[WinMac] Re: WinMac upgrading from coax to fast ethernet peer-to-peer lan

Robert L. Pritchett(pritchet1[at]owt.com)
Tue, 22 Jun 1999 18:37:05 -0700

Tom L;

The macs your team are using have Ethernet built in and probably already have the RJ-45 jack in the back of the machine. If they are the "older" macs with Ethernet, then they need adapters to do the RJ conversion. I don't think I've ever seen a Mac with a BNC connector, (ok, I have, but it was an
adapter, not built-in!) and I've been doing tech work and LAN engineering design for over 20 years. (oops!)

I have links via my web site you might be interested in looking at.

http://www.scm-ae.com/itgroup/roberts.htm

I even have one on the Thinnet to Cat 5 conversion we completed last year at my company. ( Ok, guys, it's an A&E firm and they are extremely conservative!!) That article is archived at that location above.

I don't think you need to got to an Electrical Contractor unless they indeed know how to install telco infrastructure (most don't yet). Try an outfit that does telco work for a living first.

Go to http://www.bicsi.org and find out if there is an RCDD outfit that works near your location. (See my article on what an RCDD is at my website!)

Otherwise, if you think you can role-your-own, then try the tutorials on-line on the subject.

I personally think that fiber-to-the-desk is the "correct" direction to go if the installation is expected to be "up" for over 5 years. The comment that you don't expect to upgrade is laughable, based on copper technology today. My prejudice is that anything over Cat 5 cabling ought to be fiber is
based on what bit-twiddling is required to do gigabit Ethernet over copper and the EMF issues involved at the higher frequencies. The delta between Cat 5 and fiber is about 10%. Cat 6 ( not ratified by TIA yet) is at a premium price today by the copper industry. Fiber doesn't have Frequency or
interference problems inherent in copper-based infrastructure. The electronics for fiber-based systems is at the same level as copper-based hubs were 2 years ago.

The best bang-for-the-buck fiber infrastructure can be found at http://www.3m.com/volition. They include electronics in their "2-2-2" system (2 fibers, 2 minutes, $2.00 per connectorized cable end vs $5.00 for a Cat 5 connector. Copper patchcords run $3.00+ each and the Volition fiber patch cords run
$11.00. remember that fiber patch cords using other connectors [SC, FC, ST, etc.] used to cost as much as $150.00 per cord not too long ago. Best price I've seen today for other fiber patch cords is $35.00 [dual strand multimode stuff]

Fiber NIC adapters cost about $65 form 3M for 10-Base-F stuff. Those connect to existing copper NICs in the PCs or Macs. 100-Base-FX cards run about $150.00 each from 3M. The industry is working on dual speed fiber cards and adapters, but they aren't there yet.

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