CAT5 maximum distance

[wantagofast]

I would like to know how much the signal is degraded if you run the CAT5 or CAT5e past the maximum distance of 330ft.

I am planning on networking 7 neighbors in my neighborhood to my house to share my DSL line. I have looked into the retail wireless access point and don't feel that the wireless solution is the best solution.

I live in a cul-da-sac and my most distant neighbor is roughly 400 ft.

Any solutions or recommendations are much appreciated.

Matt
MCP

 

[jimbopalmer]

the first is the obvious one, read your contract, as reuse of your signal is usually outlined as theft of service.

Second, if it IS legal, consider wireing the neighbors to each other, it may be 400 feet to you, but is he 400 feet from everyone? I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[FredWagner]

You don't need 100BaseT around the neighborhood, 10BaseT will do fine. Put a hub in one of the houses halfway top the most distant - daisy chain the hubs (they're cheap!) - get hubs that have a crossover port for connecting to another hub. Be advised that you may need a router, to provide the additional addresses, because your ISP may only allow a couple of IP addresses - my attbi account only allows 3. Also, be warned, your ISP contract may specifically prohibit you from acting as a sub-ISP yourself, and they could either turn off your service, or sue you for damages. Is DSL really that expensive where you live ??

Fred Wagner
frwagne@ci.long-beach.ca.us

 

[jimbopalmer]

Also the wire will act as a ground loop between the houses, which will have 'interesting' effects on the useablity of the signals. I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[daronwilson]

My experience with longer than 328 feet for ethernet has offered mixed results. I have some installed runs in excess of 380 feet, and they work. They worked at 10 mbs, they work at 100 mbs. However, I have not thrown a network analyzer on there to see if they actually have really good throughput or if there are multiple retries. Your individual mileage may vary.

There are other options, but first let me say I would use wireless i think ( and i pull wire for a living ). Easy to set up, make each neighbor buy thier own station adapter, easy to deploy, easy to dismantle, no physical cabling worries (no physical evidence).

Now, if you are just determined to dig in the dirt, you might consider thinnet RG58 coax as it can run 185 meters at 10BT. That would fix your distance limitations, and it is designed to be a series connection between all the computers, so from one house to the next would work.

As is the case with any copper media, the possibility of different ground potentials between connections exists. With the coax 10BT it could be very noticable, as the shield is grounded at each NIC/device. I have experienced problems with that before. With Cat5, I believe the pairs are balanced (unlike the coax unbalanced scheme) and not referenced to ground, so I think the chances of a grounding problem would be less.

With Cat5, a mini hub could be used to extend the length, and provide a 'tap' if you will at each house. Keep in mind there are rules for the number of hubs you can cascade, too many hops makes too much latency and ends up with collisions.

Good Luck! It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com

 

[Grenage]

I'f fairly new to the cabling game, could anyone explain what a ground loop is at all for me please ?

 

[jimbopalmer]

sure. every device in your house has a ground plug so that if any thing goes wrong, excess voltage is shunted to ground. think of this as Chassis ground, a safety feature.

Ground is also used to measure a signal, it is +5 volts from ground, or -12 volts from ground, this is the signal ground. Our problem here is that the houses all have their own ground, so our reference breaks, it may be 15 volts different between houses, so the 5 volts is lost in the 15, or the -12 is actually +3, worse our thin little data wires are trying to equalize large scale differences. If you look at the ground strap for your house, it is larger than a pencil. I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[candyman6807]

If you do not want to go wireless then you should use hubs but do not but more then 3 in a role and you may consider a switch if you need the speed to change information between PCs

 

[Grenage]

thankyou kindly jimbopalmer for clearing that up for me

 

[ricefd]

According to manufacturers and engineers no Cat5 should be more then 250 to 350 feet. Reality is there is alot of Cat5 out there that is run in excess of 500 to 1000 feet and amazingly they work fine. Facters such as flurescent lights, the structure that the cable is running alongside the amount of bends that the cable goes through are sometimes as important as the distance.

 

[wires]

>With the coax 10BT it could be very
>noticable, as the shield is grounded
>at each NIC/device.

