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Wiring a Neighborhood?
mklencke writes "I'm part of a project that is developing a small neighborhood of about 30 houses in the Netherlands with technology, durability and ecological features in mind. We are looking at centralizing the Internet, TV, phone and radio access. Options we have come across are a central satellite dish, a central subscriber line, etc. Preferably, fiber optics will be used. However, it is very difficult to have a good overview of possibilities, and fiber optics technology is apparently very expensive to implement. Have any Slashdot readers been engaged in a similar project? Do you have hints or resources on how to go about wiring our neighborhood?"
Motorola Canopy (wireless) can fit the bill for the Internet part. Very fast set up. High speed. Relatively cheap. Good coverage.
Don't dig. You'll probably hit a gas line anyway.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
I work for a contruction company that did just this a few years back. We built a 700+ home retirement community in the US. We partnered with a local Cable TV/Internet provider. The cable company installed all the in-ground components (just a normal Cable TV network plant) and provided both Cable TV and Broadband Internet Access.
As far as telephone and radio - I am sure your local companies could prove helpful.
Coding my way to the next BSOD!
I work for a local telecom, and we have several kinds of last-mile infrastructure, including both Hybrid Fiber-Coax (HFC) and Fiber To The Home (FTTH). Either way, each home gets a Residential Service Unit (RSU), which mounts on the side of the house, which separates out the fiber or coax into cable TV, Ethernet, and POTS jacks. Fiber is extremely expensive to deploy, which is due largely to the fiber transceivers. As a last-mile medium, fiber is greatly overhyped. Hybrid Fiber-Coax, which is what most cable-modem-ready cable companies have in the ground, can support any conceivable service, including voice (RF modulated or VoIP), data, and cable, all for a much lower cost. This uses "fiber to the curb", then coax the rest of the way. Especially if you're trying to design a scalable prototype, consider HFC rather than FTTH.
Speaking personally and not for my employer.
I remember reading an article about DIY DSL here on slashdot a long time ago. I did a simple google search and found an article about a neighbourhood in colorado. verizon wouldn't give them DSL, so they did it themselves.
here's an article about them
and this is the Ruby Ranch Internet Cooperative
i know there's also software that can do DSL with nothing but an old soundcard and two copper wires. i don't know where it is, or if it's still maintained though.
cheers, and good luck.
As someone who wired every major room with at least 2 cat5 ports upon remodeling, there's one thing I'd do differently: Run 2" plastic conduit so that I can run other types of signal wires/coax/fire optic in the future.
:P I'll eventually put up wireless, but that's a whole new bit of infrastructure to build, debug and secure.
As it is, some rooms have ALREADY maxed out all the ports (I've got a 16 port hub chained off of one of my ports, other areas I've got to run long patch cables to get to the other side of the room, etc.) I do have a central box, but it could have been located in a better spot (it's currently located at the demarc point, I should have set up a secondary distribution box on the second floor and ran everything from there.) I used two 24-port patch panels, which ended up being just enough for the layout that I used.
Another problem that cropped up was running wires for a sound system, intercom, internal phones, etc. I ran 3 cat-5 wires to every room (some rooms had more) using 2 of them for each port (theoretically I can use splitters to expand to 4 ports), and using one of the 8-conductor wires for phone service (theoretically 4 lines.) Even so, there's now a lot more stuff I'd like to run, but without punching through the drywall, I'm a bit constrained as to what I can do. Not putting in fiber was a big mistake
I installed a fiber optic network to connect up about 50 homes and 3 apartment buildings on the campus of a research institute some years ago--in a tropical, developing country. The distances from the main distribution frame (MDF, or central point) were such that copper wasn't an option. We used 4 core 50 micron fiber to each building and put two ports in place using 3M Volition gear (one upstairs and one downstairs). Each port was connected to a 3M volition switch, each of which had a single mode connection back to the research center several km away. Neither wireless nor DSL were options at the time in the country, nor are they still. Later wifi was and still is used domestically by many of the scientists. The phone system uses the (gigabit) single mode fiber link also (all fibers buried btw, in plastic pipes on gravel and with warning tapes).
Lessons: Volition v sensitive to dirt, dust and ants and needed a bit more maintenance than originally expected (switches in airconditioned MDF perfectly ok though). Fiber optic network cards for PCs were disappointing and caused problems with some machines. Gigabit fiber optic cards are still not readily available--though transceivers are. If I was doing it again I'd forget fiber to the desk and put in a transceiver (needed for laptops anyway) and run Cat5 to every room from the Light Interface Unit. Transceivers are costly and fairly susceptible to getting zapped by voltage anomalies (lots of lightning and power outages).
