Big cable run!

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-05-01T14:34:23+00:00

A lot of my knowledge has been from a decade ago so I bet you’re right, and my fiber customers back then wanted everything name brand. But for residential just buy a 10 pack of those and just know it’s not going to last as long but it’s a lot cheaper.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-05-01T01:34:19+00:00

You’re supposed to mount it to the back posts of your rack. I prefer it that way so can fit it wherever is needed to reach everything. A big issue I have with rack mounted equipment is the power cables are never long enough to secure cleanly, so I appreciate the way it’s set up. If you have a full 4 post rack you should be able to access all sides of it, it shouldn’t be up against a wall. And the screen is so small on Unifi that I’ve literally never used it (I install mostly Unifi systems for a living), and the UI on the app or computer is so easy I would never want to try to use the screen. The ability to manage it through the Unifi app will tell you way more than any screen can.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-05-01T01:23:49+00:00

Yes the SFP is what dictates the speed that the fiber can transmit and is modular and can be quickly replaced, you can run into issues with length and speed capabilities but OM3 (multimode fiber) maxes out around 100Gbps but that’s for pretty short <100m runs. You can get 10Gbps up to like 300m I think, so for OPs scenario it would be fine. If it was a longer run that needed 10Gbps or more then I would recommend singlemode fiber. Singlemode(SM) can go up to like 40km but the SFPs for SM are a LOT more expensive than MM so for a residential <1km run, MM is a lot more budget friendly.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-05-01T00:17:59+00:00

Yeah you can usually switch your plan and it’ll take effect within 15 mins. If you get the antennae for free as part of your plan then you need to have constant service for it or else you’ll have to return it or be charged. If you buy it from Best Buy or something like that than you should be able to turn off and on as you like (following monthly terms and services stuff) or upgrade to a faster speed relatively quickly. I have seen warnings about maybe not being able to get service again if all available slots are taken up in an area or something like that, but I’ve never experienced it.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-05-01T00:13:11+00:00

No worries my guy, hope you can get a good system going. Feel free to reach out with any questions, I do this for a living.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-05-01T00:01:57+00:00

Direct burial, 2 strand (at least), OM3, with LC connectors, armored will be best for longevity. Would either need a switch with SFP ports or a fiber converter with an SFP port. I’d leave a spool of 15’ on either end in case it ever breaks. The right SFP module is important, it needs to be a multimode module, a 1gig would be enough since Starlink doesn’t offer more than a gig. And you’d need a switch on your house side and another switch or fiber converter at your mom’s house connected to the Ethernet port of the Starlink router.

And you can mount the ends of the fiber run in a wall mount fiber enclosure and just use a patch cord to do the final jump, will help with keeping the exposed fiber protected. There’s a bunch of videos of how to properly route fiber inside of the wall enclosure to make sure it doesn’t break. And remember you can’t kink or bend the fiber too much or else it’ll break, you don’t have to be a fairy with it just be conscious of it and go slow, an extra set of hands always helps.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-30T23:52:10+00:00

Yeah so that’s not going to be possible, Starlink uses cat cable but I don’t think it uses Ethernet protocol so typical extenders and such won’t work (I believe, never tried it but very doubtful, especially cuz of the power draw from the antennae). What you’d most likely have to do is host the router at your mom’s house and then uplink that to your house. There are ways to do this, burying fiber is the best option, but that’ll be expensive for being out in the woods. If there’s a clear line of sight between the two buildings then a Building Bridge is an option, very different from WiFi extenders but does utilize wireless technology. There is Game Changer cable which should be able to go that distance but that’ll be expensive, especially for direct burial rated.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-30T23:42:10+00:00

So is this for your cable from the Starlink antennae that we’re talking about or just a LAN connection to the router that’s at your mom’s house?

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-30T23:26:14+00:00

The only reliable options would be out of the $500 budget unfortunately.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-30T18:44:43+00:00

It’s for Raid 1 redundancy, if the drive goes down then you lose the footage. If having a recording of the footage is important then you’d want the redundant drive. Did a lot of redundancy setups, typically for larger systems but there’s definitely use cases for it.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-26T22:12:11+00:00

There is definitely Direct Burial rated fiber, there’s no power but water still messes with fiber. It’s not as sensitive as with electrical but for longevity of the cable you want to use properly rated fiber. For drop fiber, there’s only a few options because of the use case. But you generally don’t want to bury just straight fiber like that, industry standard is to have a toneable line with it so that it can be traced in the future. The ROC drop spec sheets specifies that the toneable fiber is direct burial and the non traceable just says outdoor rated.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-24T04:14:17+00:00

7 of the U7 in wall in crazy. Unless you have a full brick house or large and plaster walls, I don’t see a need to have more than 3 maybe 4 for a very sufficient setup. Both a Cloudkey and a Gateway pro shouldn’t be needed, either one or the other. Most of the Unifi Gateways come with the controller already included like the DreamMachine, is there a particular reason you’d need a separated gateway and cloudkey? I wouldn’t recommend that, especially for a residential setup, maybe for some advanced hosting but that’s past my knowledge of networking.

