyes.
Fibre light meters can be bought cheaply for a basic troubleshooting bag kit-out if you don't fancy splashing out on a fancy device.
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 perspective and, now that I've read the article, it seems to be from a small-scale hosting perspective - entirely different economics.
> Paris downtown
Where is downtown Paris? 1/2/3 arrondissement? I never heard the term used for Paris. Mostly, it is used to describe the Wall Street area of Manhattan (NYC) as the island is relatively north-south and Wall Street is on the southern end.I always thought "downtown" and "uptown" were more like "south from X" and "north from X" where X is some reference point in context (e.g. "where I'm standing"). Turns out, it's more similar to "downwell" and "upwell", i.e. towards or away from some central point (gravity wells being spherical-ish and all).
It just so happens that for Manhattan which is the most famous uptown, all four of those indicators point in the same direction. In general I think an area would more likely be called an uptown if it met more of those criteria relative to some downtown. (And there would be correlation, wealthier residents would buy higher-elevation land.)
( https://www.etymonline.com/word/downtown : "The notion is originally literal, of suburbs built on heights around a city." )
It's the only available word for the concept in American English. I wouldn't recommend saying CBD; that would refer to cannabidiol or to marijuana in general.
Edit forgot link: https://downtownny.com/news/where-did-downtown-come-from/
> Let’s suppose that Fosdick, incoherent from distress, forgot to include the words “to the” between “down” and “town” when describing the direction in which people were fleeing. With this in mind, we can assume that Lower Manhattan is in fact the original “downtown,” as posited by Schwarzer, and that the possible Bostonian origin of the word is simply a misunderstanding.
Australians are the ones who say CBD.
Not sure I have ever heard downtown being used to refer to part of a New Zealand city although I understand its meaning.
There’s also the problem of sometimes, video calls just stutter and seize up and it’s the internet’s fault, not the local network. But with a wired connection, I am immediately confident the problem is not in my network. With WiFi, who knows, maybe it’s my fault. I used to continuously ping the router so I could verify this, and indeed ping spikes would happen. Now with a wired connection I don’t worry about this.
But yeah if you run no latency-sensitive applications, WiFi might be fine.
I retrofit wired my house[1] about 20 years ago; I only have had a small handful of issues with it in that time (all basically mechanical fatigue of jacks). If I have speed, latency or connectivity issues, I can be reasonably sure the last thing I have to debug is the physical network.
[1] Copper, not fiber, but no runs are over 50m. Works to 10G so far. I used a Leviton residential structured wiring system (network, coax and phone at the time; the last 2 long since obsoleted). I did a lot myself since I'd done enough quality time in datacenters to be adequately proficient with low voltage Cat5. Not cheap but not extravagant.
I'm sure it's less of a problem in houses with other materials.
So worth it as in apartment everyone and everything is blasting wifi. I see like 20+ SSIDs.
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.
Fusion splicing will still be 0.01db or better, but you will be well within the power budget of any transceiver you find with mechanical connectors, if we are talking home networking - even a 2km 10gb transceiver that is 20 bucks has a 6db power budget.
Heck, the 10km are cheaper than 2km at this point - 17bucks on amazon, power budget of 16db.
Whatever you do, don't try using the razor-style "hand splicers" and adhesive splice kits. Without a splicer that has a scope, you're just making bets each time that are difficult to test.
I've learned the hard way that it's just not worth it unless you can _see_ what you're working on.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW2HGVT2?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_...
I know a little about fiber connectors, and the different connector modules for speed, but I am not really sure what I need for a splicer for fiber.
A straight cable has an infinite radius, the more bend the smaller the radius
There was an encoding mechanism proposed about 10-15 years ago that used spirally polarized light to carry more channels, but it required the surface of the fiber to be polished to a much higher degree than existing cables in order for the light to go around bends properly.
that depends on the weather and frequency among other things
I guess you could call it "the maximum sharpness tangency" or something like that, but that's not the standard verbiage.
This is 100% wrong.
