Home materials options: fiber, plastic, or glass.
Home materials options: fiber, plastic, or glass.
I have six complete racks in my basement and a 400Gbps link to my home via BroadNet. Most of my house is already wired with fiber except the WAN side. The remaining areas use either Cat5e or Cat6 cables. Even with a full 10G connection, you’d need significant effort to handle it properly. Looking ahead, I think better network cables will be available soon.
In short, to stay connected today, you usually need a traditional Ethernet link. If you’re open to repurposing old gear, a device like a Cisco 3750G can handle a simple 1G fiber uplink and support 24-48 gigabit devices. For higher speeds, a newer model such as the Ubiquiti es16XG would be required. Before picking hardware or cabling, map out the devices you expect to use. Running both fiber and Ethernet together in your home is often simpler than installing fiber in every room, since few applications rely on it now. You could centralize both connections in one switch for easier management. Alternatively, you can run everything over copper while keeping fiber unused until needed. My main worry is that the time and cost might not pay off if future standards render current fiber obsolete. I wouldn’t begin a fiber project unless I was prepared to invest at least $2000 in cabling, installation, and basic switches. Check out sites like FS.com for competitive pricing on fiber equipment so you can gauge costs for your space.
I've got a rack in my basement, worked with fiber for a while, and have everything needed to set it up and test it. I wouldn't bother running fiber through walls anytime soon. Maybe one day I'll install it between servers, but that's not practical. For now, just install Cat6a—it handles 10Gbps over 100m, and it should work well for 40Gbps or 100Gbps at 30m, similar to how Cat6 performs.
Again ... I have installed cat 6. Said so in the original post. " Right now we have wifi, and Cat 6 ethernet cable just sort of ran along the outside in a very ugly way. " I am just thinking over the pros and cons of getting fiber in the walls when I have a chance to do it. Like most people I don't go knocking holes in the walls on a regular basis. The house likely needs re pipeing soon. The wiring is to code and grandfathered .. but get this... most of the plugs here are not grounded. So much of the electrical needs to be redone anyway. Let me re frame the question. IF you have one chance in a 40 year period to rewire an old house for the future do you go with Cat6, Plastic Optical fiber, or glass optical fiber? Remember. Once that choice is in the wall that's it for at least 40 years. Which do you choose? (assuming I'll have a professional do it so that talk of how hard it will be is ruled out) You all do make a good point though. 10 gig copper ethernet does exist. But.... are we really still giong to be using copper and baseT connectors in 2045?
I grasped the query initially and the solution remains consistent. At this stage, Cat6a stands as the most reliable wiring option you can reasonably expect. It’s highly probable by 2045 we’ll favor copper over fiber, but currently it seems more likely that wireless solutions will dominate once technology advances. The only justification for installing fiber would be financial constraints or a desire for a tidy installation project. The savings from choosing Cat6a now could cover the cost of future installations, such as Cat9z, in two decades. I’ve spent considerable time setting up my home network for 10GbE, keeping expenses under $1,000 with minimal effort. A thorough fiber assessment and testing tool costs around $5,000—something essential for proper installation. The fibers require careful handling; even a small dust particle can damage them, potentially forcing costly replacements. If you use a low-cost SFP, you’re essentially buying another unit. Some cables arrive dirty, making it hard to inspect the glass clearly, and others are so degraded that you can’t see the internal structure. I’d never install such a delicate component inside walls. Every installation we’ve done has been either fully accessible for easy swaps or housed in conduits with quick-release mechanisms. Another significant challenge is converting fiber back to Ethernet: you can opt for an inexpensive 8-16 port switch and a converter box, or invest in a premium all-SPF switch with a converter at $1,000 plus conversion fees per line. On the computer side, you might spend $100 on a fiber NIC or $50-$250 for converter boxes. In my setup, which cost around $3,000, fiber would require roughly $20,000 or more. Considering alternatives, I’d prefer to have run fiber from my home to my separate shop—it makes sense now. It’s at least in conduit, so in the future I might upgrade to fiber if needed. I don’t mean to be harsh, but it seems a very poor decision to install fiber, and I hope you avoid the trouble. Early on, I was eager to implement fiber in my house, but after spending more time evaluating, I realized the challenges and began researching costs.
I'm facing the same situation but aiming to run a few strands of mmf from your 42u garage rack to the home office. You might mix them together and just do a few ready-to-use fiber runs for the bandwidth you already need, while using copper for the rest. Since everything else in the house is wireless, copper makes sense because you can't use PoE over fiber.