trying to help my father get better internet. Anyone know about coax/cable boosters and how they work?

[Kendiggity]

Hello everyone!,

    I am having some trouble figuring out this issue. My father lives in scenic nowhere and is forced to use satellite internet and it is hot garbage. because he runs a farm the local cable company said they will give him a discounted rate of $7000 to run cable to his house. His driveway is 1/2 mi (roughly) long and the cable company said he can alternatively buy the parts himself and run the cable and they'll come hook it up for the $75 activation fee. Me and my friends all agreed that if we can find out how to make it work, we'll all dedicate the weekend to going there and putting the cable up for him (he's 60 we don't really want him up on ladders like that) 

Here's the issue. At 2600 feet or so. There's going to need to be boosters to amplify the signal from the road to the house. Can anyone give me an idea of what needs to be done to accomplish this

is it possible to put one really strong booster in line and boost the signal all the way to the house?
are there in line boosters that need to be used? we all agreed it would be much easier to put boosters at each end if at all possible.

please let me know!

Thank you,
Ken Caggiano

[Ben17]

Max length for coaxial cable is 500m?

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/1-4th-of-a-mile-coax-cable-for-internet.2743878/

Might be of some use^

  @Kendiggity

[Kendiggity]

@Ben17

yeah i was looking at that earlier. max use of a cable without a booster is 500m. Im sure there are ways to boost it, I mean why else would the cable company quote him saying they can do it if its not possible. I think we need a new tech tips video  

[Vishera]

Why coax and not optic fiber?

Optic fiber is way better and is future proof.

Coax is ancient.

[Kendiggity]

While i agree @Vishera they do not offer Fiber in my fathers area,

[Ben17]

Just now, Vishera said:

Why coax and not optic fiber?

Optic fiber is way better and is future proof.

Coax is ancient.

The isps infrastructure is coaxial...

[Ben17]

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/156031/very-long-distance-ethernet-connection-for-internet-and-other-data-2000-feet

[Vishera]

2 minutes ago, Kendiggity said:

While i agree @Vishera they do not offer Fiber in my fathers area,

It's a shame,A Single-Mode Optic Fiber's max length is 32 KM

[Kendiggity]

@Ben17

that looks great but im having a little trouble understanding this. Could you maybe help explain it a bit, How would this be run?

 

[Kendiggity]

@Vishera I know lol. trust me i looked into Single-mode Fiber, that would've been real easy.

[Ben17]

38 minutes ago, Kendiggity said:

Hello everyone!,
 

What speed is the connection?

[Kendiggity]

150Mbit

 

[Dedayog]

6 minutes ago, Kendiggity said:

150Mbit

 

What rate is he getting with the Satellite?  He can upgrade that satellite to decent speeds, no?

 

I assume he'd expense the $7k as a business expense?

[Kendiggity]

@jstudrawa
so hes trying to avoid the 7k thats how much the cable company wants to charge him to run wire and the satellite is the best package and he pulls 2mb a second. its terrible and the latency. forget about it, he cant even stream netflix and they charge him 100 a month for that.
so im trying to figure out how to run this so he can bulk order the cable and me and my buds are going to run it all the way up the driveway for him

 

[Dedayog]

1 minute ago, Kendiggity said:

@jstudrawa
so hes trying to avoid the 7k thats how much the cable company wants to charge him to run wire and the satellite is the best package and he pulls 2mb a second. its terrible and the latency. forget about it, he cant even stream netflix and they charge him 100 a month for that.
so im trying to figure out how to run this so he can bulk order the cable and me and my buds are going to run it all the way up the driveway for him

 

Would something like this work?  Convert it to Fibre Optic and run up to 100km, if I am reading this right?  No idea who much fibre optic cable would be tho.

 

http://www.voscom.com/optical-converter-1v1da1dd.asp

 

[Kendiggity]

@jstudrawa

That would work the only issue is single mode fiber is like $1.60 a ft or something like that. cable is ultimately cheaper, and can be run along the power poles hes has going up the driveway

[Dedayog]

https://www.cablewholesale.com/specs/10f2-006nh.php?utm_source=GoogleShopping&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=10F2-006NH&utm_campaign=6 Fiber Indoor Distribution Fiber Optic Cable%2C Singlemode%2C 9%2F125%2C Yellow%2C Riser Rated%2C Spool%2C 1000 foot&gclid=CjwKCAiAzanuBRAZEiwA5yf4upmRouFun3_IdUfh2G-IwouJZ7hik7K10N4UJazGN7KN5zpr4UsBzxoCehAQAvD_BwE

 

Better place to buy?

 

Outdoor:

https://www.cablewholesale.com/products/bulk-cable/fiber-optic-bulk/product-10f3-002nh.php

 

[Lurick]

5 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

https://www.cablewholesale.com/specs/10f2-006nh.php?utm_source=GoogleShopping&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=10F2-006NH&utm_campaign=6 Fiber Indoor Distribution Fiber Optic Cable%2C Singlemode%2C 9%2F125%2C Yellow%2C Riser Rated%2C Spool%2C 1000 foot&gclid=CjwKCAiAzanuBRAZEiwA5yf4upmRouFun3_IdUfh2G-IwouJZ7hik7K10N4UJazGN7KN5zpr4UsBzxoCehAQAvD_BwE

 

Better place to buy?

 

Outdoor:

https://www.cablewholesale.com/products/bulk-cable/fiber-optic-bulk/product-10f3-002nh.php

 

The problem with that is you need equipment to splice the ends onto it, it's not terminated already and the equipment to do so is pretty expensive as far as I know.