This is well standardized. As I posted elsewhere:
G.657A1/B1 = 10mm (half an inch)
G.657A2/B2 = 7.5mm (a little over a quarter inch)
G.657A3/B3 = 2.5mm (less than 1/8th of an inch)
The only cable you will find with a 6 inch bend radius is going to be armored interlocking fiber cable or something.
You can take 2mm G657.A3 fiber cable, wrap it around a pencil, and it will work 100% fine.
Even old G652 cable only had a 1 inch bend radius.
Part number: LTP12B024
I am running a project where the low voltage contractor is pulling this fiber cable into a conduit my electricians are installing.
I don’t doubt your bend radius claims on the fiber optic cables you listed, but there are far more types of fiber cable than the ones you listed.
You are confusing the cable jacket with the fiber cable inside of it. This is the spec on the jacket they use and they didn't design this particular jacket to be flexible enough to survive flexing at the level the fiber cable inside of it can. Sure - not all jackets can be bent as much as the fiber. Some because they are not made to be as flexible (as here), some because it's basically impossible (armored interlocking jackets), etc.
I'm not sure what this changes?
The part number with suffix AB0403 (the SMF A1 fiber), if you cut the jacket, you should be able to bend the fiber cable inside at a radius of 10mm and have it be fine. It appears to be standard G.657A1 fiber cable inside.
There are really not far more types of fiber cable than i listed, and this spec sheet definitely does nothing to support that claim, since as i said, it has A1 fiber cable inside the cable jacket that will happily support a 10mm bend radius.
BTW, as an aside, I wouldn't use this stuff - just looking at this sheet and pricing at my normal fiber distributors - it is both overpriced and underspec'ed for its price. Which seems pretty typical for leviton :)
Most 24 standard I/O plenum cable is going to be 7.8mm (this is 9.9, so 30% thicker), and have less than half that bend radius even with non-flexible OFNP rated jackets. If you are being charged more than 2 bucks a foot for it, you should consider other options.
Ahhhh, thanks for clarifying! Now I understand what you’re saying, the jacket and fibers have different bend radiuses (radii). I appreciate you taking the time to explain :) also, noted about there only being a few types of fiber, with a multitude of jackets.
I’ll let my low voltage subcontractor know about the underwhelming Leviton cable, it’s a plan and spec public job so it’s possible the Leviton rep is friends with the engineer and got their cable flat specced, wouldn’t be the first time!
I’m only responsible for the raceway, it’s a 2500’ run between two college campuses separated by a highway that runs outside for a good chunk of the distance so it’s possible the jacket is beefy and inflexible for temp resistance. I’m much more familiar with electrical conductor jackets, THHN and XHHW-2, which are PVC and XLPE, respectively.
But my biggest regrets were:
- Only a single ethernet port in the basement. Then the kid wanted a gaming station and we moved where the TV was. I should have put like 4 down there.
- No ethernet ports in the garage, I should have put in one for an AP.
- 4 ceiling APs instead of just two in the main part of the house. I over-estimated how much coverage I would get from ceiling APs and thus I have some APs hidden under furniture to ensure 100% house coverage.
- Lack of multiple circuits in the garage, even better a separate sub-panel with 6 outlets. I took up wood working and with a single circuit and 2 outlets was insufficient. That cost me $1200 for the sub-panel.
- Multiple outlets on the back and side of the house - I would have done two at the front on each side and two at the back on side each and one on each side of the house. I have a single outlet at the front and back and that is just not sufficient for lights, decorations and patio devices.
My brother-in-law thinks he's crazy, and obviously it only really works if it is practical to run the wire and you can afford the number, but for my relatively small house it is insane how little I think about my internet. It is one of those quality of life things I never would have realized with having someone come and do it for me.
I guess the only thing is some of the ceilings get a little crowded with lights + fire alarm + CO alarm + HVAC in/out + AP, so for small rooms it can be a challenge to figure out where to put things. But in that case I mean ... you don't need one per room. My father-in-law is crazy like a fox ... but he's also a little crazy like a crazy person.
