Has anyone here expanded internet connectivity to their garden with an ethernet cable? I am speaking about non-wireless communications. To some hut some 100 meters away? What are your experiences with it? Is it as simple as digging a cable trench, putting the cable in (maybe with some pipe to protect it) and covering it?
Are fibre optics a viable long-range alternative to copper ethernet cables for local area networks?
Yes I have such a cable. Run inside a pvc pipe, partially underground but mostly on the fence. Its about 80m, terminates into a 5 port switch to bring PoE to a few external cameras and a OrangePi zero running my pons sensors and automations.
Addendum: while 100m is the theorical maximum, I have successfully run much longer cables (up to 150m, uninterrupted cable) with p2p between two switches, and did work just fine, so… Go for it.
Also, while the standard recumends to avoid cascading switches, again I am proof that it isn’t an issue to have multiple switches in cascade on the same network. Not old style hubs, of course. So adding switches in the middle would increase distance even more