Comment by hinkley

I remember hearing about a few common failure modes for early internetworking of adjacent buildings. The first being running a bare twisted pair cable between buildings. Worked fine until the next lightning storm, and then a nearby strike fries the equipment on both ends. You have to use grounded conduit to run strands between buildings my dudes.

But the other one was setting up WiFi between buildings, and tended to be more of a problem in academia because the yearly cycles make it a bit more likely. If you set it up in the fall, and everything works all winter until spring comes, when the water in the deciduous tree leaves attenuates the signal. The nasty part of this one is not the failure mode but the timing. Everyone has been happily using and depending on their sweet sweet bandwidth for six months and poof, it’s just gone one fine April morning.