Remote BCM 50 Expanion Cabinet

[SS67]

Has anyone made a BCM 50 expansion cabinet function using the local area network or dedicated fiber with media converters?

My customer wants to add phones in another building and does not want to run copper. he already has the phones and expansion cabinet. I was thinking to slap a cheap media converter on either end of two dedicated strands of fiber and plug the expanion cabinet and BCM expansion ports in. The customer has a 6 strand fiber connecting the buildings already.

I tried looking at the documentation to see if it is supported.

NCSS, NCDS, for CS1000 and BCM

 

[phoneguy610]

hmm i am curious if this would work as well...

did you tell him that he can put another bcm there and connect them, or he could have just purchased ip phones and setup a vpn?

 

[biv343]

I was told by a Nortel guy years back when the 50 first came out that it should work up to CAT 5 distance limits. I never tried anything longer than the cable that comes with it. My gut feeling is it wouldn't work over fiber as I suspect there is some type of clocking that goes across that connection.

 

[SS67]

This customer is cheap and wants to use what he has and not run a 700 foot copper feed cable. The fiber is a direct cable from point a to point b. I was thinking a single ST fiber to 10/100 media converter on each end.

NCSS, NCDS, for CS1000 and BCM

 

[telcodog]

Might be interesting to take a box of cat5e cable, slap an RJ45 connector on each end, plug it in and see if it works. If it does, I would imagine it would be ok over a fiber link.

If you do, post the results here. There's a lot of us that would be interested to know one way or the other.

Even if it does work, I wonder how a PRI card would fare in that expansion.

 

[curlycord]

As an FYI in case need you can get digital extenders via their network.

http://www.citel.com/Products/EXTender/suite.asp

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curlycord

http://www.curlycord.com

 

[SS67]

Thank You,

We have sold these products and they work very well. Like I said the customer wants to take advantage of the fiber that is in place and not spend much money. I will run some test here and report my findings.

NCSS, NCDS, for CS1000 and BCM

 

[tech1979]

FYI...according to the nortel docs the maximum length is 10 meters.

This is what it states in the doc on connecting an expansion unit:

"Locate the expansion cable supplied with the expansion unit.
If have no expansion cable, you can use a shielded category 5e-compliant Ethernet cable (maximum length of 10 m)"

It probably wont hurt to try connecting it over fiber, you may get some issues or worse it just wont work.

 

[curlycord]

I found this:

I'm not really familiar with what the "FS256" lines are, but I can
say for sure that Ethernet up to 100 megabit is pairs 3 and 4 only.
The "FS256" designations on that pinout strongly suggest that Nortel's
running something else on the unused pairs. My money is on an
Ethernet media converter *not* working.

If the BCM 50 is anything like the 200/400/450, the expansion bus is
highly sensitive to signal timing due to cable length, and won't work
reliably with anything other than the genuine Nortel cable. (Yes, it
really does care how long the cable is.)


Link:

http://answerpot.com/showthread.php?2419516-BCM+50+Expansion+Module+extension

Cant find much more info.

After getting fiber splitters and speed extenders etc still might be cheaper to go the MCK route or IP sets for remote side.

Posting on the Network forum might help but note that more than 2 pairs maybe used on the patch cord.




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curlycord

http://www.curlycord.com