network signal boosting

[Sarrkazztic]

in a couple weeks I have to set up a lan for a retirement home...problem is that 3 segments of the wiring are going to be 385 feet....a bit over the 328 feet limit..I have heard about signal boosters or repeaters that can be used for this....but darned if I can find any on the internet for purchasing.....I also heard that I could just put a switch in the middle of the ethernet cable and this would work too....anyone have experience doing this? and does anyone have a solution for where to purchase the repeaters?

TIA Kazz

[10ECsoon]

I'm sure you can just get a switch and put along the line. The 328 foot limit is for cable length between "devices", which could be a computer or a switch, or things like that.

[Newt]

For a repeater you want a device that operates at the physical layer (layer 1) of the OSI model. Hubs do. Switches and Intelligent Hubs do not - they sit up at layer 2.

For this situation, use a 10/100 hub as your repeater.

With runs that are barely over the recommended 100 meter maximum you could probably get away with switches too but why bother.

[Tuttle]

A switch will do fine as a repeater - it's just overkill. It still actively reads and regenerates the signal on the line, giving you another 100m.

[Yuri]

This might not be relevant to what you are currently doing but it still comes in handy.

While the size for a segment of cat5 cable cannot exceed 100m the maximum size (including repeaters) cannot be any more than 200m (two segments of cat5 cable connected by a repeater or switch).
Any more than that and the responce time for packets will expire before the information can come back to the host.

Hope that it helps.
Yuri.

[DrMDJ]

The others have given suggestions that may suit the need here, but I'll throw one more out.

I can only assume this building is not pre-wired (ie. you're going to pull the cabling, or have it done). Given a) some of the existing distances, b) the fact that there may not be convenient/availble places (accessible, allowing for monitoring) to put hubs/switches, and c) there may be a desire to provide flexibility in terms of future expansion/upgrade you might want to consider going with fiber. Maybe (likely) not for everything, but perhaps for a backbone or certain portions of things. Would add some to the cost (now, in the future it might pay off), but...

[Sarrkazztic]

Thanks to all of you who replied....adding credibility to what I heard about being able to just use a switch in the middle of the longer segments of cable....unless someone has a good suggestion of where to purchase the signal repeaters then I will use switches...

[flachebaq]

Just another 2 cents... The 100m limit of Cat5 is a theoritical limit. Several times I've had drops that are over the limit and worked flawlessly. As long as you drop is a straight shot and is either shielded from outside interference or stays away from flourecent lighting, you may not need any kind of repeaters. But I also need to mention that in my scenario that this was for one or two drops. If you potentially have a lot of drops that will be past the magic number, you will want to consider some kind of repeater.

You can always judge where you want to put your repeater and put an extra loop of cable in the ceiling and finish running your cable. Then test your connections or let them sit without a repeater for a week or so and survey your users on how well their network connections work. If there are no problems, leave everything as it is. Otherwise, you can add your repeater. But this really depends on how many drops you have and would cost you a lot of cable if you've got more than, say, two drops. Just a thought...