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Hi folks,

The company I work for has 2 warehouses about 100ft apart with a courtyard in the middle. We are looking to extend the network from one to the other and are trying to weigh out our options. It needs to be a reliable connection as we are a heavily cloud driven/dependent company. My boss wants to run a cable on a guy wire from the pinnacle of one to the other and Im thinking fiber would be the way to go to limit interference. So far we have discussed running cat5e to a converter box in warehouse A, then fiber, attached to a guy wire, to warehouse B with another converter on the other end to bring it back to cat5e.

He is strongly resistant to running something in the ground but Im open to it and will still advise him on all available options.

Does anyone have any recommendations, tips, alternate ideas for this project? Maybe im missing something? This is my first time working with fiber but will be gaining the help of someone who worked with it, briefly, 5 years ago.

Also does anyone have any recommendations on fiber or converters that have worked for them? The burden will be easily 10-15 computers and 1 ip phone.

Thanks folks for all the info!

47 Spice ups
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Airfiber from Ubiquiti or other bridge products. Not as reliable as a hard wired fiber connection, but a viable option.

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If you have fiber ports in your switches use those and not the converters. FIber should work well either multi-mode or single-mode should both work at that distance.

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What interference are you expecting with the fibre?

It won’t be prone to electronic interference and as long as the guy cable (I believe you mean catenary cable) is installed correctly, it will be fine.

4 Spice ups
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fiber is definitely a way to go from standpoint of safety. Lots of equipment gets damaged by lightning strikes or worse causes fires. If your switch doesn’t support fiber modules, good media converter will work as well. Messenger wire will work or underground which has higher cost and possible require permits, dont forget conduit. If this is mission critical, supplement your installation with wireless bridge.

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I use SFP converters in my switches for our fiber, but the CAT5 converters work just as well. There’s probably nothing wrong with it, but I’d avoid the guy wire thing and trench it in a conduit, but that’s just preference. It’ll work just as well either way. Wireless would be an option, but the fiber would be better.

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As others have already noted you actually have several options, all of which will work. Each has tradeoffs however.

Wireless:
Pros-> Cheap. Fast and easy to install.
Cons-> Limited bandwidth. Prone to outage due to weather or EM interference.

CAT 5E / 6:
Pros-> User can terminate themselves. No need for GBICs or media converters. May be capable of higher bandwidth than wireless.
Cons-> More expensive than wireless. May require permits (depends on locale). Outdoor installation requires shielded cable and is still susceptible to EMP from close lightning strikes.

Fiber:
Pros-> Highest bandwidth available. Not susceptible to EMP or other EM interference.
Cons-> More expensive than wireless. Requires switches with GBIC ports or media converters. Requires professional termination. May require permits (depends on local).

Please note: This cost difference between fiber and copper outdoor runs is negligible. Quality shielded cable is about the same cost as multi-mode fiber these days. The installation labor is exactly the same. The only actual difference will be termination and testing costs and that’s a minor item on the quotes you’ll see. If you ever have to choose between copper and fiber for an outdoor run, ALWAYS pick fiber.

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None from the fiber, one of the glorious things about it IMO. By “limiting” I mean taking away the possibility of interference by removing the cat cable component.

Already I appreciate all the input. You guys rock.

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I would totally go with an AC wireless bridge. Make it 5.8Ghz and go with either Mikrotik or Ubiquity. Personally I like Mikrotik these days but I’ve used both heavily. I do a bunch of side work for a WISP and it’s been my experience that this will be the perfect answer for you especially at 100’. That’s close enough that you may have to locate the antennas inside to keep them from burning each other out. I have an AC link running 26 miles and I get over 100Mbps across it. At 100’ you should be able to get the full spec.

@Ubiquiti_Inc

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We run a lot of fibers under a truckers parking and for many years we never had any issues with it.

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I have had great luck with Ubiquiti Wireless Bridges. Heard Great stuff about the Ubiquiti Air Fiber but never used it myself. Ubiquiti will work with Engenius products as well. I was in a rural area and ended up with an Engenius Bridge on one and end and an Ubiquiti on the other. Not ideal but I wasn’t near any stores.

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I’ve run fiber everywhere around here. I am mostly fiber port to fiber port, but a couple of my spots just have a single machine and do not warrant a switch. For those, I use a ‘Just Convert It’ brand 100Base transceiver. They seem to do the trick. Not sure how they would react to your traffic load though.

I am not a big fan of aerial fiber, although we ran it all over Afghanistan that way simply because the military wasn’t too keen on us digging. All of my fiber here is in the ground, and that is the way I think it should be. Things deteriorate outside in the sun and the weather. I would really dig in my heels and push hard for underground.

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We used a pair of ENH200 WDS antenni to provide internet and voip phone to a building across the street. It worked well enough although it was a bit slow.

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Have you considered treating each warehouse as separate offices? That is treat each warehouse as if they were in different cities.

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I guess they didn’t want you to dig up a mine?

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I would but there is no connection at all in the second warehouse for internet… or even phone now that i think of it. Previously they had a cat5e cable ran across the courtyard and attached to a fence but after some issues have decided to redo it. I did contact TWC to see how much it would cost for an extra installation but they havent gotten back to me yet.

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We have a total of four buildings. We have fiber trenched from our Main Office to two of the buildings (fiber length is 900 ft). The fourth has the fiber running along a cable between one of the other buildings (these two are literally 20 - 30 feet from each other at the closest point so we didn’t trench).

You can get pre-terminated fiber for whatever length you want. For the converter we got these: TigerDirect Sunset . You need to make sure the converters will work with the type of fiber you want to buy.

Do you own the courtyard or lease the area? If lease, you’ll need permission from the owner and get any permits required.

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Infared laser.

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We had something very similar to this. However, our fiber line was buried underground. We used Cat6 to Fiber converter box. Worked perfect.

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UBNT Air fiber imo is overkill. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an animal product, but for a handful of computers and phones do you need a Gigabit link (If you do, this is great - and quite likely cheaper than trenching fiber)

Trenching fiber - ok it’ll work great and it’s a solid plan but it costs a small fortune. And a lot of effort, noise and mess to get it done.

Personally I’d probably get a couple of UBNT Rocket M’s in there (they come in multiple freq’s so you can stay out of noisy band space) with some airmax sector antennas and bam! +/- 150Mbit wireless link. For probably $500 total hardware costs (both ends of the link included,) or less. Dollars per pound, you can’t beat it.

@Ubiquiti_Inc

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