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We are a large agribusiness with 5 buildings in a campus-like environment at our company headquarters. We are currently still using an Advanced System/36 (AS/400 9402 model 236) to support all business operations, and plan to migrate to an iSeries model 270 early next year. We are achieving 5250 connectivity from the main office to some of our outbuildings by using available telephone wires, which I assume are CAT3. A while back, an IBM consultant told me that CAT3 UTP will not work at all with the iSeries 270 because of the extremely high speed of the workstation controllers. I have since sought second and third opinions, and I am getting conflicting advice. Anyone have an authoritative position on this matter? Some of the existing phone wire is underground, and some of it is above ground in large, insulated trunk lines. At any rate, we plan to rewire the interiors of all five buildings with CAT5. What problems will we experience if we choose to forego the cost of running fiber optic between the buildings, and instead take our chances with what we have in place now?