Cable laying conundrum....

[joshuabardwell]

Cat5 is speced at 328 feet. It will work out to 1000 with slow speeds.

No, no, no. For goodness sake, if you are burying cable, don't mess around. If you need to go 1000 feet with Ethernet, put in fiber. You can get a fiber to Ethernet transceiver pair for about $200, and direct burial cable is about $2 a foot. You don't want to be digging that stuff up in a year when it doesn't work right because you exceeded the operational specs of the technology.

 

[Deerherd]

Ok, I thought this was a diy project. Good luck, hope it's not too hot.

They gave me two quotes. One with me burying the cable and one with them. At a savings of $4 a foot ($6600) I am going to bury the cable from the pole to where the mid-way "box" is and from there to the house. They hook up at the pole, box and house and supply the appropriate cable.

I'm getting a muffler shop to bend up a smaller diameter pipe and flare the top end to make a new tube and fabricate one for a Fred Cain ripper that's on the way. Then paint the whole thing orange. I just got a new tractor and I'm GOING to use it to put the cable in the ground! LOL!

They talk about burying cable in this video about the sub soiler if anyone is interested. Fred Cain Tractor 3 Point Hitch Subsoiler S-2

Here is the link to the item I already purchased for those that asked. It's $79 bucks plus shipping. 3 Point Pipelayer Fits Asc 73410

 

[tcartwri]

I just got a new tractor and I'm GOING to use it to put the cable in the ground! LOL!

I hear ya! :cool2:

 

[MikeInEburg]

That said, there is no real benefit to burying cat5 vs cat3.

What?! Clarify please.

Generally speaking, when you get to distances required by the OP (1650 feet), you are simply extending telco services from the road to the house. Telco's cables down the street are all POTS (plain old telephone service) cables, not "Cat anything". Plus the fact that, when comparing a linear foot of PE89 direct burial POTS cable vs a similar length of Cat6 - once you untwist the twists on cat6, it will be approximately 20% longer - hence will have 20% more attenuation. If you're on the distance edge for DSL service (generally 15,000 cable feet), that extra 20% can put you over the edge. And it doesn't get you any benefit. The dirty secret in the industry is that most benefits to using cat6 come from the pens of the marketing folks. Granted, there are some instances where catX may be better than POTS - such as using an Ethernet Extender between two buildings on your property. But this is rare. Like an earlier poster suggested, in an "on campus" situation, optical fiber would be a much better solution as it is lightning-proof (ahhhh.... it just rolls off the tongue).

So, if it were "Mike and Mike's money", I'd install PE89 (black jacketed direct burial with goop) inside a 2'' PVC along with the .500 or .750 coax and a spare inner duct for another pull.

 

[Deerherd]

Generally speaking, when you get to distances required by the OP (1650 feet), you are simply extending telco services from the road to the house. Telco's cables down the street are all POTS (plain old telephone service) cables, not "Cat anything". Plus the fact that, when comparing a linear foot of PE89 direct burial POTS cable vs a similar length of Cat6 - once you untwist the twists on cat6, it will be approximately 20% longer - hence will have 20% more attenuation. If you're on the distance edge for DSL service (generally 15,000 cable feet), that extra 20% can put you over the edge. And it doesn't get you any benefit. The dirty secret in the industry is that most benefits to using cat6 come from the pens of the marketing folks. Granted, there are some instances where catX may be better than POTS - such as using an Ethernet Extender between two buildings on your property. But this is rare. Like an earlier poster suggested, in an "on campus" situation, optical fiber would be a much better solution as it is lightning-proof (ahhhh.... it just rolls off the tongue).

So, if it were "Mike and Mike's money", I'd install PE89 (black jacketed direct burial with goop) inside a 2'' PVC along with the .500 or .750 coax and a spare inner duct for another pull.

Wow, thanks for the replies. I'm going to check on that because I would rather do it right the first time. (Provided I could AFFORD it! LOL!)PLUS I still may get to use that first pipelayer I purchased. And to think I turned it into a drink holder in the man cave. I think there may be a market for "Tractor Implements as Furniture."

 

[Attono]

NOw that's funny right there. I watched that subsoiler video last night and thought of just tack welding a few chain links to the back of it to feed the cable down into the furrow. If you welded links every few inches, you could then choose just how deep you wanted to run the cable. I also thought that you could hook a Chain Spring Snap Link or a Chain Quick Link to the links you welded on so you could detach the cable you are laying from the subsoiler if you ran into a rock or something and needed to reposition. Granted you'd have to shovel a little to the new entry point, at least you wouldn't have to cut the cable.

 

[joshuabardwell]

Generally speaking, when you get to distances required by the OP (1650 feet), you are simply extending telco services from the road to the house. Telco's cables down the street are all POTS (plain old telephone service) cables, not "Cat anything".

I see. I thought that might be where you were going, but I wanted to be sure.

And it doesn't get you any benefit.

For phone service, no. For data (Ethernet), cat 5e is usually good enough. All 100 Mbps service and short runs of 1000 Mbps can run over Cat5e. I have seen home wired all with Cat5e (including the telephone) just because it was simpler than using two different types of cable to pull data and phone to the same jack.

 

[joshuabardwell]

So, FWIW, since you're talking about POTS and not Ethernet service (and, duh, of course you are), cancel everything I said about fiber. Just pull whatever the phone company says to pull (and it sounds like Mike knows what he's talking about) and leave it at that.

 

[Deerherd]

Not sure what POTS is but this is Time Warner Cable and it's Internet, Cable and phone all-in-one service if that makes a difference. Thanks again.

 

[Baby Grand]

Wow, thanks for the replies. I'm going to check on that because I would rather do it right the first time. (Provided I could AFFORD it! LOL!)PLUS I still may get to use that first pipelayer I purchased. And to think I turned it into a drink holder in the man cave. I think there may be a market for "Tractor Implements as Furniture."

Oh no he di-int!
Deerherd, I think you just earned yourself a huge wad of street cred with that post.
Just passed some coffee thru my nose.