On Fri, 10 Jan 2003, Douglas A. Dever wrote:
Previously, Steve Rude (steve@rudedogg.com) wrote:
Hi NANOG,
Could someone please help me with a fast ethernet problem I am having. We have a POP in a 27 floor building, and have a rj45 run from the the bottom of the building (in the telco room) to the top of the building. We have cisco switches on either end and we are seeing about 5-20% packet loss on the trunk.
Are we running into a distance limitation of fast ethernet, or are we suffering from another problem? I read that 328 feet is the limitation of fast ethernet. Is there anything short of getting a repeater for the cable run that I can do to boost the signal?
Well, when I don't have drawings or prints, I usually figure on 12 or 13ft per floor. So, figure somewhere between 324 and 351 feet from 1st floor to the ceiling on 27. For a run like this, you probably wanted to use fiber with media converters on each end. (Assuming you're not running switches with 100BaseFX ports or a GBIC slot...)
Indeed altho depending on purpose bear in mind a repeater is just a hub or switch, if you can fit one half way up you should solve your loss problems. Yeah 328 is the alleged limit but it can go further usually, as another reader said you need good connectors and cables tho. A more likely cause of trouble for you in the ducting is interference if you're running alongside AC mains and other data cables both of which will increase noise and reduce the limit even more. Steve