Posted: 8/2/2026 9:17:12 PM EDT
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I'm currently planning an upgrade to my network. My router and internet access is in a small building about sixty to eighty feet from the house. The house is small and I don't really have room to move the access equipment to the house. I live in the country so space isn't a problem otherwise. Currently i am using powerline links to get internet into the house at an AP. They aren't that reliable and have to be reset every so often. I have seen too much of what lightning does to things connected to outdoor wiring. I have managed switches that include SFP ports at the router. I could buy a small switch with a SFP port to run the network to the house. The other option is to do wireless. The house is aluminum clad and makes that less than ideal. What's the better solution? Fiber could be run overhead or buried. I know there is lightning protection possible over ethernet, I'm just not sure anything will stop a close strike. 
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I live in the country because monsters are attracted to cities.
Ego is the anesthesia that deadens stupidity.
Ego is the anesthesia that deadens stupidity.
| Fiber - - no need to fuck with ground voltage differentials, lightning, static, or RF propagation. |
Disclaimer - OP is bad at knowing things, and might catch on fire.
Vet - Op MMAMA
Every other species kills off their stupid......we cater to them. -- spin-drift
Nobody ever called 911&said I just did something smart. -- TheFlynDutchman
Vet - Op MMAMA
Every other species kills off their stupid......we cater to them. -- spin-drift
Nobody ever called 911&said I just did something smart. -- TheFlynDutchman
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Wireless could work. So could buried fiber. It just depends on what your preference is. For wireless, since there's metal cladding, you'd probably want a pair of point-to-point radios on the outside of the two buildings for the link, and an access point on the inside of the outbuilding for guests to connect to. Ultimately the performance you get from wireless would depend on how much you want to spend, but you should be able to get half a gigabit to a gigabit without breaking the bank too hard. Ubiquiti has 802.11AC bridge hardware for $99 to $300 each, any of which would probably work fine. Originally Posted By Amish_Bill: Fiber - - no need to fuck with ground voltage differentials, lightning, static, or RF propagation. While fiber IS best, twisted pair doesn't really care too much about three of the four things you listed: - ground differentials: In a normal twisted pair cable, nothing is connected to ground. And in a grounded cable, only the sheath is connected, and it is only connected on one end, for exactly the reason you're thinking. There's no ground connection between the endpoints, and there isn't even a direct connection between endpoints, everything is isolated via magnetics in the ports. I don't recall the exact isolation voltage, but I think it's in the kilovolt range. - static - differential signalling doesn't generally care about static of normal amounts, and the plastic sheath keeps static from reaching the wires. But it would presumably be buried under 18" of dirt, in conduit, so I don't think static would even be a consideration. - RF propagation - differential signalling doesn't care about common-mode interference like that. And that's if there even WAS any RF, since the TP would presumably be buried something like 18" underground in a conduit. Realistically, the only advantage of burying fiber instead of cable is that if lightning struck one of the buildings, it couldn't come back through copper pairs and damage equipment in the OTHER building. |
I have experienced THAT in real life. At the air station in Florida we had a direct hit next to the guard shack. It fried everything in the shack(alarm panel, fire monitor, CCTV, gate controller, etc.), blew out two conduits that crossed each other underground and made a mess of everything connected to it. I doubt i will have a direct lightning strike here, but Murphy rides the storms.  |
I live in the country because monsters are attracted to cities.
Ego is the anesthesia that deadens stupidity.
Ego is the anesthesia that deadens stupidity.
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Originally Posted By shooter_gregg: I'm currently planning an upgrade to my network. My router and internet access is in a small building about sixty to eighty feet from the house. The house is small and I don't really have room to move the access equipment to the house. I live in the country so space isn't a problem otherwise. Currently i am using powerline links to get internet into the house at an AP. They aren't that reliable and have to be reset every so often. I have seen too much of what lightning does to things connected to outdoor wiring. I have managed switches that include SFP ports at the router. I could buy a small switch with a SFP port to run the network to the house. The other option is to do wireless. The house is aluminum clad and makes that less than ideal. What's the better solution? Fiber could be run overhead or buried. I know there is lightning protection possible over ethernet, I'm just not sure anything will stop a close strike. However I think adding a 10+ port POE switch at each side with each having at least one SFP port and running fiber would be the best solution. Maybe a bit more work, depending on the route the fiber is ran, but I think it'll be worth it. When its time to upgrade you swap the end point and go. |
LARUEMINATI
NRA Endowment Life Member
Originally Posted By Boom_Stick:
""AKs are for villagers you have to tell not to shit in their water supply.""
NRA Endowment Life Member
Originally Posted By Boom_Stick:
""AKs are for villagers you have to tell not to shit in their water supply.""
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Fiber with appropriate connectors and media converters on each end or wireless shots between buildings. If you want to get maximum creativity.......... tri band wireless mesh where the radio mesh on 6GHz and provide wifi on 2.4 and 5GHz. Place the mesh radios as "near" each other as possible with least material that they have to go through to "see" each other. TT |
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Originally Posted By GlutealCleft: Everybody keeps saying fiber... But you're ignoring the problem with that. Then he needs a huge concrete wall to keep the backhoes out of his yard. Ha, You got me at 1st... I was like WTF? Bit slow on the uptake here. I've ran fiber, CatX and CoAx ftom A to B, using and Edger/Spade. It more or less made an 8-10"deep slit in the ground the whole run. Then I laid the cable in the slit, walked on the length with big boots on and in 2 weeks, you can't tell a thing was done. |
LARUEMINATI
NRA Endowment Life Member
Originally Posted By Boom_Stick:
""AKs are for villagers you have to tell not to shit in their water supply.""
NRA Endowment Life Member
Originally Posted By Boom_Stick:
""AKs are for villagers you have to tell not to shit in their water supply.""
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Good luck with the trencher…mini ex was what the contractor used to get through the limestone when the septic had to be redone. Personally, I run wireless point to point but to be fair I have a bunch of wireless stuff laying around. I've currently got some older Mimosa C5x's to run between my office and the house. 750 Mbps is more than adequate for what I'm using internet wise. 10 GbE in the office though. I've done 60 GHz before out to about a 1/4 mile back in the early days of it's availability. Did the ex-in-laws place with Mikrotik wAP60G's configured in a PtMP config. 400 Mbps per client is what it would pull simultaneously and it was only running at 1/8th of that full time (cameras don't take much). The quarter mile PtP shot was cool, gigabit full duplex except for 1-2 ms of latency you would've never known it was a wireless backhaul. Come to think of it, had a MDU project where we also backhauled the buildings with Mikrotik 60G links. I think that was three buildings of 40-50 units each backhauling gigabit via 60 GHz with a 1 Gbps DIA. Average utilization of that DIA was 250 Mbps or something like that and peak never pegged gig. I had a tower get struck last July (2025). Blew up the microwave backhaul. The other end 11 miles away also went deaf…don't know if it was related to that strike or a local strike. Still finding things that got damaged in that strike today. |
"Have you heard of the Gospel according to NIMS?" - Some EMC...Probably
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Originally Posted By zapzap: Good luck with the trencher…mini ex was what the contractor used to get through the limestone when the septic had to be redone. When I was doing my workshop, the "dirt works" guy I hired for grading threw a 1' wide bucket on his skid steer. He dug a 3' deep trench all the way there, I glued and threw in the conduit, and he knocked the dirt back in and packed it as I laid the conduit. The entire operation was something like 30-45 minutes from start to finish. SO WORTH IT, a pro with heavy equipment makes life easy. |