[DannyBee]

The fiber is much cheaper because it's so much more common.

For example: I/O fiber is about 0.10 cents a foot or less for 2 fiber cable. (12 fiber is only 20 cents a foot).

OSP gel-filled direct burial is 0.55 cents a foot or less for 2 fiber cable. (12 fiber is only 65 cents). This is micro-armored OSP cable, resistant to chewing/damage as well.

Basic 18 awg single pair shielded direct burial wire is about 0.80 cents a foot. Can't even find a non-expensive armored version

10km single fiber transceivers at 10gbps are 40 bucks.

10km dual fiber transceivers at 10gbps at 29 bucks.

It would be much cheaper, more effective, and a better result to just use fiber for 1km here.

You could easily bury 12 fiber cable and use it for the price you will pay to use single-twisted-pair.

[p1mrx]

> 0.80 cents a foot

Isn't that 80 cents/foot, or 0.80 dollars/foot?

[jandrese]

This product makes sense if you are reusing existing copper lines.

[DannyBee]

in which case unless you have 18awg copper lines around, you can't do 1km :)

I would be shocked if anyone has those. Maybe alarm wire I guess?

[toast0]

I've got a 3 pair run[1] to my gate with a keypad gate controller. Two pair are used for voice communications, and one pair is idle. The gate controller has 10 base T ethernet (for management), but you need two pair, and it's maybe a touch outside the distance spec for 10baseT. I'm not quite ready to spend $350 to get it on ethernet though.

[1] Actually, it's 4 pair to an in-ground junction box, where it splices to 3 pair to the gate controller. For $350, I have maybe some other other options around the junction box (I've already got some passive 10baseT <-> single pair devices, but they don't work at the full distance. Probably would work at the junction box, if I had a powered ethernet switch there, but I need weatherproofing.

[DannyBee]

Unlike the 1km, this doesn't require 18awg wire :)

10Base-T1L may replace RS-485 in forms of process automation, but the length capability is not the particularly interesting feature there :)

[Aloha]

When everyone prices fiber, they fail to include the termination costs.

How much are the termination costs on that fiber, per run?

Also, you'd never install single pair direct burial, and almost never shielded (unless its audio and not phone type) - it'd be 4/6/12 pair direct bury gel-filled cable.

[DannyBee]

Termination is basically a non-cost anymore. The price a pack of 10 sc/apc field terminations (IE that a random DIY'ers could do) is <20 bucks, and to your question, the same as a price of a pack of 10 ez-r45 connectors.

The loss and ease of mechanical connectors has gotten good enough (0.15 db or better) that most of the folks i know will only fusion splice when they really have to.

I agree it wouldn't make sense to do single pair or single fiber, but that's the actually the comparison at which 10baset-1l is at all competitive.

I have buried a lot of fiber, and a lot of network cable over the years :)

I was just trying to be fair and present the best case for 10baseT1L

In practice you can do 12/24 strand fiber (or 6 strand fiber + power + whatever) for less than the price of whatever particular set of 18 awg twisted pair (which is what the spec requires at 1km) + other things you wanted. The cable would be smaller, and if you use A3 or B3 fiber, it would be more flexible/support a lower bend radius than the 18 awg twisted pair. By far. IT's not even close.

[Aloha]

This product is a special service product for private line service within a facility, likely over existing cable.

There are reasons why copper and coax exists though, which is what I was pointing out.

[xenadu02]

Besides what DannyBee says about termination being a lot cheaper and easier when you can tolerate small losses (which is most people):

Big infrastructure often orders the cables pre-terminated, eg an ISP will order their arial cable with built-in termination at certain intervals. No muss, no fuss.

You're right about single pair though. If you're putting in two strands might as well do 6. If you need 6 might as well do 24. Never hurts to have spares and extra capacity. Especially if it involves stringing poles or digging holes.

[DannyBee]

Yeah, from a cost/redundancy/etc perspective it rarely would make sense to run 1.

I will get pre-terminated for MTP runs, but not for anything else. Fusion splicing connectors just isn't slow (and if i need to go quick, i'll just splice a pigtail onto it until it fails)

I agree for redundancy, etc, better to just add more until loss-of-ROI occurs, but will say doing something for extra capacity for home users/even business users feels like massive overkill these days.

Even 2km 100G duplex transceivers for SMF are <$200 a piece now. Cost is dropping crazily fast. (bidi simplex ones now also exist on fs.com as of a month or two ago, but are still way too expensive)

[icedchai]

If you're in the position to bury new fiber cable, why would you use this product?

[DannyBee]

To get to 1km, the spec requires 18awg cable, which nobody has around either ;)

[bufferoverflow]

Aren't you off by a factor of 100? Maybe dollars per foot, not cents per foot?

[DannyBee]

It's dollars per foot, yes. Honestly though, since they are all in the same relative scale, and the point is what was cheaper and by what percent, this feels like pedantry.

Put another way - outside of being technically correct, why does it matter to the point at hand?

[bcrl]

I pay about $350 per kilometer for 24 count flat all dielectric G.657A1 fibre with 2 x 2.0mm fibreglass strength members. Add about $100 for shipping from overseas.