Fiber optic network, assistance requested.

[SansVarnic]

Ok I am looking to do my new network in my new house out of fiber (I havent bought my new house yet but I am just doing preliminary research at this point). I have spoken to others about this and I find the idea quite intriguing. If you guys have experience with this and could give some suggestions as to were I should focus my efforts in terms of equipment, were to purchase etc. would be of great help.

Thanks

 

Oh and to those with discouragement in mind, I am doing this because it sounds like a fun project that I would probably get a kick out of doing.

[JefferyD90]

get a spool of about 500 ft and some monoprice wall outlets and go to town.

[W-L]

Ok I am looking to do my new network in my new house out of fiber (I havent bought my new house yet but I am just doing preliminary research at this point). I have spoken to others about this and I find the idea quite intriguing. If you guys have experience with this and could give some suggestions as to were I should focus my efforts in terms of equipment, were to purchase etc. would be of great help.

Thanks

 

Oh and to those with discouragement in mind, I am doing this because it sounds like a fun project that I would probably get a kick out of doing.

 

If you want fiber optic cabling that you install from a spool of bulk cable it will require some pretty precise tools to install the proper heads and and to cut the fiber optic cable unless you get premade cables. 

 

Also just a quick note if your runs are <100M ethernet cable will be a fair bit easier to work with.

[SansVarnic]

get a spool of about 500 ft and some monoprice wall outlets and go to town.

 

Not much help there. Spool of what and where to get it?

 

If you want fiber optic cabling that you install from a spool of bulk cable it will require some pretty precise tools to install the proper heads and and to cut the fiber optic cable unless you get premade cables. 

 

Also just a quick note if your runs are <100M ethernet cable will be a fair bit easier to work with.

 

OK, but it is my understanding from a few I have spoken to things have changed in terms of what tools I can use, as in I don't need special cutter any more as more fiber is now being made available using a type of plastic instead of glass called pof or something of the sort.

I'm not worried about length as this is going inside a home and if I need a length >100m then I'm doing something wrong.

 

I was hoping for some links or a direction to go to get some solid info this subject. Thanks so far guys but my knowledge in this area is rather old and some of theings I have heard of late I am not familiar with. All I can find online is commercial grade stuff that want me to request quotes for service, this will be a diy project.

 

Bring on the info..

[JefferyD90]

http://www.instructables.com/id/Building-POF-home-user-network/

[KTFO|SGTmoody]

Not much help there. Spool of what and where to get it?

 

 

OK, but it is my understanding from a few I have spoken to things have changed in terms of what tools I can use, as in I don't need special cutter any more as more fiber is now being made available using a type of plastic instead of glass called pof or something of the sort.

I'm not worried about length as this is going inside a home and if I need a length >100m then I'm doing something wrong.

 

I was hoping for some links or a direction to go to get some solid info this subject. Thanks so far guys but my knowledge in this area is rather old and some of theings I have heard of late I am not familiar with. All I can find online is commercial grade stuff that want me to request quotes for service, this will be a diy project.

 

Bring on the info..

 

Or you can go the other direction away from the POF thing. 

Its easy to just buy lengths of pre-termitated fibre cable and just connect them up

 

Example of fibre (multimode): http://www.amazon.com/Multimode-Duplex-Fiber-Optic-Cable/dp/B00551KB1W

Example of wall jacks: https://www.videk.co.uk/section.php/166/1/fibre-face-plates

Example of switch to connect them up (core switch):

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Allied-Telesyn-AT-9924SP-Advanced-Layer-3-Gigabit-Switch-24-SFP-Ports-/321646143440?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item4ae39aa7d0

 

Exaple of end device switches (Edge Switch ): 

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/D-Link-DGS-3650-xStack-Managed-48-Port-Gigabit-Stackable-L3-Switch-4-SFP-Combo-/271910354414?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3f4f1ebdee

 

Example of SFP's to get (bassed on compatibilty of what you get IE you need to keep them all the same)

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10051-Extreme-compatible-SFP-1000Base-SX-LC-550m-850nm-Multi-Mode-Transceiver-/181784896649?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2a53396489

 

 

Up to you on how future proof you want it.  POF will do 3Gbps up to 50M   Multimode will do 10Gbps up to 400M (using the OM4 grade fibre) so if you ever plan on upgrading at some point then thats something to think about.  Multimode isnt that bad to run as its core is slightly bigger it will accaept a slightly tighter turn over singlemode allthough not advised. Singlemode is probably not relevant as your not going in to the kilometers of distance.

