Which fiber should I install in a new building?

[Scarlet]

Hi all,

I'm currently building a new home. Most of the wiring for Networking will be CAT.7A (with CAT6.A Keystones on each end). I would like to have one Fiber connection from the Office (top floor) to the Network rack (basement). The fiber would have to be approx. 50 m long and will be placed in 25mm conduit, but I am not sure what type of cable to use.

I have multiple Brocade ICX6450, one of them will be in the Office, one will be in the Network Rack. I am currently using OM4 LC/LC Patch cables from FS for stacking between these Switches. Should I simply put one or two patch cables in the tubing and terminate them with keystones? Or something else like this Trunk Cable from FS and Breakouts to LC on each end?

Any help would be appreciated, my electrician has no clue and is happy to pull any cable that I supply throught the conduit.

Thanks,
Scarlet

 

[Jason Antes]

Whichever route you go, make sure that you have them run more than what you need for pairs. Not that it happens often but if a pair is bad it's easier to switch to another pair and mark that bad ones than to pull a new set since you risk damaging whatever is already in the run. My preference for doing that is to run mutil fiber cable assemblies and have them terminated with what you need and tested.

 

[rootpeer]

I redid my apartment to basement cabling recently. The basement is where I keep my servers since they are loud and take up too much room.

I went ahead and dropped a 60m Ubiquiti SM fiber cable with 6 cores in it.

6 cores so I have room to grow, single mode so I can upgrade to 40Gb or more without having to recable or use large conductors.

But the best thing you can do is install large conduit with pull strings inside. You never know what you might need to use in the future and you don't have to spend big $$ right away.

Edit: Mind you that SM modules are more expensive but SM fiber is cheaper and more "future proof".

 

[Scarlet]

But the best thing you can do is install large conduit with pull strings inside. You never know what you might need to use in the future and you don't have to spend big $$ right away.

Edit: Mind you that SM modules are more expensive but SM fiber is cheaper and more "future proof".

I will have conduit installed, but there will be at least five 90 degree bends that I already know of (1 from wall to floor, 3 on the floor, 1 to go down). The cables can be routed on the wall without conduit in the basement. about 25m of the fiber will be in conduit. I'm told pulling through the conduit even with strings installed will be tough.

I will think about Singlemode fiber - right now I only have Multimode fiber and SFP+ Modules for it, but 22 € ist not too much for a FS SFP+ Module. Any recommendations for SM cable from FS where I buy most of my optics anc cables?

have them terminated with what you need and tested.

That will be difficult because I have no one to do it for me - the contractor for the networking / electricity stuff ist not able to do it and I'm already streching my budget getting multiple CAT7.A drops per room.

 

[funkywizard]

Hi all,

I'm currently building a new home. Most of the wiring for Networking will be CAT.7A (with CAT6.A Keystones on each end). I would like to have one Fiber connection from the Office (top floor) to the Network rack (basement). The fiber would have to be approx. 50 m long and will be placed in 25mm conduit, but I am not sure what type of cable to use.

I have multiple Brocade ICX6450, one of them will be in the Office, one will be in the Network Rack. I am currently using OM4 LC/LC Patch cables from FS for stacking between these Switches. Should I simply put one or two patch cables in the tubing and terminate them with keystones? Or something else like this Trunk Cable from FS and Breakouts to LC on each end?

Any help would be appreciated, my electrician has no clue and is happy to pull any cable that I supply throught the conduit.

Thanks,
Scarlet

Single mode b polarity female mtp12 or mtp24. With a breakout cassette at each end = D

 

[Jaket]

Single mode b polarity female mtp12 or mtp24. With a breakout cassette at each end = D

This would be nice.
Personally I would run fiber into quite a few rooms however for short distances and costs MMF is a lot cheaper for optics.
For the house if you are running some of this stuff yourself I would highly suggest a conduit if at all possible for networking and this so that future upgrades are super easy at the least for the office to basement.

Either a cassette or Fap to plug into would be ideal. If just doing it from the basement to the office then as Funkywizard said go the MTP24 route with breakout cassettes.

 

[rootpeer]

I will have conduit installed, but there will be at least five 90 degree bends that I already know of (1 from wall to floor, 3 on the floor, 1 to go down). The cables can be routed on the wall without conduit in the basement. about 25m of the fiber will be in conduit. I'm told pulling through the conduit even with strings installed will be tough.

