My local city is considering upgrading to a fiber optic system. Coincidentally, I am starting to finish my basement and will be wiring everything with my dad. What special types of wiring is needed for a fiber optic network? At this point, my only cost would be the extra cable to run until if an when it comes to town. Suggestions appreciated.
THANKS!

When my brother in law built his last house, he did all fiber throughout his house. He works for Verizon and used all the tools from work. I know there are special tools to use, but I don't know if you can buy or rent them.

Fiber trunk lines doesn't really impact your in house cabling, run CAT5e or CAT6 in your house, either is good enough for the bandwidth you'll get on the incoming feed, and call it a day.

It would cost you a fair amount of money to have fiber in your house, and then you'd need media converters everywhere. Unless you just have to have "in house" lightning/noise immunity, probably not worth it.

^^ETA
You can buy all the tools needed to install fiber yourself(not cheap), the question is do you know how to use them?

Nothing special - Cat 5e or Cat 6.

If Wi-Fi is being utilized then to get the most out of the bandwidth - 5ghz 802.11AC would be preferred (client and AP).

As mentioned above, it will be fiber to the premise, then copper internally works fine. Make sure all your ethernet cabling in the house is terminated properly. gigabit ethernet uses all 8 wires.

We had fiber to the house in the last house. Used CAT 6 to the Network Interface Device and the location I wanted the Router in the house.

As mentioned above, the incoming connection from the provider will be fiber. No need for internal fiber optics within the house.

I would run CAT6 to my office and all locations where I want higher throughput than wireless, as well as to all media/tv locations.

Depending on the provider, they will probably provide a router with WiFi and 4/5 hardwired ports.

I would have all CAT6 terminations in a patch panel and install a gigabit switch, connected to the router.

The att guy ran fiber all the way to my set top box. There is a thing on the wall that changes it over to the yellow cat.
So i have fiber all the way. Said no sharp turns No super tight wire holders. Don't want to crack or break fiber.
He talked of polishing the end that goes to the converter to cat box. Said that was done with a special tool.

Like others have said, stick to cat 5 or 6 in-house.

What is everyone's thoughts on CAT 6a?

quote:

Originally posted by BB61:
What is everyone's thoughts on CAT 6a?

not much. Cat5e and Cat6 will do 1 Gig Ethernet. Cat 6A will do 10 Gig Ethernet. Yes, Cat6 will do 10 Gig for short distances -- I've done it, but Cat6A is the 10 Gig preferred wiring.

10 Gig around the house is very rare, (so far) and honestly used mostly by those doing video editing and therefore needing to do fast transfers, which I don't do, so I'm fine with the Cat-5e that I have.

The difference between Cat5e and Cat6 comes into play if you have crosstalk/noise issues that I don't have, so I don't bother with Cat6 since it's a bit harder to deal with.

So for me, 1 gig Cat5e from my optical network's ONT (Optical Network Terminal)

By the way, for the OP, here is the ONT, which converts the optical to Ethernet. Black line in is optical from the street, and blue line ethernet. White is phone since phone becomes digital as well if you bother with it. There's power transformer in the house and the lower voltage power for this thing gets routed from the transformer and backup battery in the house (other black line).

So to answer your question, figure out where you want this thing on the side of your house and run Cat5e to it from your router location. Also, run phone wiring if you want a home phone. Also, run of a pair of 18 AWG for the power for the ONT from wherever the transformer in your house will go (near an outlet). THey are supposed to ground the ONT, and that has to go to your Intersystem central point of ground for your house, so hopefully your ground rod or Ufer ground access point is nearby. They didn't ground mine, and frankly I don't really care. They grounded all my neighbor's ONT's with a green wire to their ufer ground points since we all have ufer grounds.

If you are not a "cord cutter" and want cable from the fiber provider, then you might also need RG-6 coax to this box. In some cases this RG-6 might be used instead of the Ethernet, in which case, you get a different Cable to Ethernet box in the house.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: radioman,

Thanks. Especially Radioman. That was very helpful.

Cat 6A is annoying -- or at least it was when I looked into it -- because the diameter of the cable is HUGE making it unwieldy. In my network at home, consumer (that is, places you plug a desktop/laptop/etc in) ports are all copper. I'm replacing a few cat 6a drops with cat 6 because it's such a pain.

The servers in the basement are all 10G and fiber (multimode), but those are all short runs that are internal to a single cabinet. I have a small fanless PoE switch on the second floor so I don't have to run cable from the second floor to the basement for every connection. That switch (currently) as 2x 10G uplinks that are a couple of 30m single-mode fiber patch cables so that whether that uplink is 10G, 40G, 100G, or whatever else comes after, I never have to pull new cables. I can just swap the pluggable connector on both ends.