Recommended switch(es) for 100ft cable run

Hardware Hub Networking
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Hi, I am a networking noob. My friend wants to do a Cat6 cable run between the main house and a newly renovated garage on her property. They are not 100ft away, but I expect that they will need about 100ft.

She has ViaSat for her ISP, and I recommended that she not do a Cat6 run from the router to the garage directly. I recommended that we should use a switch.

I noticed that most Ethernet SFP transceivers are good for 30m. I would like an SFP switch in case they decide to use fiber later (I tried to convince them now, but the Cat6 was gifted to them). I realize that SFP might be super expensive to do more than 30m. I’m trying to keep the total cost within the $400 range.

Any suggestions for a switch? Any thoughts or suggestions in general?

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Cat 6a is good for 100m. No need for a switch as a repeater or SFP.

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I am a little confused. Cat6 limit is 100 meters not feet. Granted you do not want to run copper in the ground nor in the air if you can avoid it. Depending on distance you could run multimode or single mode fiber between the two locations.

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4

Here is what I would do:
2x

1x

Or use a wireless bridge which will be much cheaper and simpler:
2x

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5

I can recommend doing the wireless bridge.

Had to do something similar for my grandmother due to Comcast not wanting to run internet to her house even though their fiber line runs right next to her house, and my mother, who lives next door, at maybe 300 feet between the houses has comcast. I ended going with ubiquiti and it’s worked out great so far.

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I have multiple sites around Colorado and Washington where I have deployed those. Some going on over a year now with no issues.

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Should I expect the crappy router from ViaSat can transmit through 100ft of copper? I doubt it.

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Could run fiber and get media converters

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9

Yes you can, or you can get a $20 gigabit switch to do it. 100ft through cat 5 or better is trivial and does not need anything special as long as you are doing gigabit or slower.

for 2.5 or 5 gigabit, use cat6a.

If you already have a trench that you are also running electrical cable in, then make sure that the cable is spaced a few inches further away from that, and use shielded cable, and only ground the cable on one end. If you can, get conduit dedicated for this cable so that you can replace it with something more appropriate in 20 years without having to re-trench.

If they have covered the trench, you can make a 4 inch deep trench with a lawn edger or a circular saw across the ground and push an outdoor rated cable into the slot with a stick. Or you can run a steel cable point to point and use that to support the ethernet cable by loosely wrapping it around the steel cable.

If none of those are an option, use wireless with a directional antenna like linked earlier.

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10

100% do fiber and not Cat6!

I just have a pre-terminated OS2 SMF Patch cable between

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Thank you all for the suggestions and corrections. First, I am going to have her try the Cat6 directly from the ViaSat router to an access point in the garage with no switches or converters. If that doesn’t work, I will recommend fiber with additional hardware. I will post the results!

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No need to deploy the cable right away, just plug one end into the router and the other end into some device that’s available.

Better to be sure before drilling and digging holes.

I worked with several 20m cables in my brothers house and he got the shoddiest of shoddy 8-port switches I’ve seen in a long time. Perfect connectivity. I’m pretty sure they can handle 10Gbit just fine.

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13

Thanks again for all rhe suggestions! I just wanted to round out the thread that the Cat6 in the ground worked fine. I am a bit concerned because there is no electrical isolation, but this is what they wanted to go with.

The setup is using buried Cat6 directly from the Viasat modem/router combo to an TP-Link Archer AX11 router setup as an Access Point. Seems to work well enough for now.

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