I wired my house with fiber instead of Cat6, and the installation was actually easier than I expected

When I first looked at sorting out my new home's network, I knew I needed to use some fiber. I couldn't do the usual Cat6 everywhere and call it a day. That is the worthwhile option for most homes since it's just about as good as you'd typically need it for a bustling online home. But my home isn't normal. It has stone walls for almost half of the external and internal walls. Then there's the fact that the office is in an outbuilding and the garage is also detached.

We're going to be working from home in the office, and the servers will be running in the garage, so we'd need a physical link between each building. That's where fiber comes in with ground potential differences, lightning risks, maximum run lengths, and the sheer hassle of burying shielded cable. I've not purchased fiber before and worked with it at length. I considered it fragile and expensive, but this couldn't be further from the truth. Actually, the installation was not only manageable, but it was also arguably easier than running copper.

What made fiber the right choice

It's simply better at this job than Cat

I did plan around Cat6, but the distance was simply too much. Between the dining room where the OPNsense box is running, we have around 23 meters between the house and office, as well as around 18 meters between the same room and the garage. This is just measuring between the point of entry for the holes on the exterior walls, so there's a little more to run the cables from the wall to the three switches. Cat6 can technically achieve this, but they're not ideal.

For starters, these runs are outside, and we're next to a major road with plenty of vibrations, disturbances, and weather that hits the same side of the house where the links will be located. Plus, I planned to bury the cable below ground. Fiber ticked all the boxes, including no electrical conductivity, plenty of distance headroom, future-proofing with bandwidth, and it's super-thin and light. The drawback is it's more sensitive than Cat cabling, but so long as care is taken, this shouldn't be an issue.

Because we're going to be burying the cabling, we may as well go with something that won't need to be uncovered for many years to come, especially when looking to upgrade the links between each switch. We could easily go beyond 10Gbps, which already is more than enough. The fiber handles 10Gb connections between the switches, and Cat cabling is then used to ferry data between clients at 2.5Gbps. This is ample for servers, network-attached storage, access points (APs), and other devices.

Picking the fiber

If you've not shopped for fiber yet, there are various versions available. I opted for pre-terminated and outdoor-rated multi-mode fiber with LC connectors. Then I added plenty of M30 tubing to protect the cable between locations. I had to go this size due to the pre-terminated shoes that would be too large for M20. I went with pre-terminated fiber, so I didn't have to deal with splicing or polishing connectors; I simply ordered cables cut to length with connectors already attached.

Getting the fiber cable underground

Quickly burying the links with little effort

Interestingly, I thought using fish cabling to pull the fiber cable through the tubing would be the most challenging part of the process, but it's not. It was the digging. We not only had a lawn, but I had to wind the tubing through bedding and then under some gravel. The gravel path was the most tiresome and took the longest due to having to dig deep enough to secure the tubing and not create raised parts. It was vital the fiber was buried deep enough to protect it against accidental damage.

With the fiber already pulled through the tubing and the two tubes sealed in the middle, it was time to bury it. This was easy once the pathing was out of the way. The lawn was a simple process of inserting the space into the dirt and pulling apart the earth so the tubing could be pushed down. Then the grass can be re-laid and stamped onto level it, and after the entire length was complete, you'd struggle to know there was a 30-meter fiber cable buried below.

Once the fiber cabling was hooked up to the switches, a 10Gb bus was created for handling larger data transfer between buildings. The SFP+ modules were inserted straight into the switches, and everything powered up just fine. Local managed web interfaces allowed me to ensure the switches would work with the existing VLAN settings and didn't phone home for anything. Large file transfers completely almost immediately and there's no latency or buffering for any task.

Cat cabling has a place in my network

Getting all clients online

My PC doesn't have an SFP port, nor does my TV or many other devices, which is where Cat6 comes into play. Within each building, I ran Cat6 through a few walls to devices and access points, but instead of sticking to gigabit, I opted for 2.5Gb Ethernet. It's the sweet spot between standard gigabit and enthusiast 10Gb setups. Hardware isn't too expensive, and more devices support these speeds. It's plenty fast for our needs and doesn't require special cabling.

Transferring large files between buildings is effectively instant, network backups complete more quickly, streaming is effortless when the network is already busy, and latency is low across the board. But because we have the garage and outbuilding both connected, two APs positioned ensure we have Wi-Fi coverage across the entire property, from the garage to the rear of the back yard. But do you need fiber or even 10Gb networking? Probably not, but it doesn't feel anywhere near as advanced as I thought it would.