This isn't my specialty and I was hoping I could get some advice from you guys.

Heres the deal.

Our main office is to far out from any CO or cable company to get any form of High Speed internet. We have satellite, but it sucks.

Recently the telephone company has expanded their DSL range to where it now reaches the CEO's house. His house is approximately 4-5 miles from the main office.

Our thinking is running our own Fiber from his house to the main office.

The cable is going to cost us about $10,000, but before we commit to this much I want to make sure my idea is going to work and what we might need.

I'm thinking we'll have 2 DSL lines at the CEO's house. One for his personal connection, and the other one for the office.

The DSL for the office will run into the DSL modem then run into some sort of converter from there to convert it into a signal to run on the fiber lines. It would then travel the four miles to the office where it would hit another converter to convert it back to a ethernet signal.

This way the the office will be able to get out on a DSL connection. By going through the fiber to the DSL modem.

Now what equipment do you guys think would be needed for this project?

I've done some research and I'm pretty sure I'll need single mode Fiber.

Our current equipment is a Symantec Gateway, Cisco 2950 Switch (standard. Can't accept Fiber) and a few smaller switches.


what I'm wondering about mainly is like what kind of converters or routers do we need, and will what I'm talking about work?

Any advice or products I should look into would would be appreciated as I've never dealt with Fiber before.

Thanks

i'm not 100% sure on how your teleco's work in the states, but if they are "unnazi"ish (unlike the ones in the uk), you *should* be able to get a "dry pair" if so, have a look about for longrande adsl(2) equipment. there are *some* that will allow it to connect to another modem. so in rality you'd get a pair between his + office. there used to be a site detailing all the procedures + equipment you'd need. but i can't find it in my bookmarks

The other alternative is getting the likes of a mlps ethernet extension between the two properites, but thats money and then some

Good Lord, if you're willing to put down 10,000+ just to get DSL speeds from a residential shouse to your company...I'd try to work with a local provider and see if they can just run a dedicated line out to your place.

But your idea is otherwise very sound. Though I'm not sure about the dual DSL lines. I tried that with my house (2 different phone lines, still going through same physical cable) and they sucked worse than dial-up. Cable would be better. Higher transfer rates and longer distances than DSL at the moment.

my question is, are you just going to run it along side the road? Do you own this property? Whats to stop you from having to walk these 4-5 miles every few day's because some punk kid cut your line?

Just questions.....

Nforcer:
We looked at a getting a dedicataed T1 from the telephone company but thats $1400 a month plust $1000 setup.

We can afford it, but if we ran our own lines and bought our own equipment, we would'nt have to pay $1400 a month.

Its a larger fee up front for us to do what we want to do, but in the long run its cheaper.



fpscops:

Thats what I'm trying to figure out right now, is how are we going to run it. I'm going to get on the phone with the electric company and the phone company and see if we could run it on their poles. If not I guess we would need to look into getting property rights to bury our cable.

Between the CEO's house and the office is only 4 houses and we own 2 of them. The rest of it is countryside.

I assume thats a dedicated T1 to your business, not to a residance.
And a T1 shouldn't be that expensive anyway since DSL is far exceeding T1 speeds. And cable has been for years.

More power to ya if you can get it up and running.

A T1 for us is that expensive since they have to run it 20 miles.

The company we use is called Centurytel.


Fastest DSL they have is 1.5Mbps, but they peer with ATT so I get pretty good paths to most places.

We're looking at going ahead with a PTP T1 from the CEO's house to the Business.

Thats only $370 a month and I think I could make that work.

if you have line of sight, even if you have to build a tower to get it, wireless might be a good solution.

That might be the best solution. It may cost a few hundred dollars to setup, but you would eliminate the huge monthly fees along with it.

You don’t always need a direct line of sight; I have seen wireless routers go 10 - 20 miles, but be prepared for some of those prices. However for cheaper devices, a direct line of sight would be required for optimal performance.


Ryan

If I could I would use wireless but i dont' think its flat enough





Bunch of trees in between to

Obstructions could make wireless impractical for your particular situation. Hills could be a big problem, unless you controlled any land at the top of one of the taller hills, then no problem. For the trees,



and / or

The way I look at it, if having any high-speed Internet access to your place of business is a key importance, and there are no major plans to relocate, then (to me) you're putting your efforts in the wrong area.

Just how far out of range is your DSL's provider from the business and are they our would they be interested in a joint-effort in expanding thier coverage? If they can setup another CO in that area of town (or perhaps on site/joint effort) that would solve quite a few problems.

Not sure but what about Cable Internet?

If you've got phone service, they'll inevitably offer high-speed to your area its just a matter of placing additional repeaters and switching stations so the signal can be amplified, that and a matter of time.
You seem to be on the right track of laying fiber to get to your place of business but I'd talk to your local provider(s) and see if they have any plans on moving out to that area. If they are, then you're putting a lot of time and effort into the wrong areas.

I'd suggest working with them (if possible) and see if that works out. Not knowing all the facts n' figures, I can't say its a win-win situtation but the work you're ready to do, is going to be the same they are going to do eventually, then you might be able to strike a deal in splitting the cost.

Certainly worth a shot.

Internet is important to us as we do a lot of phychological reports and what not that are filed online though various medicade, medicare, etc providers of different states.

I've recently taken over doing the networking for this company and am trying to shape it up more network wise.

Before I was there all they had for a switch was a 8 port D-Link switch and 1 Windows NT 4 server.

We now have 3 2k3 servers, a Cisco 2950 managed switch, a decent firewall.

Theres still several things I'm working on, like a setting up a budget. lol

We have talked to the Telephone company about paying for the fiber or the equipment for them to expand DSL our way, but I don't think I'm talking to the right person.

the land with the trees, we don't own so we cant chain saw.

i think all in all the easiest thing is going to be to go with a PTP T1 for now till DSL expands out that way.

Trees don't affect wireless signals like 802.11g.

I wonder how far you can get with two WRT54Gs cranked up to 251mw and two Cantennas (or other directional antennas). The total solution cost is under $200 US.

There's also always LOSIR or lasers if you have true LOS but if you have trees they won't penetrate them like RF stuff will.

Wonder what wold be the best way to see if we could get a wirless singnal there.

Only problem is I'd rather have something that won't be affected by weather. Not sure if wireless would or not.

I think you'll find that trees DO affect 2.4GHz. most of the time they just cause reflections, however they can "absorb" some of the signal as well. tbh, fsck nature, chop them down! :P

Laser wireless then. Turn up the laser enough and trees won't interfere

From a business perspective it is not a good idea to run the line to the CEOs house and then run a fiber from there to the office. What if the CEO leaves the company? What if he wants to move? etc

Trust me he's not leaving.

This has been a family business for 30+ years, and hes "taken over" as the CEO for the past 10.


Even if he did move that would not matter as the houe belongs to the company.

Anyway we've decided upon running a PTP T1.

This shoudl work long enough till DSL is available for the office.