BTW each volition switch connects to a different data center, each with its own ISP and broadband link, and they're cross connected with load balancing hardware (Raritan Linkproof) to maximize uptime.
In the Netherlands (where I used to live) I think you must by now be able to get a good DSL solution (it was all ISDN when I left). Do a search on DSL and multi-occupancy and you'll find some suppliers. I would TENDER FOR A SOLUTION and include maintenance of any central equipment and get a good service level agreement. You don't want to have a de facto IT dept for 30 homes.
Search on CEDIA. You may find companies that can offer a solution or help you develop a statement of requirements. Veel geluk!
Preferably, fiber optics will be used. However, it is very difficult to have a good overview of possibilities, and fiber optics technology is apparently very expensive to implement.
i .com/fsoalliance/
You can ditch the fiber but keep the optics. Free Space Optics (FSO) has been around for a long time. Despite being somewhat obscure, it is a very mature technology with a lot of things going for it. It provides fiber level bandwidth without the cost of digging up the ground to lay down fiber. Rapid deployment and high mobility can save not only money but time as well. You didn't mention how far apart the residences are in the neighborhood, but unless you're rural and very spread out, FSO may perform satisfactorily with allowance for bad weather. Bad weather being fog and scintillation.
Fog is a problem if you're near the coast or a large body of water that can produce a lot of mist. A heavy mist can really hammer the signal by several dBs over long distances on the order of a mile/kilometer. Currently it is the largest obstacle faced by permament/semi-permanent FSO implementations. Atmospheric scintillation is the phenomenon that makes stars twinkle at night. It is caused by variations in atmospheric temperature that change the index of refraction an optical signal encounters as it zooms to its destination. This problem, however, is more or less solved by making the signal take parallel paths to the reciever.
you may be interested in the following companies among others.
tellaire
terabeam
fsona
airfiber
lightpointe
industry news and references:
http://www.freespaceoptics.org/
http://www.wca
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
In all, Holland is a great country
No it isnt, cause Holland is not a country. Holland is a province (well 2 provinces, north and south holland), the country is the Netherlands.
Eg, Philips do _not_ have their headquarters in Holland (it's in Eindhoven, province of Limburg), the Dutch TT is _not_ in Holland (it's in Drenthe), Utrecht is _not_ in Holland, etc..
Holland => a province
the Netherlands => the country
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
I've been wondering why there isn't a good "do it yourself community fiber network" howto, at least as far as I know. I've been experimenting with fiber as a hobby for the last few months just for fun. Its amazing what you can find on ebay.
A few observations:
Single mode is vastly superior to multimode in terms of both range (20-100 km vs 2km) and theoretical maximum throughput (terabits per second versus gigabits per second).
On the other hand, single mode is harder to work with, and the end point equipment is more expensive. A new 100mbps fiber-to-copper ethernet converter is about $150 for MM and about $250 for SM. Gigabit gear is more expensive, but not terribly prohibitive.
The fiber itself is cheap (one article I read indicated that the wholesale cost of SM fiber is about $15 a km). All the cladding and armor they put on it makes it expensive (A dollar or two per foot for direct-bury cable with a dozen or so fiber strands).
It takes 2 fibers to make a connection, usually. This is called duplex.
It is possible to run multiple connections on different wavelengths. This is called wavelength division multiplexing. DWDM systems sometimes have over a hundred separate channels.
I don't know much about durability.
Ethernet over fiber may be good for small networks, but it requires active electronics (and reliable power) at each junction. Depending on application, this may not be a problem.
Take a look at fiberdyne's webpage if you're curious about approximate equipment costs. They seem to sell almost everything related to fiber. Here's another page with a decent fiber tutorial.
-jim
If we actually had info on the physical topology of your community it would make things easier.
But, here's what I would suggest:
Each house should have multiple pairs of dry copper running to the SAME CO. You can probably use this as your physical medium for all 30+ homes, using VDSL or "HDSL T1/E1 Modems" (ADC Makes these).
I'd find cheap VDSL ethernet Bridge/modem (which is what they are anyways) setting up one in each residence, then you can find rack mount vdsl "concentrators" or chassis which mux all of these together and give you a few ethernet ports for uplink purposes. Either that or you can use use another vdsl modem on the telephone CO side and connect them all to a standard switch (a cheap cisco 3548-XL, or a bunch of cheap 16port switches uplinked to eachother).
tut systems makes these (which ived used in the setup i've descibed) http://www.videotele.com/index.cfm Note that there's actually a bunch of competition in this VDSL (last mile) market and prices are always fluctuating. I've found single tut vdsl modems (good for hundreds of feet, 1.5mbits over a pair of copper) go for 20 bucks a peice.
