Anyone use one of
these units or something like it?
Any good? If so, vendors?
Not for me, but my buddy in the area is interested in finding a supplier.
Installed similar devices at a couple of our international bridges. We usually had to connect something at the export booth/building when no fiber was available. They work pretty good as long as the copper was in good shape!
A job that I was doing some telephone cabling work at uses those types of devices and they work just great for the application of extending an Ethernet line past the 90 meter. They had a couple pushing the signal close to 1000 ft and it provided a steady 100M. The cabling at this is was not in the best condition and it didn't seem to cause any problems.
Don't remember the brand though
there are others, but we've used Enable-IT 860 Pro. have a few installations, longest is about 1/2 mile. no trouble. search Long Reach Ethernet.
We have used Transition Networks and Versitron for all conversion and extension requirements. We have done extensive fiber work in the coal mines around here and we have deployed hundreds of these units and they work perfectly. For the copper Ethernet extension, these "repeaters" work amazingly well.
Rcaman
I have a problem with a similar set up.
I have a customer that has a building about 600 ft from main office that he wants an internet connection to. There's a 25 pair, 24 gauge old SWBT cable going to building with phone ext. in it. From switch, that's 60ft away, I have cat5e wire ran back to phone closet and splice into 25pr cable, the correct 2 pairs. I put a rj45 on end, plug in a laptop and surf fine. But they want the connection on other side of building, 350 ft away. When I splice on more cat5e wire it doesn't work. Go back to end of cable, place switch or router, will not work. Will the Ethernet extender, as in first post, work?
Yes, but you are pushing it. The extended will gigo (Garbage in, Garbage out) on you. As I see it, you have two major problems to deal with. The first is the 25 pair cable is shielded, which means your UTP is no longer UTP, because you now have added capacitance due to the shielding. The second is the 25 pair has, at best, maybe a half twist per inch. Crosstalk is going to be a factor.
Having induced ringer voltage in the same line will also cause intermittent problems with low data rates or dropped data. My suggestion would be to either run a Cat 5 or 6 cable the entire way or, do yourself and your client a favor, and place a fiber. You'll be glad you did.
Rcaman
Thanks for the reply.
"Try to make it work" . Only 1 ext. and 1 horn in cable.
I spliced in another 100ft of cat5, put a jack on it and my comp syncs up. Their 1 computer in this building does what they want it to do. I told them they may have trouble. They're happy, happy, happy. Me too.
