Maximum network cable length?

[kcbass]

What is the maximum length for running cat5 cable? cat6 cable?

 

[nightowl]

The max length for 10BaseT and 100BaseT over copper is 100 meters reguardless of the cable category rating.

 

[JackMDS]

100Meters.

 

[ScottMac]

100 meters only when the middle 90 meters is solid core cabling.

Stranded cabling (i.e., "Jumpers" or Patch cables) has significantly more loss (crosstalk, crummy ACR) and cannot reliably signal that far.

FWIW

Scott

 

[spidey07]

What scott said.

90 meters solid core cable with 5 meters of stranded patch on each end.

100 meters if solid core end-to-end.

 

[kcbass]

so...say I have to go three times that length...what's the best and cheapest way to do it?

 

[xSauronx]

damn
1000ft of cable?

all in a very large building or what? one house to another?
i think youll get better answers if you can give people an idea of what youre doing
guessin it wont end up cheap though, or fun to set up

 

[ScottMac]

1000 ft?

10BASE-5 or fiber (fiber is preferred).

There are some specialty drivers (high-power transceivers) that'll drive 1000ft, they're a couple hundred dollars apiece (Canoga Perkins).

Don't even think of running UTP that far (ESPECIALLY BETWEEN BUILDINGS).

FWIW

Scott

 

[22Admub]

This may bee complete;y wrong, but if you want to use cat5/6, then I think they make repeaters for this type of thing. You'll need 2 maybe 3. I have no idea of their cost/availability. btw, are you sure you need 300m, and not 300ft. If you need 300m/1000ft, then you might be running the cable outside, you might need special stuff, I think

 

[kcbass]

It's not outside. We have two very large buildings that are connected. We have office space at the front of the first, and we have to connect the offices to a shipping department at the back of the second building. It's easily 1000ft if not more. It's all indoor. I've dealt with cat5 to fiber converters before, but have no idea how much they cost. I'm also not farmilliar with the price of fiber.

 

[22Admub]

you're prolly best off goin with fiber

 

[kcbass]

Is there a good place to shop for fiber online?

 

[kcbass]

bump

 

[Kaiynne]

how far is each building from the outside? because you could try running a cable to the outside of each building and try to get a line of site connection between to wireless bridges with directional antennas attached. with the cost of wireless to wireless going down and Cantennas for under $50 dollars if you have line of site you could do it much much cheaper with wireless.

 

[kcbass]

That's a viable option I hadn't thought of...What product line/model numbers should I be looking for?

 

[wlee]

This would do the trick for you. You would need 2 of these boxes and 1000'+ ( leave enough extra to make long radius turns ) of SC Fiber. You would also need to have it terminated with connectors. I dunno if there is a cheap tool avail to do that.


Dlink Fiber/Copper Tranceiver

 

[kcbass]

Thanks for the link wlee. How much would that length of fiber + terminators run me?

Kaiynne, can you give me links/product numbers to the wireless stuff I would need?

 

[kcbass]

bump

 

[kcbass]

bump

 

[kcbass]

bump

 

[JackMDS]

You can keep the useless bumping, to you can log to Google.com and type fiber optic prices, and try to solve you issue.

Link: http://www.epinions.com/Network_Cables-Fiber_Optic_Cable