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Comment by wyager | Hacker News Reader

> fiber is quite future proof

To give an example - OS2 single-mode fiber is the standard fiber for contemporary datacenter deployments and I assume also for last-mile deployments. It's super cheap (less than 20cpf for indoor cable, whereas cat7 copper is closer to 60cpf), has an insane range (a standard $25 fiber PHY can operate with a cable from 0m-10km), and has an insane bandwidth limit (it's currently used for everything from 1gbps to 400gbps).

If you're wiring a home today, I would 100% use OS2 over CatN unless you also need PoE.

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> If you're wiring a home today, I would 100% use OS2 over CatN unless you also need PoE.

OS2 is not needed for most homes. Use multi-mode fibre (OM4 or OM5), which can do 25-100 Gbps @100m (or more):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-mode_optical_fiber

You'd have to have quite a house to need internal runs longer than 100m (300'). For runs up to 100m: 2.5 Gbps can be done with Cat5e, 5G with Cat6, and 10G with Cat6A:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_over_twisted_pair#Var...

Multimode fibre is expensive, and quicky dying.

I never seen it used outside North America.

The biggest reason to use multimode - cheaper equipment, is no longer here. High-end multimode NICs, and transmitters now cost more than SMF.

There is zero reason whatsoever to use OM over OS. The PHYs are only like $5 cheaper and it's worse in every way.

> If you're wiring a home today, I would 100% use OS2 over CatN unless you also need PoE.

It would be future-proof but not present proof, as you likely don't have anything else than RJ45 plugs on your devices…

On the other hand, replacing a cable in a conduit by a fiber is a half-hour task (you just stick the fiber to the cable, then pull the fiber with the cable) so it's not really worth it to be future proof in this case. You'll only be saving a hundred bucks in cable by doing so.

Source: I wired my entire home last year.

> If you're wiring a home today, I would 100% use OS2 over CatN unless you also need PoE.

Won't you end up with a bunch of media converters everywhere though?

A dualport 10 Gbit/s SFP+ PCI-E card with an optic is like 25$ on ebay.

If you're wiring a home - wouldn't lay-people want it to look nice? Are these made with any way to hide them in walls, exposing a usable port (even if RJ-45?)

Or if not - how should one think about deploying all this in a new home?

What about things like my AppleTV? I’d probably run both

SFP module > pigtail > wall patch > OS2 > wall patch > pigtail > SFP Module.

If I were wiring a home, I'd probably run some multimode fiber alongside CAT6 or maybe even 2 shielded CAT6 to support a secondary LAN like for surveillance cameras.

Avoid multimode. Unlike singlemode fibre it needs upgrading as speeds increase.

If you're wiring things today and you want them to be truly future proof, run some kind of conduit from everywhere to a central location. It makes replacing broken cables easy and you can focus on just installing the relevant types of cable in locations that make sense right now.

If I were wiring a home I would probably run two OS2 cables (just so I do not have to deal with one breaking in the future) from one side of the house to the other and also a termination somewhere central. And then probably Cat7 everywhere else honestly. The cost of the actual cable does not seem to be really all that much comparative to other costs

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