[Ben17]

6 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

https://www.cablewholesale.com/specs/10f2-006nh.php?utm_source=GoogleShopping&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=10F2-006NH&utm_campaign=6 Fiber Indoor Distribution Fiber Optic Cable%2C Singlemode%2C 9%2F125%2C Yellow%2C Riser Rated%2C Spool%2C 1000 foot&gclid=CjwKCAiAzanuBRAZEiwA5yf4upmRouFun3_IdUfh2G-IwouJZ7hik7K10N4UJazGN7KN5zpr4UsBzxoCehAQAvD_BwE

 

Better place to buy?

 

Outdoor:

https://www.cablewholesale.com/products/bulk-cable/fiber-optic-bulk/product-10f3-002nh.php

 

you would need outdoor cable

and yes you do need special equipment to splice the ends on @Lurick 

also you need to run power to where your actually converting the coaxial to fiber i think

[Ben17]

actually this site seems to sell preterminated cable  

https://www.fibersavvy.com/pages/pre-terminated-fiber-custom-cables

@Kendiggity

[mariushm]

You can carry power and a fiber to a box at the entry into his property, and have a small ethernet to fiber converter in a box where they bring the internet.

At his house, have another fiber to ethernet converter to convert it back to ethernet ... and you can plug that in a router to create multiple ethernet ports.

 

For example:

 

39$: media converter from ethernet to SFP+ port (in which you plug a transceiver) : https://www.fs.com/de-en/products/17237.html

11$: 1000BASE-SX SFP Transceiver Module (SMF&MMF, 1310nm, 2km, LC, DOM)   - up to 600 meters on multi mode fiber, up to 2000 meters on single mode fiber , LC duplex connector : https://www.fs.com/de-en/products/29848.html

You'll need a pair of these at each end of the fiber.

These consume around 3 watts.  Whatever the internet provider brings to the box won't consume more than let's say 10- 20 watts

It's low enough that you could simply have 800 meters of 110v AC cable ... at 50w you'll have around 95v AC at the other end, which is still big enough for power adapters, as they're usually switching power supplies that do 80v...250v AC  (the fiber converter takes AC and makes 5v 1A or something like that)

If you really want to, you can get an isolation transformer to convert your 115v to something like 130v AC and also provide some extra safety, for example in case there's a lightning strike on the power cable between the house and the rest.

Here's an example, 80$ for 110v -> 90, 100, 110, 115, 120 & 130VAC (multiple taps)  100 VA isolation transformer : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/hammond-manufacturing/169C/HM4524-ND/455367

100VA is good for around 50-60 watts of power consumption. 250VA version is around 140$ : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/hammond-manufacturing/169E/HM4525-ND/455468

 

Another option could be a solar panel big enough to work well in winters and produce more power than what the converter needs (to power the converter for up to 1-2 days if there's too much clouds or covered with snow) and a big 12v battery.

 

 

As for fiber, 800 meters ( 2600ft is ~792 meters) of outdoor fiber (2 fibers) will cost around 920$ : https://www.fs.com/de-en/products/29584.html

They sell it to you with LC connectors already installed.

 

[Donut417]

3 hours ago, Kendiggity said:

Hello everyone!,

    I am having some trouble figuring out this issue. My father lives in scenic nowhere and is forced to use satellite internet and it is hot garbage. because he runs a farm the local cable company said they will give him a discounted rate of $7000 to run cable to his house. His driveway is 1/2 mi (roughly) long and the cable company said he can alternatively buy the parts himself and run the cable and they'll come hook it up for the $75 activation fee. Me and my friends all agreed that if we can find out how to make it work, we'll all dedicate the weekend to going there and putting the cable up for him (he's 60 we don't really want him up on ladders like that) 

Here's the issue. At 2600 feet or so. There's going to need to be boosters to amplify the signal from the road to the house. Can anyone give me an idea of what needs to be done to accomplish this

is it possible to put one really strong booster in line and boost the signal all the way to the house?
are there in line boosters that need to be used? we all agreed it would be much easier to put boosters at each end if at all possible.

please let me know!

Thank you,
Ken Caggiano

Cable modems operate within a spec. So if the signal is outside the spec it can cause issues. What you may want to do is build a small shed near the entrance of the property to house equipment. The cable co can install their service there. Then use Fiber to get it to the house. 
 

I personally don’t think a booster will work. The coax can only carry the signal so far period. And we have no idea how far on the cable network the nearest amp is or how many amps between the property and the Fiber node. 

[mariushm]

Besides fiber, there's also converters which can send signal over a pair of copper wires, basically they modulate the signal as ADSL or VDSL.

For example, this device can do 17mbps up to 1500 meters, or 100 mbps up to 300 meters:

StarTech.com VDSL2 Ethernet Extender Kit Over Single-Pair Wire - 10/100Mbps - 1.5km LAN Network Extender w/ESD - Ethernet Over Phone Line

It works with plain RJ11 connectors and a twisted pair of AWG24 wire...

You can buy twisted pair cable suitable for outdoor use for something like 200$ for 300 meter spools, so you'd have to buy 3 spools. When you add the cost of the devices, fiber is more and more appealing, esp. considering it can do 1gbps.

 

[unijab]

If you can get power at the end of the driveway...

 

microwave dish setup to avoid digging/burying cables...

 

I wonder what the limit on an MOCA adapter is?

[Dedayog]

What is the absolute best satellite speeds you can get where you are tho?  

 

For example Hughesnet in the US has 25Mb/sec internet at the very least.