When does fiber make sense at a house?
Fiber makes sense beyond about 300 feet, between separate buildings, and anywhere you want to avoid a copper path that can carry a surge from one structure to another. Under that distance, inside one building, Ethernet is simpler and cheaper.
The distance limit
Copper Ethernet is specified to 100 metres — about 328 feet — including the patch cables at each end. Real-world runs across a property hit that faster than people expect once you account for routing around the house and down a trench.
The between-buildings problem
A copper cable between two structures can carry induced surge from lightning or a ground potential difference straight into equipment at both ends. Fiber is non-conductive, so it removes that path entirely. This is the reason many installers default to fiber for outbuildings even at shorter distances.
What the install includes
Conduit or direct-burial fiber along the pathway, termination at both ends into switches or media converters, and then a local switch and access point in the outbuilding so it behaves like any other part of the home network.
Best for
Connecting a detached garage, ADU, workshop or gate.
Things to consider
- Copper past roughly 300 feet is unreliable
- Fiber is immune to the surge path copper creates between buildings
What we recommend
Use fiber between separate buildings, or on any run long enough that copper becomes a question. Pull conduit while the trench is open.