Connecting two buildings - 80m apart

blun

blun

blun

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North West England
Hi,

A friend has two industrial units, which are approx 80m apart as the crow flies. One contains their main office, the other is currently a warehouse but also had a (currently unused) office. They now need to use both offices and need access to shared resources.

One option would be to use a VPN to join them, but this will be very limited by the speed of internet connection at both sites.

Seeing as they are so close, what are the options for joining them via cable? I see cat5 has a limit of 100m, so I'd think they'd be right on that limit given that a straight line probably isn't possible. Is fibre the alternative in this case and what sort of costs are involved?

Also, any cable would require work to dig up the ground - this is certainly possible but does anyone know what sort of costs would be involved?

Thanks :)
 
I was thinking we might get away with cat5 .. though would need to know whether it is safe to lay underground.

From a bit more googling it looks like there are several wireless options that could be investigated. We should have line of sight between the two buildings.
 
CAT5e would be the cheapest option.
Connecting the two buildings together using satellites could be an option.
Fiber optics would be the best in terms of speed and interference, however it would be the most expensive.
 
@blun, any pictures of distance? If your allowed to lay cable then go ahead with cat6/cat7 between the buildings for future proof. If the company has money then get fibre down between the buildings. Then it will require just the switches to be configured and connected.
 
80 meters is pushing it for cat 5. If this is for a business you need to think about reliability and also the cost implications of the link failing. It's not just money spent resolving the problem, is money wasted because people can't work.

Get a few contractors in to give you some ideas. I suspect you'll be either looking at a fibre run or or sort of wifi or microwave link. Bare in mind they should also be able to use it for VOIP, meaning you could have a single phone system for both buildings.
 
Given the costs involved in digging up the ground and laying proper ducting, going Fibre won't seem so expensive.
 
I've run cat5 over more than 100m before. 100m is the recommended but it will work for quite a bit more than that with no errors, problems or downtime. So 80m would be fine with good quality cable. A decent switch at each end and sorted...
 
Fibre run.

Wireless/LOS Wireless links are "Meh". Cat5e will probably manage it but Fibre will not cost you THAT much and will represent better value for the connectivity.

A switch either end with some fibre modules and you are golden. Dig the trench yourself and you can save some cash :D
 
Thanks for all the replies - really helpful.

They're already using voice over IP etc so that's definitely a requirement.

One issue with the digging is that it's an industrial estate, so its concrete / roads, which is obviously going to make going underground much more expensive. Has anyone any experience of this - is it viable cost-wise?

I've seen stuff like this:
http://www.minitran.co.uk/pages/products/list.mhtml?ct=12&sc=55
(the 100m version for £1500)

Is this viable? Cost is a major consideration here so I'm looking for the best cost / performance option.
 
I can't see how that would be better than wired unless the cost to install the wires is going to be huge. £1200 for 100mbit is quite a lot imho. However, if you can't get wires across/underground (and you're going to struggle across an industrial estate) then it could be the cheapest/best connection. Can you not get decent broadband at each place and vpn?
 
blun said:
Thanks for all the replies - really helpful.

They're already using voice over IP etc so that's definitely a requirement.

One issue with the digging is that it's an industrial estate, so its concrete / roads, which is obviously going to make going underground much more expensive. Has anyone any experience of this - is it viable cost-wise?

I've seen stuff like this:
http://www.minitran.co.uk/pages/products/list.mhtml?ct=12&sc=55
(the 100m version for £1500)

Is this viable? Cost is a major consideration here so I'm looking for the best cost / performance option.
Click to expand...

Is that product specced as line of sight? If it is, you'll have to make sure nothing will get in the way of it.
 
blun said:
Thanks for all the replies - really helpful.

They're already using voice over IP etc so that's definitely a requirement.

One issue with the digging is that it's an industrial estate, so its concrete / roads, which is obviously going to make going underground much more expensive. Has anyone any experience of this - is it viable cost-wise?

I've seen stuff like this:
http://www.minitran.co.uk/pages/products/list.mhtml?ct=12&sc=55
(the 100m version for £1500)

Is this viable? Cost is a major consideration here so I'm looking for the best cost / performance option.
Click to expand...

No, we used far more expensive ones and they still took exception to rain, snow, mist and occasionally sunshine (reflections of things dazzling the receiving component apparently).

It's nice as a backup link to fibre as a primary (and that's how we ended up using it) and it's high bandwidth for low cost if you don't own the ground in between but reliable for primary link use they aren't.
 
Are you able to run a suspended cable?

Locally we have a product that is basically an DSL circuit between 2 buildings and only those buildings. It uses the already existing copper and has no connectivity out to, for example, the internet. Sold by local ISPs.

Might be worth looking into?
 
Thanks all. There is line of sight between the two buildings, but it sounds like the wireless option isn't going to be reliable enough for what they need. The local ISP option sounds interesting, definitely worth further investigation. Also need to see what the actual impact and cost of digging would be.
 
Personally I'd run some fibre pegged/hung to the buildings. 2switches and configure a trunk to carry the vlans over. I'd also plan a redundant link using spanning tree.
 
If you have to dig a trench, you may as well lay fibre. As said above, can you link them in the air with a cable? Might be worth getting a photo up?
 
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