Long Distance Networking Options

What would be the best way to connect two freestanding farm buildings onto the same network? The total cable length would be less than 1000 feet. Cat6 is listed as having a max length of about 330', which is too short. What other options are out there? There is no line of sight due to a slight hill between the two buildings, so a Wi-Fi boost would probably run into problems too.

Edit: Realized I didn't say how much bandwidth I would need. The internet connection is 10/3, and internal transfers won't be huge. Anything >= 10 Mbps would be plenty.

In a word: fiber.

Your solution could be as simple as two media converters and 1000 feet of multi-mode fiber with matching connectors, at a cost of under $500 total for actual networking components.

You would need to plan the run carefully to prevent the fiber from being damaged during or after installation. Compared to copper, fiber is easier to break and requires very expensive tools to fix.

Ordinarily, one would consult a professional installer.

Depending on your switches you might not require external media-converters - just plug in an appropriate GBIC/SFP into the switches and you are go.

I'd consider the fastest possible connection your switches are able to handle - there is no difference in price (as Gigabit is much more common these days than 100Mbit) and it's never a good idea to save a few cents on cabling and need to rip it out again when the requirements change in due time...

There are preconfigured fibre-cables ready for installation in many lengths, fibre-types and connectors, so there is no need for much onsite installation other than just laying out the cables itself.

If you want to learn more about fibre, how it works, tools you need and repair. Then i found this FOA a great help. It's through and free!

http://thefoa.org/

http://www.youtube.com/user/thefoainc

informative and useful...you soon be a great fibre provider. ;-)

so you've got no excuse not to start laying.