Small campus overhaul

I'm working with a church that has a 3-building campus, and we've recently gotten the budget to bring the network up to snuff, and I'm weighing my options for the best way to accomplish this. Right now the DSL comes into the office building, where we then have a line to the youth building, and from the youth building to the sanctuary building.

My current thinking is to replace the (quite old) line going to the youth building and run a new line from office to sanctuary, most likely going twisted pair (if fiber is in the budget I'll go that route, but since the max distance switch-to-switch is probably 100-150 yards, I'm thinking twisted pair is probably the more economical choice).

What do you think? What am I not thinking through at this point?

Thanks.

Is there a problem with the old line?

I believe so. We've been having increasingly worse connectivity between buildings lately, and both ends have new switches. I've got a little more checking to do, but for purposes of the discussion I'm assuming that the line does need to be replaced. Even if it turns out it doesn't, I'd still like to run a dedicated line from the office to the sanctuary building.

100-150 yars would be 300-450 feet; which is longer than a single twisted pair can go reliably. Do you have some equipment in the middle that is repeating the signal for you?

Well, that's the distance I'm wanting to allow from office to sanctuary building. Office to youth building is 50 yards tops, and yes we do repeat the signal there. Realistic distance is probably shorter than that for going to the sanctuary, but I'm trying to allow on the long side. I'm assuming there will be some type of repeating equipment, though, if we go twisted-pair.

Does anyone have any experience with Alvarion's products? It seems like that would make much of this a lot simpler, since I'd probably be looking at contracting out any new/replacement cabling between buildings whereas we have people at the church who could put some antennae up. This would be my first foray into WiMax or similar, though, so I'm hesitant to put it on the table since my experience is only in theory. I know their stuff is probably way overkill for my purposes, but if there's a lower-power (and thus more appropriate to this project) alternative I'd love to hear about it.

If your budget can support fiber, that's the way I'd go. Outside copper lines can get affected by weather (lightning, wet) causing problems. Fiber is basically immune to any external EMF. And you'll have lots of bandwidth, much more than wireless.

Some wireless point-to-point would be my second choice.

I agree with Doug. Though you can run the twisted pair lines through a conduit, fiber will give you better reliability and longer distances too.

Thanks for the input. I'm hoping to get somebody out to look at actually running the lines, and it sounds like I need to be looking at quotes for both fiber and twisted-pair.

It's pretty well covered already, but I'd throw in my recommendation for fiber, too. It's not nearly as expensive as it used to be and if you're anywhere near that 100 meter mark it's worth it to not chance it. Also the zero interference from EMF noise is a huge plus.