plexer Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 Fibre does not auto sense speed and is more of a pain in the arse to upgrade than Cat5. Cat5 is not slower unless you pay to have top of the range fibre which I doubt a school could afford it. I have fibre here and am slowly replacing it with cat5. Best thing I ever did. We got ourselves a nice can or worms here. Whats the difference between a run of the mill fibre and a top of the range one then? I thought you installed the relevant type of fibre to do what you are needing i.e single mode or multi mode other than that I don't see a difference. Fibre can and does run at much higher speeds than cat5e. Yes you can run cat5e at gigabit but that's about. Have yours been tested to make sure they can run at that and pass the crosstalk etc... tests? I definately don't see the logic in spending money replacing fibre with cat5e. A proper installation of cat6 is going to be quite expensive as the specification for installing it is very stringent with bend radius and pulling load etc... My aversion to using cat5 for external links is that wonderful thing called lightning. All my external backbone links to other cabinets are fibre I have 2 internal gigabit copper links that will be relpaced with fibre next year. Ben
plexer Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 ANYWAY WHAT ABOUT A LASER LINK? Sorry for shouting but I've said it 3 times and no-one had a comment on it so I thought that may help. Ben
Jake Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 Havent ever even looked at a LASER LINK Whats the cost like involved in that? Its cost that interests me more than anything, which is why I wanted to know what people would arrange if fibre was out of budget. If we can just steer away from the all conquering microsof...I mean fibre, what are the recommendations for something cheaper? anything? nothing? If we had a LASER LINK...could I sit in a chair and say "Fire the LAZOR !" in a Dr Evil voice?
sidewinder Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 Ok, for the third time. Seperate buildings are not eletrically connected together. Therefore the ground in each building will have a different base voltage. If you connect these same two buildings up with Cat5 then the difference in voltage will cause an electrical current to flow between them down the ground wires in the Cat5. At best you will get noise on the line degrading speeds and connectivity, at worst you will cause an electrical fire. Fibre does not have this problem as glass is not conductive. All our main buildings are connected by fibre, as long as they have a switch in them, but the odd terrapin with only 1 or 2 points in them we have external cat5 going to them due to the fact its a lot cheaper. The terrapins are probably only a couple of metres away from the main buildings, but could we see the same problems with power? Would it be better to run fibre even to small single classroom terrapins?
ajbritton Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 @Jake: Have you tried asking any networking companies how they would do it given the budget constraints?
plexer Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 If you bolt a laser device to a suitable wall and provide a deflector plate underneath it then ball strikes shouldn't be a problem and make sure there are no trees in the way. Just trying to give him another option. Ben
CyberNerd Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 If you connect these same two buildings up with Cat5 then the difference in voltage will cause an electrical current to flow between them down the ground wires in the Cat5. At best you will get noise on the line degrading speeds and connectivity, at worst you will cause an electrical fire. and probably a fair bit of corrosion
ajbritton Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 If you connect these same two buildings up with Cat5 then the difference in voltage will cause an electrical current to flow between them down the ground wires in the Cat5. At best you will get noise on the line degrading speeds and connectivity, at worst you will cause an electrical fire. and probably a fair bit of corrosion Nah, just run it through a hosepipe!
Disease Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 However, due to time constraints we get all of our structured cabling installed by a company called Conex. What time constraints you have made 1097 posts on at least 1 web forum since nov 2005 and you moan about time constraints External cat5 is solid core and shielding so as to not attract lightning.
Jake Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 @Jake: Have you tried asking any networking companies how they would do it given the budget constraints? Havent asked a networking company which method they would use, have to admit that I am deeply suspicious of most because I always think they are just trying to push whichever product they can provide, rather than given an unbiased, neutral opinion. Also have to admit that I like to do as much personally as possible (installing projectors, IWB, cabling etc) rather than pay someone 4 times as much to do something that I could do myself. Having said that...do you have any recommended companies who will give a neutral opinion rather than pushing whatever they can do? (for a very limited budget of course)
krisd32 Posted July 19, 2006 Author Posted July 19, 2006 AREN'T LASER LINKS QUITE EXPENSIVE THOUGH? THERE WAS A POST A FEW WEEKS AGO ABOUT THEM! AND IT GOT SHOT BY AN AIR RIFLE OR SOMETHING AND AT THE PRICE IT WAS FOR THE EQUIPMENT AREN'T YOU BETTER OFF DIGGING A CABLE IN RATHER THAN RUN THE RISK OF VANDALS TAKING OUT THE BOX ON THE WALL WITH THE PRETTY RED LIGHT? IF ITS ABOVE GROUND THEN IT CAN GET DAMAGED ETC... I FEEL THAT FIBRE IS PROBABLY MORE COST EFFECTIVE IN THE LONG RUN.
webman Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 Laser links, aka Free Space Optics, are very costly. A quick Google search throws up lots of websites, but without costs.
webman Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 Yikes !! Capslock alert ! Maybe it was interference or too many angled bends on some cat5/cat5e/cat6 cable
Jake Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 Laser links, aka Free Space Optics, are very costly. A quick Google search throws up lots of websites, but without costs. figured they might be...so thats fibre and laser out. Anything cheaper?
Blanka Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 YEAH OF COURSE THERE IS BOYS AND GIRLS! DON'T DESPAIR! YOU KNOW YOU WILL THRIVE WITH A REEL OF CAT5!
bossman Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 Who is your ISP and also your LEA might be able to provide some assistance there. You might surprised at the money and time you can save to allow you to do other things on the network. Your time is a very valuable school commodity and if it is taken up installing all kinds of things even if it saves them money short term you will find that a: They do not appreciate it when it comes to your remuneration b: They will blame you entirely if something goes wrong and c: They will try and get more out of you for less, I know this seems a little paranoid but believe me when i say i have been there and worn the tea-shirt. If you can get someone else to install all the better.
plexer Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 If you run your own cabling do you have the relevant testers to verify the installation? @Disease: A big copper cable with an outer sheath won't attract lightning then? even burying it probably puts at greater risk of problems due to lightning strike. Ben
krisd32 Posted July 19, 2006 Author Posted July 19, 2006 sorry about that i only realised when i'd finished typing and then i couldn't be bothered typing it again. its just one of those days. had good news though possible pay rise tomorrow have just organised a meeting with the head and she wants to pay me more thank god i was actually strugling to live on my scrappy wage at the moment!
Jake Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 Our LEA is about as useful as a Lebonese bomb shelter. Frankly I would rather our LEA be Compuserve than who they are, they are that much use. Virtually the entire staff at our LEA has as much knowledge of PC's as Queen Victoria and are about as willing to give us £5 saving on anything as they are willing to give us their first born child.
Jake Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 If you run your own cabling do you have the relevant testers to verify the installation? Ben We have testing hardware to verify the cabling yes.
Jake Posted July 19, 2006 Posted July 19, 2006 sorry about that i only realised when i'd finished typing and then i couldn't be bothered typing it again. its just one of those days. had good news though possible pay rise tomorrow have just organised a meeting with the head and she wants to pay me more thank god i was actually strugling to live on my scrappy wage at the moment! LOL, nice news about the pay rise, and I wouldnt be concerned about the caps...seems the heat has raised the temperatures of many folks on the internet this afternoon
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