Hi Guys,

Not sure if we still have the knowledge for this on the forum, but someone needs to get wifi in a building 150m away from their main house, cost isn't so much of an issue within sensible limits..

They are laying an armoured mains cable, so if we can do something underground then that's ideal, but CAT6 is a 100m limit and there is no option for power in between.

So options are:

- Run 150m of armoured CAT6 next to the mains cable and cross your fingers!
- Building to building focused wifi antenna between the two, there are trees next to building 2 so may need a pole the other side of the trees (no ideas if the trees are going to make an impact?
- Armoured fibre optic cable between the two, not sure what available at "consumer" level?
- EoP (Ethernet over power) Assuming we can get it on the same ring main, does anyone know how this should work over 150m?

It needs to be reliable not need support in life, so money spent up front, rather than cheap components?

Does anyone have any experience or is there anything I have missed?

Cheers

Jake

how fast do you need it ?

you "should" get 100mbit fine over 150m of armoured cat6 cable
(or even drop it to 10mbit if that's any good)

it needs to be armoured if it's next to the mains cable

and put a decent switch at each end

is the full 150meters underground ?

if there's somewhere you can access it, you could always use 2 of the unused network wires to send power down to a switch/booster in the middle ?  if you do this you'll have to check the voltage at the switch in the middle and adjust at your source to make up for the voltage loss along the cable... (one of those cheap wall wart type power supplys with a switch on can do it easy)

Yeah the full 150 meters is underground, so that's why I'm a little concerned, it's literally under a garden so no option for a repeater, the main problem is we can't really test it until weeks later, it looks like its going to be about £450 for that length (after a quick google)

It needs to be quick enough to browse the net reliably, the internet in the location is probably going to be no more than 10 meg at the router..

Still don't want to spend £450 if its either unreliable or non existent?

Although don't want to miss out of the opportunity to hardwire underground as it's a lot less hassle than anything else if it works..

Just to add, I'm over 200 miles away from the install, so have no opportunity to have a play...

if that some kind of special cable  for going underground ?

can;t remember what I paid for a reel last time... but it was pretty cheap....

you could run it inside a length of hose as conduit and save a few hundred quid ?

If you get the slightly higher spec Category 6a cable/Augmented Category 6 cable it will do the 150m run just fine without need for a repeater. If you want to be extra safe in the knowledge it won't be affected by being underground such as cold, damp, etc run it through a length of hose like knighty suggested (great thinking there )

I wouldn't fancy trying to push it through a hose pipe of that length, doing 20m gets tough!

Yeah at that price it says it can be buried but it's not cat6a, google shopping returns nothing on cat6a armoured

The expense isn't a problem if I can have some confidence it will work, to be honest the expense might not matter that much, just need to evaluate the options really..

As pointed out, you could get lower spec cable and run it at slower speeds, but really you want the highest quality cable you can get your hands on especially if you plan on it being in the ground for a long time. I reckon you could get a stanley and cut down one side of the hose, slide the cable in, then seal it with glue/gaffer tape and it would be just as good while saving you the effort of forcing 150m of cable through a hose 

Had a few customers with this scenario. A few went wireless, which works quite well for the money but is far from perfect.

I've seen people do it with basic cat5 

Proper rugged cable is the way to go imo, copper should be ok over that length but make sure it's rodent proof and have a plan for when it breaks.

feeding the cable into the hose is easy

use some string first, with a nail (or something heavy) tied to the end of it, while one person feeds it into the end of the hose, another walks along the hose with it spinning the hose around.... as you spin the house the nail moves away from you pulling the string in... then tape string to cable at the end and pull it through... or... you can fix something light to the end of the string but so it only just fits in the end of the hose... and then blow through with an air compressor :-)

use decent braided hose, not b+q hosepipe etc.. :-)

Well the cat6 cable I found says it's suitable for being buried, so hopefully that'll do it without the effort of feeding it through a pipe..

After having another search armoured 6a/augmented doesn't seem to exist!

I'll pass on the info though as it's not something I'm managing, it's actually for an old client who's after some advice, but I have reasons for supporting them

could used to cut the cable in the middle & rejoin with a coupler for long runs.. could be worth or trying...

or just get 150m of fibre optic & a media convertor at both ends.

Fibre is certainly an option, but I've never used it (which is the main problem for me to give advice)

I have no idea how to add connectors to the ends or the Fibre/Copper interfaces, I expect some more googleing may sort that, have you used a fibre netwrok before?

Cheers again guys

Fibre and Gbics are well expensive, as are the switches that support them.

Quote from: soopahfly on December 13, 2011, 10:38:38 AM
Fibre and Gbics are well expensive, as are the switches that support them.

but may work out cheaper in the long run.... when you want more speed & what is done dont work & you end up digging it all up to put fiber in.