Two strand singlemode already costs far less per meter than ordinary cat6 utp nevermind cat6a or shielded stuff. Copper isn't cheap.

it also has a better bend radius by far now. (cat6a is about 1 inch, g.657a3/b3 is <0.25 inches)

Maybe my future house should be wired for fiber...

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33393540

one of the challenges there is that you can't do PoE over fiber, so for common house use with things like security cameras and 802.11ac/ax access points, you still want copper.

Not easy to pull though typical European ductwork in the wall of a house.

And cat6 is ? Bend radius can be a problem with fiber but you can get bend-insensitive ones.

The problem with fiber is really you need fusion splicer for termination and that's pretty pricy

Yes, any level of bend-insensitive fiber has a better bend radius than cat6a. a3/b3 is much better.

Cat6a min bend radius is about an inch.

g.657a3/b3=~0.2 inch

g.657a2/b2=~0.39 inch

g.675a1/b1=~0.59 inch

as for connectors, not anymore. They have simple ones that are just mechanical crimp.

IE you cleave it, crimp it, and that's done.

0.15-0.25db loss, which is fine for a home run.

also, LC connectors/etc are small enough that you can just fish them (they are less than half the size of a cat connector), or disassemble them and re-assemble.

I have a fusion splicer, but i just fish completed cables with the connector covered.

Also, these days you can get a reasonable fusion splicer on amazon for ~750 bucks that is 0.025db average loss.

There are less and less reasons to run cat these days.

QSFPTEK just emailed me this morning offering me multimode 100G-SR4 optics (100M, so same as ethernet) for 35 bucks a piece.

They are regularly only 50 bucks a piece now anyway.

100G is obviously crazy for anyone's home need, but the point is the speed at which things like it are becoming cheaper is really high right now.

Couldn't you get away with mechanical splices? For short runs like this the extra losses shouldn't matter too much?

You can do without splices at all, just fish the cable through the wall with connectors and all.

The duplex LC connector can be disassembled, and with a bit of tape to keep things together you can get both fibers through much more easily.

If you're lazy, you can just use a premade cable that's longer than you need. A slightly prettier solution is a keystone jack.

probably ? No idea about details.

I guess "just" terminating them would be fine if you just installed it once but at least looking at tutorials it does look like a PITA compared to CAT connectors

A lot of tutorials are old. Mechanical splices have improved very quickly in the past 5 years.

Talking with my friend who is an home automation installer, he says they now just use mechanical crimp splices and they don't take them longer than, say, prepping and terminating a coax cable. He says it's definitely shorter now than the average time they spend trying to untwist, straighten, and line up wires in a cat connector.

They used to use connectors requiring polishes that took 30 minutes

mechanical splices should absolutely be avoided if at all possible, we live in the era of $900 made in china core alignment fusion splicers that are not terrible.