What cable?

[camaro]

I'm trying to decide on how to cable a 5 story office building with 100 PCs. 20 PCs per floor. So I was going to do a star network on each floor and then connect the swithes with each other. I decided on cat5 cable for the star networks, but need to figure out what cable can handle connecting the networks together. Coax, fiber? I'm not too clear on the bandwidth limitations of cables. Traffic will be pretty heavy.

There is also a warehouse that needs to be on the same network 1000feet apart that will house heavy machinery with alot of interference(so cat5 out of the question). There will be 10 PCs there. What cable should I use to run that 1000feet and what cable inside the warehouse to connect the 10 PCs. It must be immune to interference.

Thanks in advance!

[bailey]

I would recommend fiber
because it would have better fault tolerance

[Dj-Icer]

Fibre optic is an expensive cable. Though that it is, it has less interference due to its high quality. It is also thick, covered with multi layers, provides better performance.

[John Prophet]

do a search for "structured cabling"

[camaro]

Fiber sounds good.

I have another quick question. Now I have to find a way to connect the fiber with cat5e. Are there switches/hubs that have connections for both cat5e and fiber? I don't see them being sold in the popular online stores.

[TundraFox]

did quik search, found couple of sites.

http://www.lascomm.com
http://www.FiberOpticCableShop.com

have a nice day!

[jkrohn]

Yes there are switches that have both fiber and cat5.

Jkrohn

[DVNT1]

In a moderate traffic situation, I would probably have a switch on each floor. Each switch would connect to one common high end switch, using Gigabit in either copper or fiber.

To the warehouse 1000' away, I would use fiber or wireless, depending on what was between the two points.

As for warehouse floor, you could use fiber, wireless, or shielded UTP.

Here's just one example of one online store that has many products... http://www.cdw.com ...that include switches with fiber ports.

[camaro]

Thanks a ton guys! You've been a big help.