This is slightly tangential but if you are moving and fiber internet is an important consideration for you then check out this tool I made to check fiber connectivity in bulk:<p><a href="https://gigahood.com/" rel="nofollow">https://gigahood.com/</a><p>It also checks within 500 ft of the address. You may be able to trench a fiber line out yourself at that distance.
I've used some of the pre-terminated assemblies w/ pulling hardware from these guys: <a href="https://www.lanshack.com/PreterminatedAssemblies.aspx" rel="nofollow">https://www.lanshack.com/PreterminatedAssemblies.aspx</a><p>The pricing is reasonable, especially compared to having a contractor come in and pull and terminate small, low-count runs, and the results have been very good for me.<p>Edit (now that I'm not on a phone): I like these assemblies because I get a "super power" feeling, being being able to cheaply add fiber runs for special cases. The most recent one was extending a single-mode campus fiber termination to a new closet within a building. Loss budget was very high (because the campus run was fairly short) so we did a simple "glass-to-glass" patch on one of these assemblies to the new closet. It was going to be a couple thousand dollars for a contractor to come in and do a proper fusion splice, but the Customer ended up spending $250 for favorable results.
The photos show a lot of cables stuck to walls. I’m surprised people are ok with this.<p>Every house I have lived in has done it too and it’s the first thing I rip out.<p>I see contractors (usually ISP installers) doing this inside and outside houses too and it irritates me.
UV, animals/insects, wind etc gets at them and water goes in the holes. The fixings that hold the cable rust/degrade and fall out.<p>Doing it right costs more and takes longer but I’m unsure if the cost is greater when you look back 5-10 years.<p>Maybe doing this is slightly more repairable if the place is a rental?
Can confirm, DIY fiber is not too difficult to figure out yourself. For most uses outside of an ISP you don't need the super-low loss that you get with a fusion splicer.<p>When I needed to wire up a campground and some cabins I studied a couple of the Fiber Optic Association textbooks and I recommend them as informative and easy to read. Also it is pretty easy to spend $50-100 over and over again on "one more tool" to save time and effort.<p>On a random tangent, DIY fiber topics often makes me think back to a book about Kevin Mitnick (Takedown I think) where the author describes how he has fiber running around his house for various reasons. That was pre-1995 which was when the book was published; I imagine it was much more difficult and expensive back then.
This bend-insensitive fiber the article mentions, combined with the narrower diameter than Cat-6, might make it more practical to run across the tops of mopboards in my rented apartment.<p>WiFi speeds are usually OK, but the apartments density is so high here (and new `xfinitywifi` APs are often popping up on my channel), that I'm almost ready to move back to cabled for most purposes.
What's oddly left out in the article is the detail of whether or not he already had a network switch with ports supporting more than GbE - the price for these things start at around 250-300 CHF which would double his suggested total cost - or if he's just linking two computers together. Personally I would just go with 2.5GBASE Ethernet and compact-diameter cabling. 2.5GBASE PCIe cards cost around $15 a pop.
I’m looking at using fiber and media converters to connect 7 houses and 2 entrances in a security estate. Main reason is to get IP cameras (and shared access to them) at various points but reduce the impact a lightning strike would have. We have a lot of lightning in this area and I’d be bleak if one strike wiped out multiple houses worth of network and gear.<p>If anyone has done anything like this, advice welcome.
Skipping the field-terminated bit, I just grabbed a hunk of preterminated fiber and some dumb media converters. It creates a dielectric gap in my network, so lightning and surges coming in on the cable modem, can't damage the rest of the network. (I used to fry a wifi router about twice a year during storms, and got sick of replacing them...)
Armored fiber is another useful tool for the home or small business user. Much less fragile which can be a big help depending on your application<p><a href="https://community.fs.com/blog/what-is-armored-fiber-optic-cable.html" rel="nofollow">https://community.fs.com/blog/what-is-armored-fiber-optic-ca...</a>
I'd recommend using managed devices as opposed to using dumb media converters. If there are issues, you have no insight into the issues with unmanaged devices.
A much cheaper set:<p>$13 single mode 10G SFP transceiver set [quite uncertain what they are now... maybe something not quite ethernet compatible]: <a href="https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33040961103.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33040961103.html</a><p>2x $20 DLink 10G SFP [a much more certainly standard compatible]: <a href="https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32847226618.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32847226618.html</a><p>$50 1km G657A2 bend resistant single mode cable: <a href="https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33045053714.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33045053714.html</a><p>$20 20x gel LC connectors: <a href="https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32810983763.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32810983763.html</a><p>$15 20x gel splices: <a href="https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000183799694.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000183799694.html</a>
Maybe watching Comcast employees use a microscope when fusing individual fibers together when installing their service has made me feel like sticking my own connectors on fiber is a bad idea.<p>The thin diameter is a nice feature, but the ease of breaking them would keep me from installing them anywhere copper wiring provides adequate performance.
I've run fiber from my basement to my second floor rack (two cables). It's really cool. Right now its 1G, but I can upgrade it to 10G whenever I feel like paying for new switches.
Back in university, my old roommate did networking at a car dealership and brought home old 10Mb fiber connectors. Yes, 10Mb .. designed for range, but certainly not speed.
So what? Running the actual fiber to my shop was far less interesting than digging the trench with the backhoe, running conduit, and backfilling the trench.
Does anyone actually know how these transceivers work? Is it software or hardware? They can pass an amazing amount of traffic and I’ve never had them crash.
I love this:<p>> I had only ever seen 2mm fiber cables before, and the 0.9mm cables are incredibly light, flexible and thin! Even pasta is typically thicker:<p>> (Image of some disorderly 0.9mm thin fiber cables)<p>> Preparing a delicious pot of glass noodles ;)