Cable Length

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 Question by Cathy Lentner posted 28 Jan 2005
 Cable Length
We just had a category 5 cable ran in our building and the length of the cable is 375 feet between the two termination points. Are we in danger of currupting the data in our accounting software by running this distance? If so, what do you recommend?
Thank you in advance for your time.
Cathy
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 Answer by Joseph Golan posted 28 Jan 2005
Dear Cathy,

It should not corupt your data for the application as the ethernet protocal will verify the data sent and if not correct, will request a resend of the data.

What may happen is that all the resending due to errors in the packets, due to the extended length and the related attuation, may actually make the system appear to be running slow as more bandwidth is utilized for the resends.

If you can tolerate the resends, if they happen at all, then nothing has to be done right now. If down the road the excessive use of the bandwidth by the resends eats into your expected performace levels you may want to have this run replaced with fiber and fiber/ethernet converters which will overome the excessive length issues.

Speak to your local network support people to see if they have any gear to test the amount of errors and how it is overall affecting the network's performance.


Sincerely,
Joseph Golan, RCDD

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