[geeks] Cat6 between buildings and grime proofing?

[Dan Sikorski]

On Jun 13, 2013, at 11:21 AM, Andrew Jones <andrew at jones.ec> wrote:

> A 100 meter "patch" cable is a few hundred bucks.
>
> Terminating your own fiber really sucks and the tools are not cheap.  I have
done it once, under supervision.  Once was enough.
>
> For perspective, I've had datacenter providers who found it more cost
effective to keep stacks of 10-20-50-100-150-200 meter cables than to train
people to terminate fiber on demand.
>
>

I think a lot of this depends on the type of fiber and the specific needs.  At
my previous employer, one of my coworkers did fiber termination with
relatively inexpensive tools that only took a few minutes per terminated
strand.  Our need was gigabit ethernet, the process was cleave the fiber,
strip the insulator, polish the end, and install the connector.  This was just
for relatively short runs, i'm sure a better solution would be needed for runs
that are miles long.  IIRC, the tools cost $100-200.  Sure that's more than
what i'd spend to do it once or twice at home, but i'm sure it's nothing in
the overall building budget here.