? DSL installation

On Fri 26 Feb 2010 03:22:18p, zxcvbob told us...

We now have Cox cable broadband, but in our previous house only DSL was avaialble. The house had been pre-wired for phones. We could have connected our DSL modem to any of the phone outlets and had the same DSL performance. We did install the suggested filters at each phone. The object of the filters is to minimize DSL interference on the phones. AFAIK, the filters had nothing to do with the DSL performance. We did not have a splitter nor was one ever discussed or suggested. All of our wiring was standard phone line (2 twisted pairs). All interior connections were on the same twisted pair, so there was no separation between phone an DSL.

Thanks Wayne. The existing wiring is not twisted pairs, some of it is the old JK cable and some is flat cable, and the splices are atrocious. I'm concerned more about noise from the phones degrading the DSL performance than DSL noise interfering with voice. I've about talked myself into installing one of these for about $30 or $40:

Bob

On Fri 26 Feb 2010 03:41:41p, zxcvbob told us...

Bob, with the hodge podge of wiring you described, I'd be more inclined to run new twisted pair lines throughout, including through the wall to the NID. Going through a wall isn't usually that difficult. I've even done it with a straightened coathanger and a nylon cord attached to the end to pull the wiring. Think about it...it might work for you.

The POTS splitter isn't a bad idea, but I don't really think it's necessary.

Run a BRAND NEW TWISTED PAIR LINE TO THE NID, feed the modem directly. A central DSL filter i far better and you can leave your existing phone line as is just connect it to the filter

the 2 or 3 feet can cause all sorts of troubles for DSL, but will still work fine for your phone

yeah splitter filter at NID there are outdoor ones for this application

Thanks. All this is up in the ceiling; I need to crawl up there (with my reading glasses and a flashlight) and see if the pigtail from the NID just might accidentally be CAT3 cable. The NID and that piece of cable both look fairly new. Everything else is ancient, although I found a piece of blue CAT5e cable up there running from one end of the building to the other and not connected to anything at either end. Someone else's forgotten project from before I joined, I guess. It might be useful before this is over.

Bob

Run Cat-5e for everything.

No. It got a mile or three through crappy wire to get to you. A couple more feet isn't going to matter.

Use the filters they provide. You can then move the modem to any jack.

I wouldn't (didn't).

The whole purpose of DSL was to use the existing installed base of phone wiring, from CO to your phone to carry data. Various factors can degrade the performance to the point that you can only achieve lower data rates or no connection at all. Among those factors are issues like the total distance, wire branches, wire gauge changes along the route, etc.

I wouldn't go nuts worrying about 3 feet of wire or re-wiring anything until you install the DSL modem and find out if it works.

You can do a home-run install, can't get better than that. With DSL there is a lot that can go wrong, so it really depends. Sometimes motors, neon lights, wireless, microwave ovens, transformers, etc can hurt DSL. The shorter the wires, the better.

I think I got a plan: tear out the existing phone wiring *except* for that first two foot piece. (that's easier to do than it sounds) Put in new phone jacks everywhere with home runs for all of them, and use the little DSL filters. That way I can move the modem around and plug it in anywhere. Then if I need to later, I can replace that short cable to the NID and/or install one of those fancy splitters and dedicate one phone jack for the DSL.

Bob

Consider this plan... place the DSL filter someplace near where the phone line enters the building.

On the phone side of the filter you can use all the old wires and they will have NO effect on the DSL since they are after the filter. Run a NEW wire from the filter to the DSL modem.

This way the DSL signal is kept out of all the old regular phone wires and travels only to the DSL modem via the new wires.

Mark

If you have the time and gumption, and if the church can afford the supplies, the best long term solution is to replace it all, with home runs to a 110 block as close as you get out of the weather to the demarc block. Whoever has to work on it all in 10-15 years will thank you. If you have never heard of the term 'punchdown tool', best to look in the local ad paper for a moonlighting or semi-retired phone installer. If you do the rough-ins, and pull all the cat 5e or cat 6 wire (labeling the ends at the 110 block), and all he has to do is punch it down and test it, it should be pretty cheap. Once new wires are up and running, you can either rip out the old stuff, or abandon it in place if it won't be in the way. Make sure to use plenum-rated cable if you will be snaking wire through air return ducts or anything like that.

