On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Helber wrote: >What is the best way to conect two points at about 350 m away? >When I say best I´m talking about $ and performance.
Here's what I would do if I was paying. 350m is twice the maximum length of a segment of 10baseT/100baseT. So put a cheap hub or switch between them. You may think it's crazy to use a switch, but when you consider that a cheap switch (like the one I've got in my loungue) costs $120 and gives you 100M full duplex it's probably worth it. The only problem with this is that it relies on there being a good half-way point that you can run a switch. If you are considering running a line between two buildings then this won't work. But if the line is outside then there's the issue of electrical interferance and earth-loops. In that case I would consider the bandwidth requirements. If 2Mb/s is all you need then WaveLAN is a good solution. It can do 1Km with ease and 4Km+ if you use the right antennas and there's no interferance (NB it is generally not advertised as being capable of really long distances). WaveLAN does 2Mb/s over unregulated frequencies (you don't need a permit). Currently work is in progress on IEEE 802.11 wireless at 11Mb/s speed. AFAIK there are no available products that implement it. If all these options are unsuitable then you can use fiber. Fiber apparently isn't as difficult as it used to be. A former colleague of mine was considering implementing a gigabit Ethernet network in his home because fiber is so cheap and easy! This thing of taking an hour to do a termination is apparently a thing of the past. Russell Coker
