[geeks] Whee! Lightning strikes, AGAIN!

[gsm at mendelson.com]

On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 04:10:26PM -0400, Lionel Peterson wrote:
> I may chop the Cat5e in the attic and put a switch up there, but the  
> heat Is significant up there... I could run the wires into a closet on  
> the second floor and place a switch there, but ventilation could be a  
> problem...
>
> I have no idea about cost with Gigabit fiber, not sure I could run it  
> for under, say $400 (RJ45 on each end, maybe 200 foot run of fiber...

I would ask someone who is an expert at these things but if you have the
switch in the basement, and EMP induction is really what did it, you can
run shielded wire upstairs and ground all of the shields to the electrical
ground at your service entrance, but not to the computers and not to the
far ends.

How much of it can be taken over by wifi? If you pay $30 a router and have
13 channels, you could in effect have plenty of wifi bandwidth for
less money. 

It depends upon how many other networks are near you. I have 3 of my own
(one 802.11g one 802.11b and a downstairs 802.11g I can't hear in the
main part of our apartment) and only one neighbor with their own.

If you went to 802.11N, (and are in the Americas) you can also use the
5.8gHz channels too.

I find that 802.11G is good enough for everything I do except over the network
backups. 

The only real trick is to keep the SSID's different on each connection,
or your computers will roam.

Geoff.
-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM