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?"

Comments

Canopy

[moehoward]

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.

Re:Canopy

[SenorAmor]

As an employee of a company that deals in internet distribution, I would recommend against Motorola's Canopy set up. It requires a heavily restrictive line-of-site, and is not as cheap as one would think. Instead, we found a better alternative, which, in every situation we've had, has had much better results at cheaper costs. Their 2.4Ghz 500mW self-contained bridges are a sweet setup. ~

Use cable, not fiber

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

do it yourself DSL

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Network Cabling Box

[silentbozo]

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.

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 :P I'll eventually put up wireless, but that's a whole new bit of infrastructure to build, debug and secure.

Re:Decentralized

[harmlessdrudge]

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!

one possible solution to the physical layer prob.

[tloh]

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.

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.wcai .com/fsoalliance/

Re:Run fiber

[j1m 5n0w]

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

pro's/cons

[ctime]

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.