A family member who's doing better in life than I am purchased a house built within the last 5 years, and it didn't even _have_ Ethernet run anywhere. WHY!?! I can't fathom how it's possible anyone would find that a negative.
I'm less sure. Are there any 40 year old cables that you'd consider a positive in your house today? 20 year old cables? I wouldn't be too excited about having a house full of Coax, 10Base-T, and twisted pair.
I feel like the much better solution is to run conduit in which you can replace the cable rather than permanently putting in twice as much of whatever is in favor today. The conduit is always better, right?
I just bought a new house and the previous owner had phone lines everywhere (bedrooms, kitchen, office, rec room - honestly kind of weird). The house was built in 2002 and I gather that it was common at that time to put in Cat5e and just not use all the pairs.
So all it took was a pleasant afternoon with the circuit toner, a new patch panel, and a few keystone jacks, and now the house is networked beautifully. Sure, they're not in exactly the places I'd have dropped 'em if I'd been starting from scratch, but it's hard to beat cables already in the wall for zero effort!
I've still not found a use for the coax or telephone lines. I ditched cable TV 20 years ago, and haven't had a landline since 2004. The ethernet is super useful, though, for APs (paired with a PoE switch), and to to hard-wire the office, and stuff connected to the TV in the living room.
30 years ago I was pulling cat5 into office building ceilings. Some of it is still there, still relevant. GigE runs just fine over it (most of it turned out to meet cat5e spec anyway), and very few applications on the desktop need more than gig.
Conduit is always better, but cat5 has proven to have a surprisingly long relevance.
Yeah, conduits with pull strings and super-gentle curves (to safely satisfy minimum bends) are ideal... but at least run the lines there!
Re: Copper / Fiber. Fiber's a PITA for all users, even powerusers probably don't want it outside of the rack / enclosed areas. Delicate cables / connections.
In a big apartment building you might have to use more narrow channels but I still think the overall picture for 5+6GHz is a good one. Especially because MIMO can squeeze a gigabit into 80MHz or theoretically even 40MHz.
In 5ghz there was only a clean 80mhz + 160mhz block ; while the 6ghz full WiFi 6E / 7 devices can use has 3x full 320mhz (low power only) blocks. However as a negative, a _vanishingly_ small number of OpenWRT devices support either of those standards https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128_wlan6.0ghz and worse chances are really good someone's phone / laptop probably doesn't either.
This seems like crazy overkill. Certainly there are kitchen appliances that devour power, but... what? Assuming an electric stove/oven, you really just need one dedicated circuit for that, and then everything else can run off another circuit. If you expect to use a microwave often, you might want it on its own circuit, but everything else you might have (blender, mixer, toaster, coffee/espresso machine, electric kettle, etc.) will run just fine on a single circuit.
And regardless, you don't need a sub-panel for this. All of these can run just fine as separate circuits off your main panel.
https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-switching/products/u...
Unless you meant with regards to routing the cables throughout the space, like now it’s on the opposite wall from the port.
I’ve definitely shoved cables under baseboards, but you can also pull them off and the run the cable in the wall behind them. You don’t even need to patch the drywall then. You can also get baseboards (that look nice in a home) then double as cable runs.
Interesting. That would be great in the basement. I will look into it.
I ask, as my brother-in-law just finished a house where he had asked the contractor to put in internet cabling everywhere, and... drum roll... yes the contractor put in coax everywhere. I tried powerline adapters, but could only get ~30-40mbps (he has a 1gbps fiber connection from the ISP) over them.
I would definitely recommend if fishing cat6 is not an option and you would need to open up walls. Unless your BIL has a lot of kids and their friends over who all like to stream different 4k movies from a NAS, I can't imagine any normal user with 1gbps WAN finding 2gbps LAN insufficient.
In my small apartment in Denmark, with new wiring, they are terrible. I get about 30-50Mb/s rather than the advertised 1200Mb/s. I assume the signal has to go back to the distribution board to get between my adapters.
https://www.elba.si/izdelki/parapetni-kanali/
https://www.obo.si/izdelki/izdelkiinstalacije-v-zgradbah/bis...
