# ethernet switch long distance?



## Archangel

Im looking for an ethernet switch wich can handle a distance of 150 Meter (well, 142,.. but better safe than sorry :x ) on Cat5e cable.
However,..  I'm not sure if they even exsist. ( Its needed in an industrial application..   so no need to make suggestions for brands or whatever.) I merely need to kow if they exsist at all.. because most manufacturers dont even put the range of it in the specs :x


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## mattsprattuk

your best bet is to go wireless, as at that sort of length an ethernet cable will be quite useless.
set up remote extenders at mid points followed by a wireless HUB or router


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## Archangel

well.. its used outside, and the cable is already there.  ( its a link between 2 buildings,.. so everything in between would be outside  )


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## mattsprattuk

hmm, thats a tricky one... i suppose if you had 2 sky boxes you could aim the dishes at eachother and modify a digibox to carry the signal, it wouldnt be that difficult to do i dont think because most digiboxes have net capability (box office and stuff uses internet-like services)

have you tried the cable yet?


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## Archangel

Like said,   I want to use the cable,.  since it was actually put there for the job,.. but people didnt think about Ethernet may having range limmitations,.. so the problem ended up with me.

and no,. I havnt tried the cable yet..   since the swithes are 200 euro each,.. and a total of 5 is needed for the complete network (however, all distances are shorte than 100 meter, except for this one )


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## Adam135

The maximum length for a cat5e is around 100M. However you can buy a repeater (Non existent now because of FDDI known as fiber). Has the cable been working before on a network?

From switch to switch it should be under 100M to get even a good performance measure.


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## sliverspike

sounds like you've got quite the dilemna.  i would cutting the cable and putting a switch at 75m down the cable run.  this may be tricky as the whole run is outside.  if there are no places to plug a switch into an electrical outlet along the cable run, you could get a power-over-ethernet switch which would use the network cable itself to power the switch.  Now i'm sure with one of these devices, you'd have to have a proper enclosure to keep it out of the elements of nature like rain, wind, snow etc.  PoE switches will probably cost you a lot more money, but they will get the job done. 
here is one for example.  i just searched google for power over ethernet switch

http://garrettcom.com/ps14p.htm

gr


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## Archangel

the problem is indeed that its outside..   I gave some people the task toput the cable a bit different in the ground (a different setup of the cables underground) and now the longst single cable length is down to 110 merets (about).   
I find the idea nice, but unfortunately we cant put those into the ground,  and placing an underground box somewhere would cost too much unfortunately.  (about the price of those switches..  industrial ethernet switches cost about 200 euro over here, thats pricy enough i think  )


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## sliverspike

at 110 meters, we're going just over the standard for cable length.  You can try it at that cable length, but it may or may not lose packets.


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## Adam135

€200 is quite good for a good switch. I would doubt that you would get any higher than 10Mb/s or even so with over 100m, it would drop so many packets before the data is collected. With a 100Base-TX network the length one cable is meant to be is 100M.

The fact is that a switch can handle anything that the standard is set to.


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## Archangel

well... the 100meters are guaranteed distance, right? and yes.. it would be 10Mbit.  its not a pc network.  Its TCP/IP,.. but its used for remote I/O.


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## Adam135

Oh I see, you didn't say. It might work it would drop though not sure how much, you could get lucky. Hope it works, i do want to hear about it if it does. 

Would there be any chance you could get 50M down the line to repeater, switch or hub?


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## curtains

ok .. well i'm not like to sure about this one so correct me if im wrong thou im sure its still not an option u might wana use but jst incase so in theory the cat 5 cables crap out over lenght is because of resistance right so if u use an amp(not like a huge stero one jst like a small voltage amp like u have 2 find the right one or u'll fri ur stuff but possable and u can build them 2 wif that small voltage i have done so myself but not for ethernet) and so amp the signal so it should in thory get further because its only the restance over the long distance .. or the other thing is diy ur own cat 5 cable but this maybe an more expensive option jst use thicker cable as cat 5 cable is really this if u use thicker cable it ll have less restance(not 2 sure about this one like 90% sure haven't been 2 school in a long time)


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## Adam135

I hope Archangel has place a STP down and not a UTP?


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