Long ethernet cable runs

[K01V4L]

I would like to run some ethernet cable underground from my house out into the yard and to a pasture that is part of the property. Some may be in conduit, some may be direct burial. I will install some IP cams and also may have other networked devices or systems.

This is the cable I was intending to use:New Full Copper 1,000 ft Cat6 Ethernet Cable / Wire 1,000ft Cat-6 Waterproof Outdoor / Direct Burial / Underground ~ VIVO

Question is, how long an uninterrupted run can I make before I need to bring the cable into some type of powered connector? Total distances may be over 1,000 feet.

 

[ChristineBCW]

GAG- 300 FEET - not meters! What do I think with something?!!. - Thanks AZA because there will be patch panels and a couple of connections at each end. We use optic fiber at our farm - that has a 2km limit but we used about 1.1km in single runs. (And we pulled 2 cables thru PVC and left draw-string - well, wire - to pull back thru if ever needed.)

We might consider wireless, if we ever needed more.

 

[azazel1024]

100 meters is the length limit, 328ft.

Or at least that is the spec. I've personally tested longer using a 500ft spool (with a bit trimmed off that I had already used, call it ~450ft). Worked fine, though it was NOT performing at full gigabit speeds. It negotiated at that, but I saw some packet loss (1% or so, which resulted in a 3-4% speed decrease over more typical runs I've made). Either that was a result of the run being too long, or a result of a long run as a giant coil of wire sitting there interfering with itself, when stretched out the cross talk wouldn't be nearly so bad. Can't rightly say.

Anyway, no chance of a 1,000+ft run. You'll want/need at least 3 powered repeaters. My suggestion is go fiber and get media converters and SFP modules to go in them for the fiber. If you need to, run it on solar with battery and charge controller at the tail end. Probably cheaper and certainly easier.

 

[abailey]

I would also suggest fiber. If you don't want fiber for whatever reason you could run RG6 COAX and use these adapters: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00684E0UI/?tag=snbforums-20
Another option may be wireless bridges, as others have mentioned.

 

[kanewolf]

I would like to run some ethernet cable underground from my house out into the yard and to a pasture that is part of the property. Some may be in conduit, some may be direct burial. I will install some IP cams and also may have other networked devices or systems.

This is the cable I was intending to use:New Full Copper 1,000 ft Cat6 Ethernet Cable / Wire 1,000ft Cat-6 Waterproof Outdoor / Direct Burial / Underground ~ VIVO

Question is, how long an uninterrupted run can I make before I need to bring the cable into some type of powered connector? Total distances may be over 1,000 feet.

To do fiber at 1000 feet, you will want 50 micron. That is good for 750m at gigabit rates. 62.5 micron is good for 300m at gigabit.

 

[mervincm]

I would start with a wireless shot. Trenching 1000' and all that fiber / converters gets expensive / slow to implement.
Ubiquti and Microtik have inexpensive options. If that doesn't work out, you can then look at cable / iber.

On the other hand, maybe ou were thinking about reg cat cable because you need to do PoE to the cameras?

 

[fistv]

On the other hand, maybe ou were thinking about reg cat cable because you need to do PoE to the cameras?

That was my first thought as well, power. I run 150ft cat 5e from a POE switch to 4 cisco aeronet sap1600e's with no problems to events we have outside here. I have run a couple of 250 ft outside rated cables at a charter school in philly where I had to connect two buildings by going over two buildings with businesses the school did not own, worked with no problem. Long hauls I have always used fiber with converters but in those cases I had power on both ends already. It would not surprise me though if someone did not make a cable bundle with copper power included, I've seen it with everything else.

 

[azazel1024]

Probably not. Issue is that you cannot run low voltage with high voltage. I don't remember off the top of my head what the max voltage is, but I think in theory it is supposed to be a max of 24v to be considered low voltage. You aren't going to find a bundle that supports 120v or anything like that, which is what you'd really need for 1,000ft, unless it was VERY low amperage.

This is for 24v DC, but you are looking at around a 10% V-drop using 14AWG wire at 1,000ft for a .5A draw (probably what a POE AP is going to pull being feed 24v). That is VERY large wire. Not something you could run on cat anything for certain.

Using 48v POE, you can get to 1,000ft with only a 10% V-drop with 23 gauge wire. That is probably the max V-drop you'd really want. The problem though is still that you aren't likely to get a working data stream at that distance. You MIGHT be able to feed it with an injector or POE, if it can do 48v (24v is probably going to cause to high of a V-drop to work properly), but you'll still need to run cat (and something with 23 gauge, 24 gauge is back to being too high a V-drop at 1,000ft (13.5%, though MAYBE it would still work, but over 10% V-drop is pushing it) and also run fiber for the data.

 

[LoneWolf]

That was my first thought as well, power. I run 150ft cat 5e from a POE switch to 4 cisco aeronet sap1600e's with no problems to events we have outside here. I have run a couple of 250 ft outside rated cables at a charter school in philly where I had to connect two buildings by going over two buildings with businesses the school did not own, worked with no problem. Long hauls I have always used fiber with converters but in those cases I had power on both ends already. It would not surprise me though if someone did not make a cable bundle with copper power included, I've seen it with everything else.

I would think that you'd need a PoE switch on the end you want to have the cisco points on, and then just use a converter to uplink the fiber/coax cable. Alternately the same solution, but with a wireless bridge for point-to-point. If range is significant, you may need unidirectional high-gain or amplified antennas. Netgear makes some very basic switches that support PoE , like the GS108T and the GS110TP; they are small and could fit in a weatherproof housing (though I'd probably want some insulation for that housing during your cold season, if you have one).