sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring How to run ~500Feet of Cat5 or Cat6?

Metelcom, its a large house 6800+square feet and my office is at the end of one very large room that is 65'x30' give or take a bit,(this is where i would run the wireless from my office into my kitchen) then it has to go through my kitchen, dining room, hallway to the bedrooms and then down another hallway to the guestroom. I'll see if I can get a picture... once I find my camera.

Rustynails, What did you mean "I would terminate in an over sized outdoor rated jbox and stick a small repeater hub/switch" ? im not sure I quite understand what you have in mind.

Rage, any idea of how much of a gain you get from the antenae? I think that the wireless idea might be what im going to end up doing, that and then a wired section for the last part of it, asuming I can run from wireless back to a wired set up?

Kyawa, isnt fiber extreamly expensive? I am trying not to spend 'too much' on this project, and again, im still considering just getting another phone line/dsl modem, that or I could move my modem into my kitchen and then run wireless down to my office and wired to my guestroom, that would only be about 180' then... hmmm

Thanks again
Thomas

What Rustynails meant was to install an enclosure I assume outdoors to house a small switch, thus extending the length but doing so properly.

A few things for you to consider

outside wire and/or electronics can be damaged by weather and lightening

You are over the limits of Cat 5/6

2nd DSL has extra monthly cost FOREVER

wireless works well in the right applications

Extend the DSL over existing telephone wires if there are any. DSLAM is one way to do this

you can run 10base over coax at that distance

Fiber will carry more then just data and will carry you into the future

Lagarb,

As jeff clarified it; this is what i would do assuming you have an outdoor outlet somewhere in between within the 300' limit.

Get a outdoor jbox 6x6 enclosure and stick a 5$ switch in it with your outdoor rated cat5 terminated inside the housing also.

If your switch becomes damaged due to weather or lightning, shell out another 5$ and get another on ebay.

Of course this is all null/void if you have no power source to achieve this.

I think you mentioned the majority of this run would be along side of the house. You may be able to find an interior outlet that is in the right location, from which an electician can tap into and provide an exterior outlet on the other side of the wall, with little to no effort.

~gluk

Well, if you're going to wrap the house with outdoor cable, there's got to be a place you can duck back inside to install the switch that would provide power, then back out to finish the run. No need for outside boxes and electricians

Awesome! thanks everyone for your input. I think Im going to end up going with the outside run with the switch, there are a few outlets that i'll have to take a look at and see if I can run it back inside for power and the like. I live in Souther California, so we have very little if any lightning, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks again!

You are still going to want to use proper lightning protection.

You know, I hate to say it, I make my living wiring, but, wireless in this case would work fine.

I have fiber buried between my house and shop, approx. 450ft. I installed a wireless router in my home office last year so I could use my laptop throughout the house and out on the patio deck. Now I don't ever use the fiber anymore, or any of the other network wiring for that matter.

The wireless works awesome, you can't tell the difference. I use the wireless to my steel sided shop and it works perfect too. I personally would try a basic wireless setup in this case and as the others have pointed out, worst case would be a wireless repeater, access point, or point to point antennas.

Lagarb...Since you got a house thats so large...and a guesthouse that is 400 feet away..sounds like life has been good to you. Hire someone else to handle your troubles...LOL.....btw...use fiber if it really is over 400 feet.

One thing to keep in mind about wireless is that you will compromise speed. The 802.11a and 802.11g standards both offer a higher theoretical maximum speed of 54 Mbps. However, nearly half of that is used for routine communication between your computer and the wireless access point it's communicating with, not for transfer of your data requests. 24 Mbps is the highest speed that wireless cards are required to support, and you won't see those speeds in practice either. Compare that to the 100 Mbps you get with CAT5e and there's a big difference. Unless you plan on spending a grand or so, you won't get the performance from wireless you need.