2

There is a boardwalk through a wooded marsh approximately 250ft long with no line of sight between the ends. Along one side of that boardwalk is an electrical circuit. I need to establish an Ethernet connection between both ends of said boardwalk to transmit video feeds.

If I were to run an Ethernet cable on the opposite side of the boardwalk, might there be appreciable interference from the 120v 60 Hz AC circuit running in parallel for that 250ft with approximately 3ft of separation?

Would Cat 5e vs Cat 6 make much difference?

CragMonkey
  • 121
  • 2

2 Answers2

5

Since the electrical wire is in metal conduit, I would have no fear of interference. Just do not attach the ethernet to the metal conduit, as you are not allowed to use electrical conduit as a hanger for anything.

Another factor: Most plastics do not like UV light, which the sun emits in great quantity. This could be a serious problem for the sheath on your ethernet cable, depending on placement. Cable rated for outdoors or for UV exposure will last longer, but will still fail in direct sunlight.

(I think, due to your concerns about interference, you wouldn't think to put the ethernet inside conduit carrying 120/240/480V power cables. But just for reference, that is not allowed unless you use transformers to step down the AC voltage significantly, which would not work unless your loads were quite small.)

Harper - Reinstate Monica
  • 313,471
  • 28
  • 298
  • 772
4

For that distance, I'd recommend using shielded CAT-6A cable. We have a similar issue in our church, and over only 150ft we found that standard cat-6 cable lost enough quality that it was noticeable. No problems with shielded CAT-6A (which is designed for 10Gb/s to a maximum of 328ft)

3ft of separation from 120v is plenty for any implementation; I'm usually happy with 6 inches, as long as there are no cable crossings.

PeteCon
  • 1,536
  • 1
  • 9
  • 14