I will think about Singlemode fiber - right now I only have Multimode fiber and SFP+ Modules for it, but 22 € ist not too much for a FS SFP+ Module. Any recommendations for SM cable from FS where I buy most of my optics anc cables?


That will be difficult because I have no one to do it for me - the contractor for the networking / electricity stuff ist not able to do it and I'm already streching my budget getting multiple CAT7.A drops per room.

One way to deal with the bends would be to have access right before or after each one but this is easier said than done. That is how I did it at my summer home, I put in electrical boxes either before or after the bend with separate pull strings for every box to box run. The conduit was however mounted on the wall on the outside of the house so it was easy.

Single Mode is not needed for 10Gb but it is cheap and convenient, however the price difference between MM and SM optics for 40Gb+ is night and day, at least for new, FS modules. The opposite is true for MM vs SM fiber cables for 40Gb+ applications, MTP and MPO cables are expensive (and much larger in size) for single MM links.

I am using both SM and MM for 10Gbe but any new fibers I get will be SM, just for the ability to support more than 10Gb in the future.

You can go hunting for SFP, QSFP etc modules on ebay, I got some new OEM QSFP 40Gb modules for my ICX6610 for 30EUR each from a guy who had hundreds left over instead of buying from FS for 304EUR each. The Brocades will take any brand happily.

You can go with MTP SM cables although I personally wouldn't bother with splitting them at each end. I haven't messed a lot with MTPs so that is why I would just get a bunch of duplex SM OS2 cables and terminate them to a patch panel or better yet wall plates since the runs will be inside the walls. Then get some short patches to get from the wall to switches/computers. Fiber is not as "iffy" with connecting multiple cables with any sort of couplers as Cat cables are, at least in my experience.

 

[Scarlet]

Single mode b polarity female mtp12 or mtp24. With a breakout cassette at each end = D

Either a cassette or Fap to plug into would be ideal. If just doing it from the basement to the office then as Funkywizard said go the MTP24 route with breakout cassettes.

What is Fap? (I only know this as a NSFW Term).

So I would need

• This Cable MTP®-12 (Female) to MTP®-12 (Female) OS2 Single Mode Elite Trunk Cable, 12 Fibers, Type B
• Two of these cassetes MTP®-12 Cassette, 12 Fibers OS2 Single Mode, Type A, MTP® to 6x LC Duplex

One way to deal with the bends would be to have access right before or after each one but this is easier said than done.

Easier said than done, most of the bends will be embedded in the floor and not accessible.

Edit: All the network cabling (CAT7.A and Fibers) will be run in conduit

 

[thetoad]

does cat 7 actually gain you anything over cat 6a? doesn't > 10GB need cat 8 and cat 7 doesn't actually support anything beyond what cat 6a does?

 

[Jaket]

What is Fap? (I only know this as a NSFW Term).

So I would need

• This Cable MTP®-12 (Female) to MTP®-12 (Female) OS2 Single Mode Elite Trunk Cable, 12 Fibers, Type B
• Two of these cassetes MTP®-12 Cassette, 12 Fibers OS2 Single Mode, Type A, MTP® to 6x LC Duplex

Easier said than done, most of the bends will be embedded in the floor and not accessible.

Edit: All the network cabling (CAT7.A and Fibers) will be run in conduit

Hahahah oh man the FAP.

Fiber Optic Panels - FS.com

FS offers FHD FAPs and FHU 1U fiber patch panel with LC, SC, MTP®/MPO connectors in singlemode/multimode fiber to deploy medium for high-density fiber optic network applications.

www.fs.com

There you go, I always get a chuckle out of using that.

Fiber Adaptor Panel aka FAP

 

[Scarlet]

CAT.7A cabling ist just for the larger diameter (AWG 22) of the copper for PoE+. This is based on what cabling the contractor could easily get that supported 1000+ MHz. CAT.6A cables would have been fine too. 1000+ MHz is for potentially using 10GBase-T, but I learned that more than 30m of 10GBase-T is difficult and the SFP+ modules run quite hot.

Hahahah oh man the FAP.

I actually searched for FAP on fs.com but didn't find anything

 

[Vesalius]

Can you string together two 45 degree turns in some or all of those turns instead of 90’s?

 

[Scarlet]

Can you string together two 45 degree turns in some or all of those turns instead of 90’s?