 

Personlay i would just buy the pre terminated multimode fibre with the SFP's that I need as I have the gear that uses it.  This is whats done in the enterprise world and is what you find in large buildings/offices datacenteres etc.

 

You can allso get patchpanels if you plan to centralise your incoming fibres.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fibre-Channel-24-Port-LC-Rack-Mount-Black-Patch-Panel-Fibre-Optic-Network-/400771616534?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item5d4fd98f16

 

Note that there are diferent connector types for fibre,  all my links are using LC connectors, but you can also get SC , ST PC and others.  LC and SC are the most commen LC becoming more commend now unless your getting in to specilised connections.

 

Also something else to add,  If you ever plan to use your network for mass storage data transfer EG backing up to a NAS PC etc. then you can use these run fibres with FibreChanel modules and use the lines as a storage network as the LC connectors/fibre dont care what they are pluged in to as long as you use mulimode modules with mulimode fibre and single mode modules with single mode fibre,

 

Then if your running say 12-24 fibres from downstairs to upstairs then you can get amored cable with multiple fibres inside for a 1 cable run but multiple fibres,

This was the first example I found : http://www.netshop.co.uk/product/740/fci/structured-cabling/fibre-optic--pre-terminated-assemblies/fibre-preterminated-custom-build-service

[SansVarnic]

Ok awesome this is what I was looking for. I will look into what you posted, when I get my new house I will be sure to reference this. Thaks.

[techguru]

why not just something like cat7

[W-L]

-SNIP-

 

Looks like KTFO|SGTmoody has you covered there, I've never seen non-glass fiber cables before but if they are easier to work with and not as particular like glass fiber when splicing and adding connectors then go for it.

 

As for cables if you are running only a single or a few cables that are going to be >100M you can get repeaters to boost the signal over the 100M mark still with gigabit speeds but of course it depends what you'll be using it for.

[dalekphalm]

@SansVarnic sounds like a very interesting project. However, keep in mind that this is a huge home project, and is most definitely overcomplicating the task of networking your home with high speed future-proof installations.

 

You're also going to have to buy a lot of Fibre media converters/NIC's to ensure that all of your equipment can even run on it.

 

If you're dead set on doing fibre, and have the time and energy to learn how to do it, then sure, go crazy!

 

However, a far more practical - yet still really cool - project, would be to wire the entire house with Cat 6a or Cat 7 ethernet cable, either of which is capable of 10 Gbps Network speeds at 100m long maximum length (Which, coincidentally, is actually faster and longer than POF Fibre cable - limited to 3Gbps at 50 meters).

 

Getting a 10 Gbps Ethernet Switch is easy enough, and while not really "cheap", the prices will continue to fall quite quickly as devices start to natively support 10 Gbps.

[SansVarnic]

why not just something like cat7

 

I considered going the way of CAT7, my Father and I originally ran his house in CAT5. About a year later we started researching fiber but it was super expensive at the time so we held off until prices would drop. This was about 15 years ago. I have been interested in Fiber since, just haven't had the time or reason until now to look back into it.

If cost is unreasonable I may go into CAT7 instead.

[SansVarnic]

@SansVarnic sounds like a very interesting project. However, keep in mind that this is a huge home project, and is most definitely overcomplicating the task of networking your home with high speed future-proof installations.

 

You're also going to have to buy a lot of Fibre media converters/NIC's to ensure that all of your equipment can even run on it.

 

If you're dead set on doing fibre, and have the time and energy to learn how to do it, then sure, go crazy!

 

However, a far more practical - yet still really cool - project, would be to wire the entire house with Cat 6a or Cat 7 ethernet cable, either of which is capable of 10 Gbps Network speeds at 100m long maximum length (Which, coincidentally, is actually faster and longer than POF Fibre cable - limited to 3Gbps at 50 meters).

 

Getting a 10 Gbps Ethernet Switch is easy enough, and while not really "cheap", the prices will continue to fall quite quickly as devices start to natively support 10 Gbps.

I have experience running CAT systems but I like a challenge. If fiber is till to expensive or over challenging then I'll decide on CAT7 instead.

Thanks for the advice.