[seul-edu] Fiber Cable help

[Ryan Booz <ryanbooz@alumni.psu.edu>]

I'm not sure this is appropriate for the list, but I'm getting pretty
desperate.  I had two friends that were helping me make some decisions,
but neither has responded in the last week plus, so I was wondering if
anyone of you could give me a little info.  If you want to respond via
email, that's fine.

I need to connect two buildings before the school year starts, and I
know that fiber is the way to go because of distance (600 ft or so).
The thing is, I've never worked with it and we've gotten different
suggestions from distributors as to what we need.  My biggest questions
is, how do you connect the cable into the regular network (what's the
converter called) and even more basic I guess, how many ends does the
cable need to have?  We're now being told eight, but the fiber I've seen
only has a possible four ends (two at each end of cable).  Sorry if this
is basic, it's just that this is a good deal of money and I don't want
to buy stuff I don't need, but want to make sure it's going to work.

Thank you for any help.
Ryan Booz
Tech Coordinator
Belleville Mennonite School