We have a general rule of not running ethernet up towers for lots of reasons. That said, you are forced to run power, or get it from an electrical junction box on larger towers. Once you have ran fiber and have power, might as well put all the goodies on the tower following the rule of not running cat5 up the tower you pretty much have to keep the stuff in the box - except the router. We find that the router is the most common part we upgrade and swap out, and occasionally have an issue with since its MT, so its downstairs along with the web power switch that can reboot the router or the whole tower. Power is your most critical component so get a good UPS, we use sine wave inverters with good quality 12v batteries and up top industrial din mount power supplies, fuses, power filters etc. Our boxes accept up to 3 standard rack mount devices (HP switch, Router if we put it up there, DLI power controller etc). Any way, we probably spend more on our boxes than most but some have been running over 10 years now without an issue. Estimated price per box with doesn't include any radios, routers etc - maybe $5k if you manufacture it all yourself. Double that if you pay an industrial controls company to do it for you.
These things are like recipes, everyone has their flavor to suit their needs and most are a family secret ;) Scott Carullo Technical Operations 855-FLSPEED x102 ---------------------------------------- From: "Chris Fabien" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:01 PM To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]> Subject: [WISPA] Equipment for Fiber+Power to tower top I am planning out a site where some of our radios have fiber interfaces and the rest are cat5. If we are running fiber up the tower, I think it makes sense to just put a switch and POE control at the top and run fiber up to that as well. My first thought is packetflux for POE control and a RB2011iLS-IN for the cat5->fiber. But this grade of equipment makes me a bit nervous putting up at 220ft on a tower. Is there better quality equipment I should be considering? This will be a major site for us so $1000 for a hardened switch or media converter would not be out of the question, if it's justified. Is it better in this approach to bring all the runs (via several fibers) down to a router at the base of the tower? This site is all wireless fed so we don't really need anything at the base other than power equipment, except for the ability to plug in for troubleshooting. Or should I just run power up top and put my router right up there too? Thanks for your suggestions.
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