Need one more outlet? Remove the plastic cover, insert cable, insert outlet, cut the plastic cover to make space for outlet, and you're done.
There's a wood effect version, but I suspect it would make a home look like a 1980s office: https://homemaster.techinfus.com/en/kabel-kanaly-vidy-i-razm...
Just drop a switch down there.
> Also I have 10G networking, so the ethernet switches are hot and expensive.
I never understand why anyone needs anything faster than 1G (other than to flex for Internet points). Seriously, how often do you need to move data faster than 100MB/s? Almost never. FYI: A 2.5G switch should be fine. There are many fan-less options here: https://www.servethehome.com/the-ultimate-cheap-2-5gbe-switc...i just upgraded my home network from 40g to 100g. g, not m. Anyone who does video knows the pain of 10g.
I don't think your situation is common.
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€.
I have symmetric 3Gbps fibre to the home via Bell Canada and it reports 4.5Gbps via fast.com.
My PCIe5 SSD can do 14 GB/s, or about 112 gbit/sec.
Did some research. 10gbe cards are about $30, 100gbe qsfp28 cards are about $300, 100gbit 100m transciever about $100.
Like - 50GB at 3gbps is ~130 seconds, ~160 seconds at 2.5gbps, and ~400 seconds at 1gbps
You're always waiting at least a couple minutes, and never more than 10 for that download.
Personally - I have a couple 10gbps switches that run my backbone in my house (NAS, k8s cluster, HomeAssistant, etc) and I have a 2gbps symmetric wan, but all of the offices (my wife and I both work from home, plus the media room, plus the kid's playroom) all just run 1gbps switches.
They're cheap, normal office work basically never saturates those speeds (even multiple conference calls with video is a-ok), and there's just not enough value in bumping up to 10gbps across the whole house compared to the equipment cost.
The 10gbps switches live in the basement and just connect those zones.
What does that mean? I assume you are saying most builders don't offer fiber?
Running fiber in a house is entirely practical and easy to do. Cheap as well.
I think because there are less code specifications for the garage, builders just don't bother.
With a 10G backbone, you can get away with basement->main and main->upstairs in a three-floor house, with a small bridge on your main floor.
DAC is still useful for within rack.
Sure there's ESD risk but I find that much easier to manage.
Many of my devices take 10G ethernet, like MacMini and my MacBook Air docking station. Is there an easy way to convert from DAC to 10G Ethernet? The desktop has an SPF+ card so that will take DAC no problem.
Unfortunately there is no way to pull an any cables easily. But someone else suggested replaceable baseboards that hide cable runs, I should look into that.
Though I'm not sure I would pull them as they tend to max out at around 6-7 meters. I use them to connect systems within the same rack/room.
While my 10G fiber and 10G SPF+ DAC cables are perfectly cool.
I hope this is temporary but 10G Ethernet seems hot. I haven't seen anyone write on this topic yet but it is my findings.
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.
Is it so bad to put in a switch?
2. The post cannot apply to fast/large networks - will be prohibitively expensive.
3. If running a few at home, I suggest to run MTP/MPO. It's basically a structured cable that can have around 12 fibers in them, plenty of future expansion.
Though I'll always run a large awg >>cat6 everywhere so it supports PoE++
The one that went bad is the pullstring.
That works for short runs, but for long runs, the only way to pull the cable without breaking it is to use wire pulling lubricant.
And there's no guarantee that the cable you are pulling is undamaged. Rats don't improve pull strength, and even an electrically good cable can have the tensile strength cord severed.
If you are in that situation, pulling the old cable with dried lube on it may snap it in two, especially if it's pulling the new strand.
That's why leaving a pulling tape in each conduit is a good idea.
You can pull a new pull string in empty conduit pretty easily with a shop vac and a ziploc bag.
> If running a few at home, I suggest to run ... that can have around 12 fibers in them, plenty of future expansion.