Look in Google or the local book store for DIY books or web sites on residential and light commercial phone wiring. The pictures describe it better than words ever could. A 110 block will allow you to easily upgrade to a small business phone system, if ever needed. I assume you just have a few vanilla voice lines now, with no features or bells and whistles?

Just one voice line; no bells, no whistles, no fax machine, not even a long distance carrier. I'm gonna wire everything for 2 lines, but actually getting a 2nd line is probably years away. I was thinking of using a small 66 block. I know what a punchdown tool is, but I've never used one except on a RJ45 socket once that had 110-style connectors. (is 110 easier to use than 66?)

Bob

I did exactly what Mark suggests a couple of years ago and had no problems until a squirrel ate thru the telco line insulation outside the house. They fixed that after I complained that our data rate went down whenver it rained. I did try putting the modem in a number of places in the ceiling of the basement until I found the place that gave the best signal to my wife's laptop on the upper level. My laptop is hard-wired to the modem since it is only15 feet away and no problem to run the wire.

When I was connected to DSL I mounted the modem at the point of entry, for me that was the master bedroom. The modem was then connected to a wireless router that also had 4 wired ports. One wired port was used in the master bedroom. About a year later it was decided to move the computer and DSL modem to our guest bedroom and now my office. It was moved so I could maintain my wired connection. Telco wiring in my house was a total mess with splices made with masking tape using the cheapest wire they could find. Even with this the modem performed as well as ever. Filters or splitters were never needed.

Jimmie

Here's an lazy man's opinion: Do nothing.

Suppose you bought an old house that had been vacant for a long time. Before the city turns on the water, would replace: a. All the pipes? b. Some of the pipes? c. None of the pipes?

Most would pick "c" then fix whatever leaks.

In your case, it may work flawlessly right out of the box.

Bob, I would seriously recommend that you use an outdoor DSL/POTS splitter of the type I use in situations like yours where the old phone wiring is a mess. It mounts outside next to the NID and you run a separate line from it to wherever your DSL modem is located. You will get the best performance without having to rewire the whole holy place. 8-)

lots of feedback here - you might also try the BroadBand Reports forum

here's just basic techy DSL stuff...

The DSL signal is really a high frequency signal sent down the normal 2 wires of the phone line jack. So... you have the normal telephone electric circuit AND the high freq DSL "noise" on the same wires, which then would appear at ANY telephone jack.

Telephone wires are normally run as parallel connections to jacks, vs home run like a LAN is wired... so every jack has the same dialtone (and DSL).

The DSL high freq signal really needs a good set of wiring for things to work well...vs telephone flat wire. It's not as critical as cat3, but a nice piece of normal copper is better vs flat wire crap.

In fact - your overall DSL signal is totally dependant upon how good the ENTIRE copper path is between the DSL modem and the equipment rack which may be located about 3 miles away ! There is no electronics helping the line - it's two tin DSL cans & string -

The filter is required at EACH jack where a device, fax, answering machine, or phone is connected. They work to protect both sides of the fence.... to keep the connected phones from degrading the DSL signal, and to keep the high pitched DSL noise from being heard on the telephone.

The DSL modem can then be connected to any phone jack with a DSL splitter, and the modem then connects it's Ethernet to the WAN port of your Router.

one line - like in a normal residence with a 2 or 3 pair (6 wires) in the cable jacket.

Heck - why all the bother talking about 66 or 110, just take a little screw down barrier strip from Radio Shack

Much of the phone wiring in my house may be 70 years old. I was concerned before I got DSL, but I consistently get the highest speeds my DSL account allows.

If service had been slow, I think I would have connected the modem and only the modem at the NID and checked the speed there (using one of the free online speed test servers), to see if the problem was in the house. A laptop would be handy for that.

A relative has a new house, and her DSL account allows twice my speed. Her service was much slower than mine. She had bought an old-fashioned phone for use in power failures. Lacking another filter, she had plugged it in without one. Unplugging that phone vastly increased her speed.

1. Phone lines have used twisted pairs for a very long time to prevent crosstalk.
2. If you google "speed test" you can connect to a server that will tell you your speed.
3. Without a filter, equipment plugged into a phone jack can have the effect of shorting your DSL signal.
4. Sometimes a problem in wiring can be located by picking up a phone, dialing "1" to kill the dial tone, and listening for noise.
5. I've read of an obsolete NID device (I think a lightning protector) that can be detrimental to DSL service. I have the obsolete kind but haven't bothered to complain because I haven't seen a problem.