The minimum bend radius of any good fiber is way less than cat6 at this point.

G.657A1/B1 = 10mm

G.657A2/B2 = 7.5mm

G.657A3/B3= 2.5mm

CAT6 = 25mm

Flexible cat6 = 15mm.

Fiber surpassed copper for flexibility almost 2 decades ago (G.657 was introduced in 2006, but let's call it 5 years before all forms became common).

Even G.652 was only 25mm and standardized in 1984.

Fun fact 1: When you don't have a proper OTDR fiber tester to check for breaks, you can shine a laser pointer down the fiber and see it projected out on a sheet of paper on the other end (you might have to call the person on the other end).

Fun fact 2: If the other end is plugged into a transceiver, don't look at the fiber end directly; instead, look at it through your phone camera. If all is working correctly, you should be able to see a faint purple light out of one of the strands.

P.S. always remember to roll it if no link initially :)

Cables ain't free, duct capacity is finite and duct rental from the local incumbent is costly too... Please calculate the financial optimum of pay now vs. pay later - taking into account growth, various forms of attrition, cost of capital, opportunity costs and appetite for risk. Or everyone would be running 1152 strands cables everywhere.

But then I see that from a telco perspective and, now that I've read the article, it seems to be from a small-scale hosting perspective - entirely different economics.

My brother-in-law thinks he's crazy, and obviously it only really works if it is practical to run the wire and you can afford the number, but for my relatively small house it is insane how little I think about my internet. It is one of those quality of life things I never would have realized with having someone come and do it for me.

I guess the only thing is some of the ceilings get a little crowded with lights + fire alarm + CO alarm + HVAC in/out + AP, so for small rooms it can be a challenge to figure out where to put things. But in that case I mean ... you don't need one per room. My father-in-law is crazy like a fox ... but he's also a little crazy like a crazy person.

A family member who's doing better in life than I am purchased a house built within the last 5 years, and it didn't even _have_ Ethernet run anywhere. WHY!?! I can't fathom how it's possible anyone would find that a negative.

https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-switching/products/u...

Unless you meant with regards to routing the cables throughout the space, like now it’s on the opposite wall from the port.

I’ve definitely shoved cables under baseboards, but you can also pull them off and the run the cable in the wall behind them. You don’t even need to patch the drywall then. You can also get baseboards (that look nice in a home) then double as cable runs.

https://www.elba.si/izdelki/parapetni-kanali/

https://www.obo.si/izdelki/izdelkiinstalacije-v-zgradbah/bis...

Need one more outlet? Remove the plastic cover, insert cable, insert outlet, cut the plastic cover to make space for outlet, and you're done.

Just drop a switch down there.

What does that mean? I assume you are saying most builders don't offer fiber?

Running fiber in a house is entirely practical and easy to do. Cheap as well.

I think because there are less code specifications for the garage, builders just don't bother.

With a 10G backbone, you can get away with basement->main and main->upstairs in a three-floor house, with a small bridge on your main floor.

I think it is. A pair of switches and a single run isn’t that expensive and it’s truly beautiful.

But… I still wish I’d put in 2 cables and not one.

Is it so bad to put in a switch?

The one that went bad is the pullstring.

    > If running a few at home, I suggest to run ... that can have around 12 fibers in them, plenty of future expansion.

For a homelab honestly just pull pre-terminated cable with LC connectors, a 20 or 25mm hollow pipe is enough. That way you don't need a splicer machine, experience on how to operate it, or measuring equipment.

the author is a sysadmin, who can definitely change what is plugged in to the switches their employer has chosen to buy, but doesn't have the power to make physical changes between multiple buildings, easily authorise opex spending on cable pullers or retrain as a cable puller.

please actually consider what you're replying to before pushing the REPLY button.

The expensive parts of fast/large networks are not the fiber strands.

* right of use / lease

* trenching and laying and covering

* amplifiers on long lines

* repair/maintenance

* endpoints

... which is why the first thing you upgrade are the endpoints, and the last you do is lay more fiber. Get the most you can afford (often physically) at the beginning.

Yes, it is obviously about small-scale sysadmin cabling. Telco networks have wildly different economics.

And for the typical price of a Cisco optic you can buy two third-party optics. So now you have a spare. :)

They will look at you funny and maybe even tell you "that's more expensive" because they haven't looked at price lists in over a decade. But they are wrong on all counts (unless you exist in a really whacky market). The only exception here is that some video, HVAC, etc systems require MMF to stay in warranty. In those cases, run both and use the MMF only for that junk.

It was profit generating. They would offer to put conduit in for an extra fee, the customers always said no, then they would be back to install conduit and cable in the spring after the ice had killed the cable.

    > I recently had the primary fibre fail

I've been in many, many buildings for cabling issues. While I generally agree with your assessment of "run more everything" I think this could be taken out of hand for a lot of smaller IT departments who aren't capable of using more advanced methods of network building. Like subnetting, VLAN trunking, or redundant links.

Why would you need to learn about these things if you've got 3 or 4 more pairs of fiber hanging down? Then you have a situation that I've seen before, where you have 2 fiber runs carrying flat networks right next to each other with just a couple of IP phones on each one.

But some brands would run too hot for an enclosed space and a Netgear one would burn your fucking house down.

You can also get bend-resilient unarmored fibre. Its what the incumbent telcos use when they send out their monkeys (sorry "engineers") who've been on a 4-hour afternoon course on how to install fibre before being let loose. Old copper "that'll do" install habits die hard in the telco world.

Screws should _never_ be able to hit the wiring. If that's possible, someone failed to install nail plates or Smarshield sleeves.

As for the sharp corners, IMHO you should always install a raceway of some sort (everyone just uses smurf tube), then pull the fiber in afterward. It takes real effort to fuck up the bend radius of conduit.

Like if you are in an area that has frequent natural disasters or just heaps of construction work, you will find that RF is more stable and future proof.

Also, you can get issues with cable bends and terminations. Which are simple to fix, but often go undetected by cheap fiber carriers.

I manage a couple pair of dark fibre for a customer, and the fibre runs through a couple of suburbs that are under constant development. And they have near monthly half day outages, and quarterly 1 - 2 day fibre outages.

Like others have said, backhoes hunger for the glass.