🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <C0qn6F.E98@dircon.co.uk>, uaa1006@dircon.co.uk (Peter Miles) writes:
|> 
|> My company is moving one of its offices, and I've been looking 
|> at the possibilities of installing a fibre-optic ethernet backbone, 
|> instead of our existing thick coax-base network.
|> 
|> Can anyone tell me about ethernet running over fibre?
|> Specifically, what is the bandwidth, what extra equipment do 
|> I need, how is the fibre cable terminated etc?

  Bandwidth: We use FOIRL at 10 Mbits of FDDI at 100 Mbits
     100 is about all you can get out of 62.5/125 at any distance
     ( 2K).  For a small instlation (inside one biulding) 
     I'd say don't mess with it.  Fiber is much diferent
     and good equipment is very exspensive. We have 50K
     splicers and 50 OTDR's and each connector (st) is around
     22 dollars.

        The FOIRL tranceivers cost around 250-600. My point
     is to do fiber you need a good reason. Going between
     buildings or the need for bandwidth over 100 Mbit (single
     mode). To just connect a few Hubs might not be worth
     the $$. 


|> 
|> I'm looking at getting 3COM FMS twisted pair hubs for each office 
|> (for the links to each PC/Workstation). The hubs would be interconnected 
|> with the fibre-optic cable (the 3com hubs have an option of a fibre 
|> transceiver instead of the usual AUI connector).
|> 
|> Would I be right in saying that all that needs to be done is 
|> for a piece of fibre to be connected between the hubs, and I 
|> have a network, or is extra equipment required?

FOIRL transeivers connet to AUI. ODS even has a female version
with a power suppily.

|> 
|> How are new connections tapped in to the fibre cable?

with a special tool kit.

|> 
|> Do fibre networking products from different manuafcturers interconnect?
Yes, standards, but I'd use one manf for connectors. We use
differnet manf for FOIRL transcievers on the same link.
|> 
|> Is there anything else I should be considering before making 
|> the final decision?

If there's a problem, what kind of test equipment do i need.
Power meters are probably good enough, but an OTDR is great if
the fiber breaks. A splicer is also great if the fiber breaks
from someone's backhoe. Its a new ballgame with a lot of neat
and exspensive gear.
|> 
|> Finally, can anyone recommend sources of more information about 
|> fibre-based ethernets?
|> 
|> Thanks for any help. Please email me with replies, and I'll 
|> post a summary.
|> 
|>                 -- Pete
|> -- 
|> Pete Miles			uaa1006@dircon.co.uk
|> 				...uknet!dircon!uaa1006



    Tim Drake