And if you don’t use coax or shielded cable, there is actually nothing to
“ground”. A surge protector is not the same as a ground block. If you look at
the ground block for satellite TV, it has no surge protector, it is just
grounding the shield of the coax. And if anyone was still using 300 ohm
twinlead, you would be hard pressed to ground that at the building entrance,
you would have to use a balun and convert it to 75 ohm coax.
Part of the logic behind grounding the coax, I think, is first the shield may
be electrically connected to the mast at the antenna, and second you have a
much heavier conductor for surges than just a 24 AWG cable.
And if you compare to telephone wiring, there are gas tubes in the NID, but I
don’t think they ground the conductors. And they used to put the lightning
protectors inside the house, the main reason the NID moved outside the house
was the court decision that customers could own their own phones, so the telcos
created a demarc outside the house and anything beyond that demarc was customer
owned and maintained. In commercial and multitenant buildings, you still often
see the 50 pair or whatever drop cable come directly into the building where
the lightning protectors are in an indoor demarc cabinet.
From: Adam Moffett via Af
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 2:12 PM
To: af@afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Customer install cost sensitivity
The code part is debatable. An antenna cable would definitely need to be
grounded somehow, but we're bringing the low voltage data cable into the house,
not an antenna cable. If that needs a surge protector, then so does every
doorbell, camera, sensor, landscaping light, and so on.
Whether it's a good idea and whether it's required by code are two separate
points though. It's definitely a good idea.
And also if you have to do a cable rerun or move the antenna, you can do it
without requiring the customer to be home.
If I remember right (Chuck or somebody can probably confirm this), you should
be doing this anyway due to electrical code requirements (grounding before
entry into the home).
Josh Reynolds, Chief Information Officer
SPITwSPOTS, www.spitwspots.com
On 10/07/2014 10:59 AM, Mike Hammett via Af wrote:
Yeah, I had thought about those (and the WB versions). It's a hassle that
may be worth doing to avoid other hassles. Would also provide a point to test
from that's outside if necessary.
-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions
http://www.ics-il.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Josh Reynolds via Af" mailto:af@afmug.com
To: af@afmug.com
Sent: Tuesday, October 7, 2014 12:55:56 PM
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Customer install cost sensitivity
If you use the new UBNT surge protectors* (or something like them), then
your outdoor run would technically terminate at that box, and then you'd have a
second (probably much shorter) run from that box into the home. It would be
much more likely for the primarily 'outdoor' cable to have water in it than the
much shorter run inside the home.
Also, we always slice the bottom of our drip loops to let water weep out.
[* - I have no idea if these are shipping]
Josh Reynolds, Chief Information Officer
SPITwSPOTS, www.spitwspots.com
On 10/07/2014 04:20 AM, Mike Hammett via Af wrote:
I used to be really excited about all-in-one CPE units until I realized
that where now I have to change out the occasional PoE due to
water\lightning\whatever damage... then I'd have to change out the entire unit.
-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions
http://www.ics-il.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Darin Steffl via Af" mailto:af@afmug.com
To: af@afmug.com
Sent: Sunday, October 5, 2014 4:25:38 PM
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Customer install cost sensitivity
Chris Sisler - RF Armor has/is creating a Customer AP with POE built-in
but it doesn't have a display as far as I know to show status or anything like
that. He is working on getting out the Tower/WISP switches first I think and
then the Customer AP.
http://www.netonix.com/cap-fxs-1.html
On Sun, Oct 5, 2014 at 4:18 PM, TJ Trout via Af <af@afmug.com> wrote:
I would love to find a router that has poe output and all of the
diagnostic features you mentioned. It would be nice if the customer could just
look at the router to see the status of the connection up down or otherwise.
On Oct 5, 2014 2:13 PM, "Chris Fabien via Af" <af@afmug.com> wrote:
I'd say you are correct. Would love to have the functionality but
even at $75 I couldn't justify the cost.
On Oct 5, 2014 5:08 PM, "Forrest Christian (List Account) via Af"
<af@afmug.com> wrote:
Following up on the previous email about product ideas, I have an
idea for a product which at least I think would be really cool, but I also
think would likely be a big flop, just because of the apparent cost sensitivity
of installs.
It seems to me that it would be nice to replace the power injector
at customer sites with more of an intelligent device. One that provides
functionality like traffic metering, cable diagnostics, customer-location speed
tests, and so on. The unit would have jacks for the radio, the customer
equipment, and power. It would also have a display which shows real-time
usage data for the customer to be able to determine for themselves what their
current internet consumption is. There are a lot of natural outgrowths from
this such as watchdog reset of the radio itself, automatic problem notification
to the WISP, etc. My goal would be to instrument this as much as possible.
If you think of this as a 'smart power meter' for internet, with
diagnostic tools built in, then you've got the basic idea. This is not
intended to replace the customer router/nat device, and will only be a Layer 2
device as far as traffic goes. There will likely be some limited traffic
shaping possible based on the underlying ethernet swtich chipset.
Unfortunately, these can't be a $20 device. $75 might be doable
for higher volumes, but $100 is more in the comfort zone for the volumes I
typically move. Of course, this is a CPE device and I'm not even sure how many
I'd sell so these prices are guesses at best - but more likely to go down
instead of up.
Although I suspect most people would love to have one of these at
each install, I have a hard time believing that most people would swallow
adding even $75 to the cost of each install, let alone the $100 which might be
the price I'd have to hit for lower volume. Is this a fair assumption? Would
you add such a device to each install?
--
Darin Steffl
Minnesota WiFi
www.mnwifi.com
507-634-WiFi
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