Advice for connecting an isolated room

thiagohpc · June 10, 2019

Hello,

I live in an old masonry building, and i have a room that has terrible internet connection. This room has water pipes made of metal on the walls and lots of wooden furnitures, which all cripple the Wi-Fi signal from my main router. I've tried using Access Points and Powerline connections, but i can't seem to crack 20 mb/s on my connection. Since i'm planning to upgrade my internet to 100mb/s, i'd like to upgrade the connection to that room too. Unfortunately, running a regular ethernet cable to that room isn't possible because this building has only eletrical conduits, so interference from the eletrical cables are a big issue. Also, the thickness from shielded cables are also a problem, since the conduits are quite small to begin with (adding another conduit would require major renovations which aren't an option at the moment).

So i've been thinking about running fiber optic cables between my router and that room, but i'm unsure if that's the best course of action in this case. I'm also unsure about what kind of hardware i'd need. I saw that TP-Link makes some ethernet to fiber converters like the MC200CM, but i don't know if that is the best option for my needs (or if it even is the correct one, since my understanding of fiber networks is basically non-existent).

What advice would you give me in this condition? Go for fiber optic cables? Would the MC200CM be the correct hardware in this case? Or there is another solution that i didn't think of? Gigabit connection would be nice to have for future-proofing, but it's not a basic requirement.

Thanks for your help!

Electronics Wizardy · June 10, 2019

26 minutes ago, thiagohpc said:

so interference from the eletrical cables are a big issue.

Have you tested this? I haven't had much issue running twisted pair next to power, esp for only 100mbit or gigabit. How long is this run? Not the best practice, but id give it a shot first.

28 minutes ago, thiagohpc said:

So i've been thinking about running fiber optic cables between my router and that room, but i'm unsure if that's the best course of action in this case. I'm also unsure about what kind of hardware i'd need. I saw that TP-Link makes some ethernet to fiber converters like the MC200CM, but i don't know if that is the best option for my needs (or if it even is the correct one, since my understanding of fiber networks is basically non-existent).

Id get a cheap switch with a sfp or sfp+ port like this one https://www.amazon.com/TRENDnet-Switching-Capacity-Protection-TEG-S51SFP/dp/B019IHWSF0/ref=sxin_1_ac_d_pm?keywords=sfp+switch&pd_rd_i=B019IHWSF0&pd_rd_r=ffd27d47-ebb3-4139-9f0d-2342fafd6e3b&pd_rd_w=9tX6k&pd_rd_wg=SHoMw&pf_rd_p=64aaff2e-3b89-4fee-a107-2469ecbc5733&pf_rd_r=0YQRWMF7E27SP8D99FJM&qid=1560139109&s=electronics

Then get a basic transciver(you want multimode here probably, id get something like this https://www.amazon.com/10Gtek-GLC-SX-MMD-GLC-SX-MM-Transceiver-1000Base-SX/dp/B00U77VPX2/ref=sr_1_4?crid=3D6HHUYAS77V3&keywords=sfp+multimode+lc&qid=1560139197&s=gateway&sprefix=sfp+mult%2Caps%2C190&sr=8-4

Then get a multimode lc cable. Id get a cheap om2 cable as it will run 10g fine up to 80m which should be more than enough here. Like this guy https://www.amazon.com/FiberCablesDirect-Duplex-Multimode-Jumper-Options/dp/B0099S7FM0/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=lc+om2+10m&qid=1560139381&s=gateway&sr=8-4

thiagohpc · June 10, 2019

19 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Have you tested this? I haven't had much issue running twisted pair next to power, esp for only 100mbit or gigabit. How long is this run? Not the best practice, but id give it a shot first.

Actually i haven't, because the conduits are small and it will be a pain to pass the cable, but i might give it a try before splurging on fiber, i'll only need about 20m anyway, and i think i have a long enough cable laying around here.

But thanks for the suggestion for fiber hardware, i'll keep those on mind too!