Re: [school-discuss] Success!

[Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>]

Dave Prentice wrote:

>     I have a problem that may run in a similar vein. Last year part of
> my school was online. During the summer the building was partially
> rewired, with some of the old cat5 cables replaced with fiber optics.
> However, the contractor didn't finish the job. They left a fiber optic
> cable going in and scores of cat5s coming out of several wiring
> closets, but they never got around to installing switches, hubs, or
> whatever you want to call them to connect the ins to the outs. That
> contractor is now gone, and my school is almost completely offline.
>     Does anybody know if there is a fiber optic NIC I could install in
> a freesco, or in anything else for that matter? It may be months (if
> ever) before the school district gets around to buying and installing
> the switches.

I see others recommending FDDI and GigEthernet NICs for you, but from your
description it doesn't seem to me like those would be good solutions.  Are
the fiber lines situated in such a way that the they would be used as
trunks between switches and the cat5 would be homeruns to "leaf" nodes
(user desktops, servers, etc.), or are they just occasional replacements
for the cat5 with no particular plan for the replacement?

Arkian <http://www.arkian.co.kr/kor/html/product_unicom.html> has
100Base-FX NICs which will put 100 Mbps Ethernet directly over your fiber
(assuming it's multimode fiber), as does Alloy
<http://www.alloy.com.au/products/nic.htm>, Transition
<http://www.transition.com/products/nics/efa020x.htm>, Provantage,
<http://www.provantage.com/PR_43152.HTM?TRNT18L> and probably more.

You will probably also need some media converters to get from the
100Base-FX fiber to 100Base-TX copper to connect to your hubs unless you
can find switches that offer both -TX and -FX connections.  In my
experience those are rare; usually they offer either one or the other, but
not both.  Media converters are available from Omnitron
<http://www.omnitron-systems.com/converters/converters.htm>, Versitron
<http://www.versitron.com/Media-Converters-links.htm>, MiLAN
<http://www.milan.com/converters/c2000.pdf>, Transition
<http://www.transition.com/products/mcon_platform/standalone/fastethernet/e100btxfx05.htm>,
and many others.

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Doug Loss                 All I want is a warm bed
Data Network Coordinator  and a kind word and
Bloomsburg University     unlimited power.
dloss@bloomu.edu                Ashleigh Brilliant