Enable-IT Networking FAQ

Can we use Telco wiring between our Ethernet Extender units, like 25-Pair or 100-Pair ? Yes, Telco wiring can be used between Enable-IT Ethernet Extender units. Any wiring used has to be as contiguous as possible with no other connections like a Telco punch down block or extensions. Telco punch down blocks add interference and can introduce other electrical paths that will degrade performance or interfere with the data signal communications.
The 1-pair or wire used should be terminated directly into a RJ-45 blank LAN head and inserted into the Interlink port of each Enable-IT Ethernet Extender unit. If using Telco wire over 3,000ft, add a piece of twisted pair wiring to each end of the Telco wire connection between the Ethernet Extenders as this will boost the signal strength and increase your performance.Be aware of other high speed communications ruining over the same Telco wiring bundle of 25, 50 or 100 pair as this communication may bleed out to surrounding wires and cause interference/noise on your 1-pair of wiring between the Ethernet Extenders. If you suspect this is an issue try a different pair to isolate your communications.

Are existing Telcom circuits suitable to use between the Ethernet Extender units?

Typically No – Telcom circuits are just that – circuits (loops and many connections through Telco punchdown blocks) and not direct pair of wires without any connecting points.
Telco circuits frequently have other high frequency communications running nearby on on other pairs that interfere with Ethernet Extender equipment and signals.

What is a difference between what a LAN link shows as speed and the actual throughput of the Ethernet Extenders?

Yes, all of the Ethernet Extender kits will show a full 100MB FD link to the LAN gear on each end, with the exception the 820 kit which is 10MB FD.

Actual data throughput is as follows:

820 throughput is 15Mbps full duplex

890 throughput is 25Mbps full duplex

895 is 25-30Mbps full duplex

860 is 100MB full duplex

865 is 100MB full duplex

We’ve used Patton devices previously to extend our networks to a few buildings. What if anything is the difference between their products and yours?

Several key differences exist. 1st off the Enable-IT 860 LRE kit is twice as fast as the fastest Patton Extender product and one third the cost. Patton, NetSys and VersaTek are all made in cheaply China with questionable QA Controls and lots of cold solder issues. Be prepared to speak Mandarin in order to get technical support…and don’t even thing of asking for a RMA report. Other Key Reasons we are the Ethernet Extender Experts.

► Designed, Made and carefully QA controlled in the USA with pride

► Cost – We are the lowest cost in the marketplace for these solutions period.

► Speed – We offer the highest speeds and throughput in the marketplace!

► Ease of Installation – We include your country specific power adapters, no programming required, Plug and Play.

► Reliability – We are the preferred source Globally for solid products based on community user opinions and reviews.

► Support – We deliver 24hr respectfully and timely support to our customers and potential buyers of our solutions. RMA reports are detailed and if we make a mistake – we admit it and fix it.

► Solutions – Find a company that will listen to your needs and create new products to match.

► Warranty – Industry standard is 90 days. Look for 4 yr coverage or extended warranties.

► Guarantee – We are the only manufacturer that has a 45-day money back satisfaction guarantee!

What is the difference between the CO and CPE labeled units? And where do they go?

The CO / CPE designation are Telco Carrier terms –

CO – Central Office Equipment

CPE – Customer Premise Equipment

Our Ethernet Extenders are labeled with this CO/CPE identification primarily for our stock packaging and RMA repair. COs will only talk to CPEs.

The placement of the units are interchangeable and irrelevant to their operation or performance.

What does a flashing ACT light mean?

A Flashing or Blinking ACT (Activity) light denotes the presence of Local LAN traffic or activity. It does not necessarily confirm the transmission of data between remote ends of an Ethernet Extender.

What do the CO and CPE labels mean?

The designation of CO and CPE labels are a Telco industry terminology – CO (Central Office) & CPE (Customer Premise Equipment).

We use the designations for shipping, RMA repair only as they have no bearing on placement/performance for our Ethernet Extenders. Typically you would place the CPE at the remote end and the CO at the local end for reference only.

Customers that order several pairs of like Ethernet Extenders and mix up the pairs will need to know that only CPE’s talk to CO’s. Like units CO to CO and CPE to CPE will not sync as the programming is different on each.

Will the 820 work with any manufacturer’s wireless AP?

Yes, if using a IEEE 802.3af standard PoE injector or PoE midspan switch. Cisco PoE switches do not work as they do not startup in a 802.3af mode by default and can’t configure itself for Long Reach Ethernet.

We recommend using a standalone PoE Injector when in doubt.

IEEE 802.3af standard passes power over Ethernet on pins 4,5,7 & 8. Using a straight through CAT5e cable for PoE – Pins 1,2,3, and 6 carry the data while pins 4,5,7, and 8 carry power PoE injectors can come in(24,48 and 56V) variations. PoE equipment on the other hand can be any voltage up to 56V. Each PoE Equipment mfg. has a built in regulator that takes whatever voltage coming out of a PoE/Data cable and conditions it down to what it needs.

