Hello,
A little background, we have 2 buildings that we need to connect that are over the recommended distance, but running new cable or fiber isn't an option. There is a building between the two that we have access to and it looks like this:
Site A --- 600 feet --- Middle Building --- 400 feet --- Site B
We didn't think it would be possible at this distance, but then as a test there was a 50 pair cable run for phones from the middle building to site A. We stole 4 pair off of that and connected up, plugged a PC into it and was able to pull an IP from site A's DHCP and pings were solid, no drops.
So we ran a cat5 from middle building to Site B and that connects fine. The problem is, I tried a few different switches in the middle building to connect the 2 runs, but none of the switches i tried would lock signal over the 600 foot run. Its a long run and well over recommended max distance for cat5, but I know its possible since a PC at the same location was able to get a signal.
Does anyone have an thoughts on a switch that may be better suited for this? Or is there anything I can put at one or both ends to boost the signal? If worse comes to worse is it possible (i believe it is but have never done it) to stick a PC in the middle with 2 nic's and have it bridge those connections (not ideal but if I can't get hardware solution its better than nothing)?
Appreciate any thoughts.