I would advise against 2.4ghz wireless as it sucks. Just trust me on this. Anyone who's recommending setting up a Metro LAN on this is talking out of their ass and doesn't realize how shitty this would be (i've seen it, CDMA collisions out the ass, 200pps limit for the whole friggin network, all of your traffic cleartext, one user with the right equipment can shut it down, lmr200 or 400 cable is expensive, 2.4 sucks thanks.)
Keep to the KISS rule, use cheap CAT5/6 or pre-existing infrastucture if at all possible.
I think I managed to get it all for about $1400. The most expensive items was the cable (about $500-600 at the time), and the tester/probe kits. I didn't want to use crappy tools, so I spent about $200 on a set of el-cheapo blinking-light cat-5 contiunity testers, and a more generic telecom tester/inductive probe (since I was running telephone also.) I also spent maybe another hundred on crimpers, punchdown tools, etc. Everything else, from the keystone jacks to faceplates were either bargain-basement Belkin or off of eBay.
So, for the cost of one computer (at the time, probably a Pentium III 6000), I put in a network that is capable of supplying every room in the house (including one bathroom, the kitchen, the laundry room, and the garage, in addition to all your standard living areas) with phone and cat-5 ethernet. The $1400 did not include my labor, nor any additional equipment (ie, hubs, switches, etc.) For the switches, I have two 10/100 units (also off of eBay). I got them cheap, and they work nicely - however, I'd get consumer ethernet equipment in the future - the stuff I have right now is noisy as hell (fans) and they eat up a lot of power.
There is a problem with having this many ports though. If you have that many computers, you're going to need a lot of UPS units, and they all draw a LOT of power...
I think there a couple of things that need to be addressed before one starts suggesting ideas on how to set this up.
Is this going to be 30 single family detached homes or is this going to be 30 housing units in one building? Do you need a 100% fool proof network with room to grow? Or can a virus infestation that crashes your switches and routers be tolerated? What services are you going to provide? I would asume at the minmum VoIP and Data. You may also want to provide VOD and PPV TV as well as regular cable tv services. Also is there a chance the system will need to be expanded for more units, are there chances of being able to spread those capital costs with more and more users?
This is a new install. There is no point in suggesting DSL or ISDN or wireless from the last mile. You need around 100mbs to each home to provide quality VOIP, Cable TV, and Data. You will need some way to control the amount of traffic on each service. You will also need to provide some way of bundling this information together. Installing fiber is cheaper over installing copper in a new install to begin with. The part that may be expensive is the capital infustructure. Regardless of wether you using fiber or coper this will be expensive. You will need expensive switches and some way to bundle all the services into one pipe.
You may want to do some investigation into the technology that Yahoo Japan employs for there broadband system.
In the dwellings you will want to have 2-3 cat 5 outlets. 1 for phone, 1 for TV, 1 for data. You may also want to have each dwelling have its own private internal network as well as such you may want to put 4 cat connections in each room and set up one connection to goto a switch that has its own vlan for the unit. You are going to have to proabbly include a requirement that on the sale of each dwelling the ocupants are bound to a contract of 10 years for the service. They will also have to lease most of the equipment as well over that period. So you can control and re-coop the costs. Oviously this system will want to operate as a non-profit group but be-able to invest in infustructure over the life of the system 10-50 years.
You will also need to take into account support and ongoing maintance. You should proabbly hire a company that does this and is bound to provide you with a minimum service level on maintance and support. Look at a company like this one to get you up and running and look after your network: Empower
Take it from a Canadian on Broadband.
You might get away with CAT 5e for the in-house wiring, but you need to consider CAT6 or multi-mode fiber for connections between switches. I just ren into this recently:
CAT 5 - 10Mhz Ethernet
CAT 5e - 100Mhz Ethernet
CAT 6 - Gigabit Ethernet
And don't scoff at the idea of gigabit inside the dwellings, either. I saw a 5 port gigabit switch for (i think) about 89.95 (US) the other day.
If you run gigabit-capable (CAT 6 or Multi-mode Fiber) from dwellings to central switch, then the resident can put in a 10/100 switch switch with a Gigabit uplink or a regular gigabit switch. Of course, there is going to be bottle-necking at the central switch, but if you put in a few OC3's maybe no one will notice...
At any rate, this sounds like a fun project.
"The Internet is made of cats."