Ethernet Extender Units. Voltage drops over distance using wires. At 200M, you lose maybe 4 or 6 volts. At 48VDC, that leaves you with 42 volts. You can determine the amount of voltage drop over a distance by finding the resistance of the cable for a specific temperature (given in ohms/1000ft) from the cable manufacturer or electrical wholesaler. If you know the largest amount of current that will flow in the cable, when use the formula: Vdrop = Current X Distance (Ft) X 2 X Ohms per 1000Ft.

As a rule of thumb you will loose 6V per every 100? – 200? of wiring, depending on the gauge. Lower power also means more amperage means more heat and perhaps issues with the 24 gauge wires in CAT5. You may need to use 18 gauge wiring.
For all intensive purposes anything greater than 400? use a 48V POE.

Can I take advantage of Ethernet Port Trunking, switchport trunking or channel bonding on the dual LAN port 895 Extender?

No, The dual LAN ports on the 895 Ethernet Extender are configured as a local Ethernet Hub and share the overall bandwidth from the remote 895 backbone link.
Your managed Ethernet switch can enable port trunking, channel bonding or whatever your switch product terminology calls it, but the performance effect will not be affected.
The dual LAN ports on the 895 Ethernet Extender are primarily for saving you the cost of adding a local hub or switch to connect other LAN devices.

How do I connect two routers together with an Ethernet Extender?

Routers or switches can be connected together easily as all our Ethernet Extender kits are transparent to the LAN.

You first need to figure out how the routers/switches will talk to each other on respective ports. Some routers such as Linksys, D-Link, Netgear have a WAN port.
Typically one router will be setup as a master router offering DHCP IP addressing to clients. Make sure the second router or others are not offering DHCP as well.

To attach an Ethernet Extender kit, on the second router, you may need a Ethernet Cross-Over cable in order to make a physical link. See example below.

SAT ——- Linksys A —–860 ========================= 860—–Linksys B——–LAN

1) Figure out how Linksys to Linksys works (What ports will connect to bridge) On Linksys A the SAT internet has to be in the WAN port.

Linksys B needs to have it’s WAN port connected to a LAN port of Linksys A (The 860 kit is transparent, therefore you will need to see what patch cord will work to get an 860 to connect to the Linksys B WAN port correctly) – you may need a crossover cable to make it work properly.

2) Leave the 860 connected to Linksys A LAN port on a standard Ethernet patch cord.

SAT ——- Linksys A —–860 ========================= 860—–Linksys B——–LAN

WAN port LAN port WAN port LAN port

(patch cord) (patch cord) (XXXX cord) (patch cord)

XXX= Crossover cable

Is the data bath between two extenders electrically isolated from the power supply? If not is it possible to provide isolation to say 400VDC

The 895 / 890 /820 the no the data path cannot be isolated for the internal power components. 400VDC will jump through the tightly designed components inside and damage all the chips.

On the 860 / 865 units, we do have built in lightning protection, however a load of 400VDC will burn out this protection and render the unit interoperable.

All the Extender Kits are designed for 5v 2W AC and if you need to power these via DC power you can purchase aftermarket 5v 2W DC adapters 2.1mm center power head.

Is there a way to run multiple Ethernet Extender Kits on the same wiring, say on the same CAT5e wiring or on a 25-pair Telco wire run?

Ethernet Extenders communicate on very high frequencies and therefore by nature these frequencies bleed over into surrounding wires. We highly recommend you do not place multiple extender kits or use on lines that have other high frequency signals (such as Digital PBX or other telecommunication circuits from a carrier) on the same wire or surrounding wires. Always uses separate runs(wiring) for Ethernet extender kits as to maximize the throughput. You may be successful in isolating different pairs in a 25,50 or 100 pair Telco bundle, however this is up to your own trial and error.

Is there a way to monitor the connection condition to be able to see connection speed, dropped packets, etc.

There are many applications out there for MS Win, Linux and OS X systems that can provide this for you as well as hardware based solutions that can do the same.

One of the best tools to use is any FTP application – FTP is a IP protocol that will try to grab more and more bandwidth as it goes along. If you have a large multi GB or TB file I would try using FTP to send it and you will get real world results.

Factors for speed are quite varied; For example the type of wiring used, environmental interference, the chipsets of the LAN jacks on equipment and the configuration of the systems or LAN devices on each end that have OS caching, RAM and other metrics that all play into how fast a system can respond.

For example gamers like buying $300 – $400 LAN cards that are optimized for performance. Most consumer electronics use cheap generic LAN chipsets from China.