Linking to another building

[LonnieBear]

We are opening up a new building which we want to link to our existing network. However, the building is a half-mile away. What is the best way to link this new building into our existing network? I was going to use a wireless bridge, but we are also extending our Shoretel system to that building. We have a Cat5 cable running there now (which is being used successfully for an analog phone line). But I am not sure if this would be too long a length (2,500 ft) to establish a 100mbit network connection. If this would work, we could run additional lines and add a PoE switch in that building for the phones. What is the best solution?

[southeasternMI]

Put fiber between the sites, if you have copper then now then you should be able to put fiber between them. Is there Telco services at the other site, you could always have a PP T1.

[LonnieBear]

That sounds astronomically expensive, but I've never worked with fiber. How much would something like that cost?

[Forum]

We've had customers run Wireless over that distance.

One Customer: 36mpbs pipe Wireless, 1/2 mile, Line of Site, Shoretel and Data
One Customer: 10mpbs pipe Wirelsss, 8 miles, near line of site, Shoretel and Data
One Customer: 6mbps pipe Wireless, 16 miles, No line of site, Data only right now.

But I agree...if you can run copper, then run fiber.

Charles

[VonZipper]

We are running a few sites over wireless, well, 4 to date. We have not had any issues what so ever.

[LonnieBear]

Really? That is good to know that others have had success with Shoretel over wireless. I was really leaning toward trying it out to see how it performed, and now I will definitely present that as an option. As for fiber, I have no experience with it, but since everyone seems to agree its an option, it must be much more commonplace these days.

[eazeaz]

Remote Office

As a short term solution, you may want to look at an ethernet extender. I have not done a lot with them personally, but assume they would work like a shorthaul T1 modem. Most claim to be able to work over a single twisted copper pair.

Patton Electronics Product Catalog - CopperLink™ Model 2172

Many models claim to be able to get you very decent speeds at the distances you are running. Using something like that may buy you enough time to research fiber, or other long term solutions.

[Forum]

Really? That is good to know that others have had success with Shoretel over wireless. I was really leaning toward trying it out to see how it performed, and now I will definitely present that as an option. As for fiber, I have no experience with it, but since everyone seems to agree its an option, it must be much more commonplace these days.

I don't know the cost of Fiber, but I have doctors that run it in their houses, so it can't be that bad. Of course, these are 15,000 sq ft houses worth 2-3 million, but you get the drift

[southeasternMI]

Well the price per foot is not what is going to be expensive, it's the labor. If you do the work your self (maint dept) it shouldn't that bad; I would run it and then pay someone to terminate the ends and test. Fiber is not that fragile, espeacially the outdoor stuff.

[LonnieBear]

Wow. That is what we did with the analog line. Maintenance dug a trench and laid the cable and conduit. I have seen one of my friends that works for Sprint use a machine to splice a break in a fiber line. Didn't look like anything I would want to try! We are moving to a new location in approx. 18 months, so I know they will not want to invest too much on something we can't take with us.

» Realistically, how many phones can you run on a solid 100mb connection?

[eazeaz]

100Mbit

I doubt you could reach a point where 100Mbit connection would not be adequate. As long as you provide QOS preference to the phones.

You could have like several hundred simultaneous calls going from site to site.

I would put a shoretel switch at the remote site and all should be swell.

[LonnieBear]

Wow, that is good to know. Thanks!

[VonZipper]

Currently, I have the following-

62 phones, and 6 are in a call center. This site is connected to me via a 3mb wireless link. We also use that same wireless for all data services such as EMR and so forth.

20 phones and a 6 person call center. This site is connected the same as above.

20 phones and 12 person call center, connected with a 10 m connection, mainly because it is the backup data center.

All of these wireless connection connect back to the server site via a 100m wireless link.

Overall, the above sites probably only take 45000 calls a month or so. We have yet to have any issues att hese sites with call quality or anything like that, and it is all a private network.

[LonnieBear]

Wow, when you say 3mb wireless link, you mean as opposed to say, a 54mb link of a full speed 802.11g, or 100mb wired ethernet? I did not realize that Shoretel truly had such a small throughput requirement. I read the published throughput rates, but I had never thought that they were realistic. Now I can seriously proffer wireless as an option with some confidence. Thanks guys!

[CWings]

Has anyone implemented a Cisco Aironet 1300 Series Bridge to connect a remote site for both data and ShoreTel VoIP over that wireless connection? I have done this many times on our MPLS network to extend the data connection, but have not passed VoIP traffic using them.

Secondly, would you really need QoS enabled on the bridge itself or could you use it in "pass-thru" mode, considering the core routers have QoS enabled?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.