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Two main reasons: 1) Future proofing (the main geek justification we all tell ourselves when considering fiber hehe): There's terabits of potential in even th

Two main reasons: 1) Future proofing (the main geek justification we all tell ourselves when considering fiber hehe): There's terabits of potential in even the cheapest fiber. "I'll never have to run cables again!" This is actually nonsense since everyone needs outlets in new places from time to time. Better just get used to the idea that you'll be sweating your ass off in the attic (wear a proper respirator!) every few years no matter what you install =) 2) Long distance runs. You can run fiber kilometers and even the cheap SFP adapters will give you a solid 10Gbit connection. A few secondary reasons: Runs between buildings: Have a detached garage? You can run fiber from your attic to the garage in the air and not have to worry about lightning strikes destroying it and all your stuff/equipment. Just make sure to use a type of fiber cable that's made for that or it'll slowly droop until it breaks (or just gently wrap it around some strong rope that can withstand long term exposure to the elements or use tubing/pipe, etc). Size requirements: You can cram a lot more fiber cables into the same space as you can Cat 6/8 (which are much thicker and stiffer than cat 5/cat 5e). I have some "outdoor" (buryable) Cat 6 that is nearly as thick/stiff as RG-6 coaxial! If you have a tiny hole/pipe and you need to run a lot of wires through it fiber is what you want. I bet you can cram 5-6x more singly-jacketed fiber cables through a 1-inch PVC pipe/conduit than you can Cat 6. A LOT (100x) more if you use a fancy cable with lots of individual fibers within (there's a lot of different styles).

pjerem 3y ago
> "I'll never have to run cables again!" To those people i want to say conduits exists :)
- riskable 3y ago
  To conduit people I say, "you'll need to run new conduits" =)
amluto 3y ago
> Better just get used to the idea that you'll be sweating your ass off in the attic (wear a proper respirator!) every few years no matter what you install =) Real buildings have conditioned attics and don’t have loose fiberglass in them. :) This can even be fixed in an old building as a fairly straightforward retrofit if you can get into the attic, and it goes well with a re-roof so you can cleanly remove all the vents.
- riskable 3y ago
  You assume this makes sense everywhere. I live in Florida. Air conditioning your attic is akin to burning money. Even filling an attic with loose insulation isn't really enough since there's just that much heat and humidity most of the year. I'm not saying it's a great design but there's absolutely no way to retrofit Florida attics in such a way where air conditioning that space makes sense. The house would need to be designed to have an air conditioned attic for it to make sense but there's probably a really good reason why no house in Florida is like that (probably humidity and mold related).
  - amluto 3y ago
    As far as I can tell, the verdict is very much in. You should not build a vented attic, especially in a climate like Florida. For example: https://buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-015-top-ten-dumb-things-to-do-in-the-south https://buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-015-top-t... (And there are plenty of papers like this.) You have hot, humid air in your attic. You have much cooler air below your ceiling. You have something fluffy in between, which is almost certainly inadequate to keep said hot humid air away from your ceiling. So the hot humid air diffuses and otherwise reaches your ceiling, where it leaks through your ceiling, heats your ceiling, and condenses on your ceiling. And it’s essentially impossible to seal all the gaps. (And you have wood structural members going right through the insulation, and most structural designs make it essentially impossible to insulate them, so you may well have cold structural wood in your hot, humid attic. This is not a good situation.) Oh, Florida also has hurricanes. Attic vents can let wind driven rain in and they can contribute to roof failures during high wind: https://buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-088-venting-vapor https://buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-088-venti... Instead, you can seal and insulate your roof deck, skip the insulation above your ceiling, and treat your attic as conditioned space. The climates where a vented attic is less unreasonable are perhaps places with mild, dry weather and no wildfires. So maybe urban areas in Northern and Central CA? There aren’t too many places like this.
smartbit 3y ago
> even the cheap SFP adapters will give you a solid 10Gbit connection. What SFP adapters did you use?

pjerem 3y ago

> "I'll never have to run cables again!" To those people i want to say conduits exists :)

riskable 3y ago
To conduit people I say, "you'll need to run new conduits" =)

amluto 3y ago

> Better just get used to the idea that you'll be sweating your ass off in the attic (wear a proper respirator!) every few years no matter what you install =) Real buildings have conditioned attics and don’t have loose fiberglass in them. :) This can even be fixed in an old building as a fairly straightforward retrofit if you can get into the attic, and it goes well with a re-roof so you can cleanly remove all the vents.

riskable 3y ago
You assume this makes sense everywhere. I live in Florida. Air conditioning your attic is akin to burning money. Even filling an attic with loose insulation isn't really enough since there's just that much heat and humidity most of the year. I'm not saying it's a great design but there's absolutely no way to retrofit Florida attics in such a way where air conditioning that space makes sense. The house would need to be designed to have an air conditioned attic for it to make sense but there's probably a really good reason why no house in Florida is like that (probably humidity and mold related).
- amluto 3y ago
  As far as I can tell, the verdict is very much in. You should not build a vented attic, especially in a climate like Florida. For example: https://buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-015-top-ten-dumb-things-to-do-in-the-south https://buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-015-top-t... (And there are plenty of papers like this.) You have hot, humid air in your attic. You have much cooler air below your ceiling. You have something fluffy in between, which is almost certainly inadequate to keep said hot humid air away from your ceiling. So the hot humid air diffuses and otherwise reaches your ceiling, where it leaks through your ceiling, heats your ceiling, and condenses on your ceiling. And it’s essentially impossible to seal all the gaps. (And you have wood structural members going right through the insulation, and most structural designs make it essentially impossible to insulate them, so you may well have cold structural wood in your hot, humid attic. This is not a good situation.) Oh, Florida also has hurricanes. Attic vents can let wind driven rain in and they can contribute to roof failures during high wind: https://buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-088-venting-vapor https://buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-088-venti... Instead, you can seal and insulate your roof deck, skip the insulation above your ceiling, and treat your attic as conditioned space. The climates where a vented attic is less unreasonable are perhaps places with mild, dry weather and no wildfires. So maybe urban areas in Northern and Central CA? There aren’t too many places like this.

smartbit 3y ago

> even the cheap SFP adapters will give you a solid 10Gbit connection. What SFP adapters did you use?