What kind of home network needs 12 fibers on a single run!?For a homelab honestly just pull pre-terminated cable with LC connectors, a 20 or 25mm hollow pipe is enough. That way you don't need a splicer machine, experience on how to operate it, or measuring equipment.
the author is a sysadmin, who can definitely change what is plugged in to the switches their employer has chosen to buy, but doesn't have the power to make physical changes between multiple buildings, easily authorise opex spending on cable pullers or retrain as a cable puller.
please actually consider what you're replying to before pushing the REPLY button.
The expensive parts of fast/large networks are not the fiber strands.
* right of use / lease
* trenching and laying and covering
* amplifiers on long lines
* repair/maintenance
* endpoints
... which is why the first thing you upgrade are the endpoints, and the last you do is lay more fiber. Get the most you can afford (often physically) at the beginning.
Yes, it is obviously about small-scale sysadmin cabling. Telco networks have wildly different economics.
SMF optics are single digit dollars more expensive than MMF optics, if you use third-party modules. And you might as well use them because your SP does. In my experience they’re better built and more reliable (longer lasting and lower failure rate. n=1000s of modules) than first-party Cisco optics.
And for the typical price of a Cisco optic you can buy two third-party optics. So now you have a spare. :)
First, they are reprogrammable. They will send you a free programming box with your first order if you agree to a public testimonial on their website. Support are also very responsive if you need new codings they'll try to work with you to find something that works (they can push new codes to your coding box).
Second, more recently, they have the option to choose "not made in China". They sell both China and what they call "S2 Origin" which is any of Germany, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia.
Only downside is if you are buying for personal use you won't be able to buy from Flexoptics. They only sell to companies. (They do have a small number of resellers though, so you might have more luck with indirect sourcing for personal purchases ... you won't get a free programming box tough).
They will look at you funny and maybe even tell you "that's more expensive" because they haven't looked at price lists in over a decade. But they are wrong on all counts (unless you exist in a really whacky market). The only exception here is that some video, HVAC, etc systems require MMF to stay in warranty. In those cases, run both and use the MMF only for that junk.
Here’s a product I’ve purchased for my electricians to install: https://www.maxcell.us/shared-downloads/cp145_MaxCell_Edge_D...
RJ-38 is a 8P4C (eight pin, four conductor) modular connector with shorting bars used to allow an alarm system or similar to seize a phone line when plugged in but for the line to still operate normally with the plug removed.
You might be thinking of RJ-48 which is used in T1 service and thus often has "RJ45" cables plugged in to it, but technically that's 8P4C as well, also with (differently configured) shorting bars that will physically loop the T1 if disconnected.
Ethernet uses an 8P8C modular connector but it's not any of the Registered Jack standards
Specifically these:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10BASE5 (early 1980s)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10BASE2 (mid 1980s, cheap installations like my high school in the early 1990s).
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.)
1. Was the former HQ for a local telecom company 2. Was now an office building with a couple floors of data.
Ages ago, one of the DC providers in the building had run 36 cores to the roof to service a telco.
It was a massive undertaking, the building is riddled with asbestos and old plant. Had multiple renovations etc.
Anyway, a few years later, every telco in the state wanted to be on that rooftop. And they had the only reliable means to service it with fibre. That 36 core became a massive profit generating asset, one that they could have monetised even further if they had have run 100 core instead. But it was never feasible to drill holes for a new duct (Asbestos regulations getting tighter), and it was never feasible to shut down 12 telcos for a day to use the existing fibre as a draw cable.
Getting a single core rented here, and throwing on Bidi's, was like mana from the gods at the time.
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.
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.
> I recently had the primary fibre fail
Woah, this is surprising. Do you know the root cause? I could imagine copper cabling is much more sensitive to the outdoors, that is why I am so surprised about your fibre failure.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.
— Joseph Bazalgette, on doubling the pipe diameter when building the London sewer system
(though I don't have an original source for that quote)
You might save a little bit going with 4 pairs instead of 24. But that goes out the window as soon as you need to run a single new cable. If you want to be stingy, pull the cables but leave them unterminated.
For example, a building built in 1960 had analog phone lines. Then in the 80s network lines were added. Then in the 90s - 00s more and more and more network were added.