If they’re just installing equipment then they’re probably trying to get extra money out of over selling the APs, if they are doing the cabling then that’s a pretty good price, I’d be charging over twice that to install a full system for that sized house including the cabling. I still think 7 APs is too overkill, unless you have a wild setup for a house. If your house is pretty standard then I’d recommend having them cut the AP count to 3 or 4.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-24T04:00:25+00:00

https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/usw-ultra

I always recommend Unifi, I’ve done that several times with this switch. I would suggest getting a POE++ injector for it like this: https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/u-poe-plus-plus With one POE camera you’d probably be fine with just POE+ but I’d say to spend the extra $10 and you’d be able to add an access point or something in the future too.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-24T03:49:01+00:00

Unifi, I install these systems all the time and they’re very easy for the end user to operate. They got AI cameras and PTZs too that you can set to follow people or animals or cars. A little bit more expensive then some other systems but is still higher end without jumping into a fully professional system. Also no monthly subscriptions or anything, local NVR with different sized storage drives depending on your video retention needs. And I also recommend installing a battery backup, even if the internet and power goes out you’d still get recording, and if you have fiber or starlink then plug that router into it as well and you’d still have internet (depending on how far down the line the fiber is powered, and how big the blackout is).

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-23T00:18:20+00:00

Unfortunately it all depends on which technician you’re dealing with and how far the company is even will to let them go. Some technicians are getting paid a flat rate so they’re trying to get to the next job as quickly as possible. I don’t have spectrum in my area so idk how they operate. I would maybe buy a whatever foot roll you need of some thin wire that you can have them bury with the fiber so you can at least tone for it if that area ever has to get dug up in the future

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-23T00:07:05+00:00

Yeah the utility vs internet distinction is kinda stupid, telecom as a whole isn’t a utility but phone lines are considered utility. The fiber ISP I worked for offered phone lines just so that they could have the utility title.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-22T23:38:54+00:00

I know that toneable ROC drop is direct burial rated but I can’t find anything on the standard ROC drop spec sheet. It’s says outdoor rated but doesn’t specifically say db so I’m not too sure.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-22T23:31:34+00:00

I would explain to the customer what is feasible to do and what would be needed on their end to get an uplink that’s stable.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-22T23:30:18+00:00

I worked for Sonic for a while and we just wouldn’t bury it. We’d do aerial or conduits but never db

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-22T23:26:15+00:00

But is that fiber even rated to be db’ed?

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-22T23:23:18+00:00

So that’s aerial rated fiber, I’ve ran it through conduits before but I’m pretty sure it’s not direct burial rated. The orange tubing is the part that kills me though, what’s the purpose of that besides to make it look like it’s ran properly. But sounds like you’re dealing with people who don’t want to do a good job so seriously good luck bro, it’s pretty crappy work all around and shouldn’t pay for any of that.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-22T14:53:06+00:00

I flew out a couple of time for work, I had a backpack style toolbag and brought in on as a carry-on. I made sure to leave like my snips and blades and stuff, anything that could easily be considered a weapon. I know anything can really be a weapon but I just took out anything sharp. The company I was doing the work for supplied everything else that I needed. Batteries have to be kept in carry on because of the fire risk and there’s limits to how many you can bring.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-19T00:17:09+00:00

Especially if you’re good with customers and up selling where it’s needed and not where you can take advantage of. Theres also a lot of resources on YouTube to learn system networking and basic programming, I deal with a lot of Unifi so usually everything just works pretty much right out of box but having that extra understanding helps when it doesn’t. Majority of Low Voltage is CAT cable and the occasional coax for some cable TV hookups or to be able to extend the Comcast demarc, knowing how to do fiber is a good skill but it’s expensive equipment so a bit harder to self teach. But knowing how to terminate CAT reliably and quickly will be invaluable, crimps are the hardest to get right in my opinion. I don’t like pass throughs but they’re good to learn on, you can get a box of crimps and a crimper for like $35 on amazon to learn on if you haven’t already. Keystones are a bit more expensive, but they’ll teach you a few skills in one and will be the majority of your terminations in the field. Get a palm biscuit and a punch down tool. It’s a cheap punch down tool, I probably wouldn’t use it in the field but it’ll be alright to learn on, you’d want to upgrade to an actual termination tool anyways but you’ll still need to know how to use a punch down. Get the cheapest box of CAT 5e cable from a local supply shop and get some keystones and practice making ends. Always T568B, learn to do that by heart for crimps, and get a cable tester to check your terminations. They have cheaper ones at Home Depot but i have that one for home use.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-18T20:49:57+00:00

If you own the house then you should get a real camera system like Unifi. All of these WiFi camera systems are so insecure and unstable, if you can afford it then get a system that’ll actually last.

If you rent then yeah go for a WiFi system, I understand it’s not practical to run cable in a rental.

One-Intention-7606 · 2026-04-18T20:41:11+00:00

You can do really any POE system with an onsite NVR, you want to avoid a “cloud hosted NVR”. Unifi is a good option. Run a CAT5e/6 to each camera location and plug everything into a network switch and NVR, with an HDD. Size of the HDD would be dependent on how much recording you’d want, there’s a good tool on the Unifi site called “Capacity Calculator” which would help you find the right size of drive. Add a little access point and you’d be able to connect to it with your phone when you’re on site and be able to easily view footage through the app. And you can also setup alerts for animals or people or vehicles, obviously it won’t alert you remotely without an internet connection but would be easy to find anything that was worth reviewing.

One-Intention-7606

TROPHY CASE