Need advice about network distance & speed

networkingperformance

My company has two office locations about 200 meters from switch to switch, and at the moment the network speed between our two networks is really slow. The network is a 100Mb network with 2 intermediate switches, and we hardly have 30mb/s (theoretical) of bandwidth between them. At the moment both locations have their own server, router, IP range, and the network between the 2 locations isn't used a lot.

In a future project I'd like to recreate the whole network but I'd like to create it as a single network, all in the same IP range, with one router, one powerful server, one AD and so on…

Let's say all hardware is placed in location "A". I need to be sure that a user in location "B" will have the same network speed as if they were in location "A".

200 meters doesn't seem that long of a distance if I put 2 intermediate switches between the 2 locations, but at the moment we seem to have a lot of speed lost..

Question: Is it possible to have the same network speed between the two locations if we use the correct RJ45 cable and switch (all in a Gigabit network)?

Best Answer

Based on Distance I would go with Fiber between the sites to make sure that you have a maintained speed. Although you can put switches in between that really isn't the best solution. Below is a list from DSL Reports FAQ on cable lengths. As you can see to hit your 200 Meter requirement you should really be running fiber. This will eliminate the need for another repeater or switch. This can be easily accomplished with switches that support fiber or have an SFP port that a fiber SFP can be put into. An example of such a switch would be the Cisco SG200-26 24 Two of these ports have sfp adapters that you can put an SFP adapter that matches the type of fiber you have run between the buildings.

COPPER (UTP & COAXIAL) LENGTHS:

Gigabit Ethernet (over copper), 1000baseT
Length: 100 Meters
Cable: UTP (Cat5 and up ONLY)

Fast Ethernet, 100BaseTX
Length: 100 Meters
Cable: UTP (Cat5 and up ONLY)

Twisted Pair Ethernet, 10BaseT
Length: 100 Meters
Cable: UTP (Cat 3 and up)

Thin Ethernet, 10Base2
Length: 185 Meters
Cable: RG-58 type coax

Thick Ethernet, 10Base5
Length: 500 Meters
Cable: RG-58 type coax

FIBRE OPTIC LENGTHS:

10BaseFL (Multimode fibre)
Length: 2000m or 2km

100BaseFX Half-duplex (Multimode fibre)
Length: 412m

100BaseFX Full-duplex (Multimode fibre)
Length: 2000m or 2km

100BaseFX Full-Duplex ONLY (Singlemode fibre)
Length: 2-40,000m or 2-40km *(see note)

1000Base-LX
Length: 550m (62.5 or 50 multimode fibre)
3000m (10 singlemode fibre)

1000Base-SX
Length: 250m (62.5 multimode fibre)
550m (50 multimode fibre)

1000Base-CX
Length: 25m (requires new type of shielded cable)`