10Base2(thinnet coax) is only supposed to be grounded at one end using a terminator with a pigtail. The NIC's have insulated BNC connectors where the shield of the cable is not connected to chassis (or any other system) ground. They used to sell little plastic "booties" to go over the BNC Tee so there was no possibility of a ground connection. If you are going with a wired system 10Base2 is the best way to go. Both distance and hub count are not a problem for 10Base2. Since you are setting this network up for sharing a DSL line 10Mbit is plenty fast enough. Check eBay for 10BaseT hubs with a 10Base2 BNC connector to bus them together. They should not cost over $15 each

For your application wireless is really the way to go since it is going to be difficult to do a "good" job running the wire and providing proper grounding and surge supression. You will most likely need some antennas for the longer hops. I would tend to use Linksys WAP11's in a "point to multi-point" bridge setup with (depending on topology) a omni antenna at the DSL house and directional antenna everywhere the stock antennas did not work. This would allow for a good bit of flexibility. You could all be on one big network with one PC per house or you could add hubs or router/NAT boxes to add additional PC's or "break up" the network.

As far as sharing the DSL line... Check the TOS (terms of service) agreement for your DSL service. Most of the telco (and cable) ISP's are VERY restrictive. Independent ISP's usually will let you do whatever you want. You WILL want to put in a router/NAT box to make your "Neighborhood Network" appear as one machine to your ISP. You also need to discuss acceptable use of the shared DSL line with your neighbors. If everybody wants streaming media at 5-10pm everyone is going to be disappointed.

Be sure to ask if you have any more questions.

Good luck!

 

[lopes1211]

Kudos to the good discussion points conceptionally. Bad application, bad concept, dumb idea as a whole. This is not legal and should not be posted on a BBS like this! -CL

 

[jimbopalmer]

lopes it certainly is true MY ISP would not allow it, I led off with that. In my case it would violate the contract but not the law.

it is also true that it would be cheaper and perhaps faster to just use 56k modems than to use point to multipoint wireless.

most of the point of being faster is lost as you add latency locally.

http://www.stuartcheshire.org/papers/LatencyQuest.html

I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[wires]

>Bad application, bad concept,
>dumb idea as a whole. This
>is not legal and should not
>be posted on a BBS like this!

Bulls#!t

It works well and thousands of people are using such method for Internet access. This entire forum might be illegal in China but sharing your Internet connection is not in and of itself "illegal". As jimbopalmer points out it may be a contract violation but in many cases it is not even that.


>it is also true that it would be cheaper
>and perhaps faster to just use 56k modems
>than to use point to multipoint wireless.

Faster depends on the usage. Cheaper is somewhat difficult to quantify. First in savings would be the "extra" six ISP accounts at about $120 per month (6*20). If two of the seven homes have a second phone line for Internet access the savings would be $180 per month (120+2*30). The DSL line charge would be around $50 and the existing ISP account would need allow the "extra" users or be one that would. Most of the $50 a month telco "specials" will prohibit this type of "sharing" so you will need to find an ISP that will allow this. In any case the "neighborhood" savings would be somewhere in the $840 to $1560 per year.

Setup (equipment) costs for wireless would be around $300 per house (1 PC) so savings could start in the second year. A 10Base2 wired network could be done for dirt (under $200) if your are a good shopper. This assumes all labor is free.


>most of the point of being faster
>is lost as you add latency locally.

There is nothing in either of the systems I have discussed that will add significant latency.

 

[daronwilson]

>10Base2(thinnet coax) is only supposed to be grounded at one end using a terminator with a pigtail. The NIC's have >insulated BNC connectors where the shield of the cable is not connected to chassis (or any other system) ground.

I guess I didnt realize it was actually isolated at each nic. I ran out and dug around in the garage for an old nic to throw my meter on and see, but I cant even find one. I have experienced problems before with this, though I dont remember the specifics, but it made sparks when something touched outside the case.

>Bad application, bad concept, dumb idea as a whole. This is not legal and should not be posted on a BBS like this!

Bad response, bad attitude, dumb comment as a whole. This is the cabling forum, and the question posted was regarding the length limitations of Cat5 cable, and connectivity suggestions. We strive to provide solutions to people who ask cabling questions. It should be up to the individual to implement the solution and certainly not up to us to determine what his agreement with his ISP is.

It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com