Then in the 2010-2020's we're starting to wind back down. Removing switches and racks that used to be fully populated with CAT5 which are now mostly empty. The end devices that needed these runs are now running on WiFi.
I've been in many, many buildings for cabling issues. While I generally agree with your assessment of "run more everything" I think this could be taken out of hand for a lot of smaller IT departments who aren't capable of using more advanced methods of network building. Like subnetting, VLAN trunking, or redundant links.
Why would you need to learn about these things if you've got 3 or 4 more pairs of fiber hanging down? Then you have a situation that I've seen before, where you have 2 fiber runs carrying flat networks right next to each other with just a couple of IP phones on each one.
Or into your handhole/vault, along with her babies:
https://old.reddit.com/r/FiberOptics/comments/1ji3rrt/its_no...
For short runs inside a building, the transceiver prices are much more comparable. Compare https://www.fs.com/products/251819.html?now_cid=4089 to https://www.fs.com/products/282973.html?now_cid=4089
Except, no, you can run (single lambda, not muxed) LR transceivers on MMF, it's out if spec but you actually get around +20% range before hitting dispersion limits.
I'll also note SR ranges are not in fact long enough for larger buildings. And this gets worse with higher speeds, since modal dispersion is a bandwidth problem, not attenuation.
Also, using 800G for comparison is a bit ludicrous ;). 10G is bread&butter, 25G/100G is mainline. (40G is the shunned weirdo uncle.)
Now lets say you want to send multiple signals to get more bandwidth on one fiber, you just need to move the frequency/wavelength of light so different signals have different wavelengths and can be discerned at the receiving end. That's gonna take even more optics and filters on both ends, but works quite well to add more bandwidth to existing fiber installations where running more fiber would cost a lot more than installing new equipment on the ends.
> heat of the transceivers
I never heard this before, but I have no reason to doubt you. Are multi-mode or single-mode transceivers hotter, and why?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.
But some brands would run too hot for an enclosed space and a Netgear one would burn your fucking house down.
Seems like for discoverability you'd have to mount it backward or upside down somewhere so that people can see the ports, and then what about the wifi signal? I see what you mean.
I have no experience with them, though.
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
A second common problem is the wire installer pulling the fiber around sharp corners, sometimes with staples and zip ties. Fiber is surprisingly resilient, but very sharp bends will cause significant problems. Using armored fiber can help this a bit.
You can also get bend-resilient unarmored fibre. Its what the incumbent telcos use when they send out their monkeys (sorry "engineers") who've been on a 4-hour afternoon course on how to install fibre before being let loose. Old copper "that'll do" install habits die hard in the telco world.
Screws should _never_ be able to hit the wiring. If that's possible, someone failed to install nail plates or Smarshield sleeves.
As for the sharp corners, IMHO you should always install a raceway of some sort (everyone just uses smurf tube), then pull the fiber in afterward. It takes real effort to fuck up the bend radius of conduit.
Smurf tubes work great, but are not practical in some high density environments, especially a house with steel structure and I-beam joists. I used these for some locations in my house, but not all.
Let me fill this in: in 2025 you (and everybody else) should be running SMF. If you need to directly connect to existing MMF you should run that additionally. But do not build MMF-only in 2025. It's akin to installing Cat5 (non-E) or even Cat3. And you pay mostly for the work, not the cable. Do yourself a favour and put SMF in.
I recently had my house remodeled. A lot of the walls were opened up and I asked the contractor to run fiber and cat 6a everywhere. Now every room has multiple drops of each. Even the outdoor and garage have several drops. Bathrooms have ethernet. Attic, basement and storage room has multiple drops. I may have overdone it. But, I never wanted to every worry about this ever again.
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.
I’ve done cabling in two houses and I’ve never had too much. I’m always finding reasons to run more to new places.
ATM running at 1Gbps, but I will soon upgrade the router, switches, SFP+ modules to run at 10Gbps since my internet provider will upgrade the offering from 2.3 Gbps to 10 Gbps this year.