Good point, I'll ask the contractor to do that at least for the fiber run. Would it be just as good to use turns with a large radius as opposed to a sharp bend where the wall meets the floor? There will probably still be two sharp 90 degree bends remaining.

Most conduits for electricity, networking and this fibre run will be put on top of the concrete floor / embedded in the 15 cm of floor built on top of the concrete.

 

[Sean Ho]

Are the walls also concrete, or sheetrock? Even if it means the total run is longer, it may be easier to put most of the horizontal runs in-wall, and just have risers punching through the floors. A common strategy is to have a thick central conduit running from basement / crawlspace straight up to the attic, and branch off at each floor.

 

[Scarlet]

Most of the walls are brick, only some small parts covering pipes are sheetrock.

There is one part of a wall (20 cm wide, 10 cm deep) that will contain all the smaller conduits for networking and electricity. From there the conduits are branching out for each level. This is not one big conduit but just a hole in the wall so to say that will be closed after the construction phase of the house. This hole in the wall unfortunately sets an upper limit for the number of smaller conduits that I can run from the basement to upper levels. I already had them add additional electricity panels to not waste space in this hole for a lot of electricity cabling coming from the basement to individual rooms

 

[Vesalius]

Good point, I'll ask the contractor to do that at least for the fiber run. Would it be just as good to use turns with a large radius as opposed to a sharp bend where the wall meets the floor? There will probably still be two sharp 90 degree bends remaining.

Most conduits for electricity, networking and this fibre run will be put on top of the concrete floor / embedded in the 15 cm of floor built on top of the concrete.

smooth large radius turns would be good too. Certainly better than abrupt acute 90’s

 

[Scarlet]

All, thank you so much for your combined knowledge and the right keywords to search for.

I would like the fiber in the office to end at the wallplate in the construction phase and later on go from there to a cassette with another MPT-12 patch cable. During the construction phase a lot of contractors will move throught the office (creating flooring, painting the walls, you name it) so I don't want to have a few meters of fiber cable coming out of the wall lying on the floor where it will get damaged for sure.

Is there such a thing as a wallplate or keystone insert for MPT / MPT-12? Or could I use something like this key-up/key-down adapter on a blank wallplate: MTP®/MPO Full Flange Fiber Optic Adapter, Up to Down

So the full setup would be:

1. Type A Cassette: 12 Fibers MTP®-12 to LC MPO/MTP® Cassette, OS2 Single Mode, Type A
2. Polarity B female/female Cable (in conduit): 10m (33ft) 12-Fiber OS2 9/125 MTP® Trunk Cable, OFNP
3. Up/Down Adapter in Wallplate: MTP®/MPO Full Flange Fiber Optic Adapter, Up to Down
4. Polarity A male/femal Cable (patch cable in office): Customized 8-144 Fibers SMF MTP-12 MTP® Trunk Cable
5. Type A Cassette: 12 Fibers MTP®-12 to LC MPO/MTP® Cassette, OS2 Single Mode, Type A

Did I get this right or does the up/down adapter do the same thing as the Polarity B cable (i.e. connect fiber 1 on one side to fiber 12 on the other side)? So could I go with two polarity A cables and an adapter and get the same result as one polarity B cable?

 

[klui]

If your bends add up to more than 360 then it would be difficult/impossible to pull most cables, except pull strings, through them. Your electrical contractor should know how to mitigate.

 

[klui]

Is there such a thing as a wallplate or keystone insert for MPT / MPT-12? Or could I use something like this key-up/key-down adapter on a blank wallplate: MTP®/MPO Full Flange Fiber Optic Adapter, Up to Down

You want something like mpo mtp keystone - Google Search

Also consider angled wall plates since MPO/MTP plugs are lengthier than RJ45 keystones.

 

[nasi]

I am using both SM and MM for 10Gbe but any new fibers I get will be SM, just for the ability to support more than 10Gb in the future.

I'm going to install some fibers at work too for AV-networking so I'd like to inquire this information more deeply: Wikipedia tells me that 100Gbit/s is possible with OM3/4 up to 70/100m. OM5 already exists too and supports even 400Gbit/s. My longest run will not exceed 50m. So I'm planning to install OM4 or OM5 since we will need just 10Gbit/s now and maybe 40Gbit/s in a few years.
Is there anything I'm missing? Is there any good reason to use Singlemode instead?