tmbrown97
Senior Member
Fiber is great, reliable, safe - but costly to terminate and for the switches capable of putting fiber modules in (although fiber transceivers aren't horribly expensive). That said, I use fiber when copper doesn't reach - otherwise I've always had copper between buildings with no issues. I've done conduit between 3 buildings roughly 500ft apart with 2x 100-pair cat3, 4 Cat5E's, 12-strands fiber, a couple security wires, and coax... never had surge issues. Is this a particular phenomenon you're referencing?If these buildings are not on the same electrical system and bonded then I would highly recommend running fiber between them instead of any copper. It doesn't cost all that much and gives you a fully reliable 100Mb or 1Gb connection without any surge concerns.
Also there are simple Cat5 surge protectors; and this is a very short hop.