? DSL installation

Evan wrote:
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Yeah, I know that now. I soldered the wires a few years ago because I wanted them to WORK, dammit. ;-) This was in my house, with a mixture of cables with all different wire gauges. When I finish wiring the church up with a 66-block, I'll probably redo my house the same way. Those blocks may be overkill but they are sure inexpensive now.
I do have another question about DSL filters/splitters. Is there any difference really between a$30+ splitter (like the one I linked to yesterday) and a $3 filter (like this one: <http://www.firefold.com/DSL-Filter-P1373.aspx# ), other than the packaging and economy of scale? They sell many thousands of filters vs. dozens of splitters. Do the splitters condition the ADSL port, or is it just fed straight through from the LINE port, and the TEL port is low-pass filtered? Seems like I could use one cheapie filter at the distribution block to service the whole voice line, and I don't have to worry about someone plugging in an old phone without the filter and poisoning the DSL signal.
Bob

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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

zxcvbob wrote:
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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.

zxcvbob wrote:
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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-)
http://tinyurl.com/yasf3yj
TDD

lots of feedback here - you might also try the BroadBand Reports forum http://www.dslreports.com /
or add X-post to another related newsgroup.... ie - alt.internet.wireless
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.

ps56k wrote:
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Glad my DSL isn't on the voice pair (since I get it from a 3rd-party provider), and I don't have to mess with filters. Just wire up a jack to theY/B pair, and away I go. If I ever get around to refreshing the inside wiring, I'll run a direct line from demarc to computer room just on principle, but so far it hasn't made any difference.
-- aem sends...

wrote:
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DSL phone filters are no big deal. With them you don't even need the Y/B pair, although I solved the filter "problem" by canceling my POTS service. ;-)

krw wrote:
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Methinks that would probably set off alarms at my DSL provider, if dial tone were to show up on the line. Ma Bell won't install DSL out here, since I am a couple hundred yards outside their service circle. It would work fine, since all but the last half mile is on a fiber trunk, but they won't do it, since they are ever-so-slowly rolling out U-verse around here, and don't want to compete with themselves. So, I have to pay twice as much to a private DSL company, which rents a dry pair from Ma Bell, from my house to the their building right next door to the telephone company. It goes into the telco switch, then back out 15 feet through the basement wall, into the private DSL company's hardware.
Ain't nothing simple.

wrote:
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Oh, I wasn't suggesting that you connect them together. ;-) If there were another DSL provider I'd likely dump ma, too.
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The "dry pair" doesn't go through fiber? ...and you get decent DSL speed out of it? Apparently that's our problem. The phone line is too long for higher speeds.
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Life is a challenge, but it beats the alternatives. ;-)

krw wrote: (snip)
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I presume the 'dry pair' is theoretical, where it goes through the copper/fiber converters on each end. All that means is that telco doesn't add dial tone to the line at their switch. The fiber run down the big road replaced a honking big old-style trunk line that had several hundred actual copper pair on it. Now it is about a 4-inch orange tube with I dunno how many fibers running down it, feeding fiber to copper converters where the side roads branch off. For the rich neighborhoods that can afford Uverse, they extended the fiber down the side roads to the service pedestals at the entry to each subdivision, or however close to the household drops they get. I guess they looked at my blue collar/retiree neighborhood, and decided we weren't worth it. (Not that I would sign up for Uverse anyway- I don't want my internet/phone/TV all riding the same connection. Too expensive, and I like redundancy.)
But to answer your question- yeah, I get reliable 384, the cheapest connection this 3rd party company offers, 43 bucks or so a month. If ma bell came out here, I could get 2 or 3 times faster for the same price, or the same 384 for twenty bucks a month.
-- aem sends...

wrote:
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I'd sign up for it in a nanosecond. I *hate* Dish, but cable-TV is really the pits here (Charter), if I could get it. I wouldn't mind TV and cable in the same pipe. I don't have a land-line now, so that's not an issue.
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Oh, that does suck. We just had to "downgrade" to 768K. I think it's $20, but there may be another $5 on top of that since we dropped the voice service (that we didn't connect a phone to anyway).

In
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You don't need the yel/blk pair anyway unless you're using a key system type of PBX or something like that. For POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) it's all done on two wires, the tip and ring wires, which are red and green. Blk is for Gnd and yellow is for carrying the voltage to be used for the lights on the key system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_old_telephone_service
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/P/POTS.html
http://ebooks.ebookmall.com/title/introduction-to-public-switched-telephone-networks-pots-isdn-dlc-dsl-and-pon-technologies-syst-harte-flood-ebooks.htm
HTH,
Twayne

wrote:
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Yes, I understand that. "Aim" indicated that he had both pairs because he didn't us Ma Bell for DSL. I mentioned that the filters weren't a big deal either, assuming the same pair for DSL and voice. ....especially so, after canceling voice service. ;-)

zxcvbob wrote:
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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.

On 2/26/2010 5:22 PM, zxcvbob wrote:
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No easy answer. Depends upon what you need (single location for modem, or need to plug in at differing locations) and what the phone company provides for free. In my case, I ordered a DIY kit, attached the provided filters where I had phones and PC fax modems, and my DSL modem was unable to synchronize at all. I only require my modem to be in one fixed location within my home. The phone company came out without charge, tested the line at my end, and (1) installed a splitter in the basement, (2) changed the jack in my den from a single line jack to a 2 line jack, using one of the 2 jacks for my phone and the other for the DSL modem, and (3) wired up the unused 2 wires in the cable from basement to den to connect the output of the splitter to the DSL jack on the 2 line jack. End result - no need for phone filters and consistently fully advertised DSL speed for my level of service at no additional cost to me.
So, you might just want to wait until your DSL service is turned on, install the phone filters where needed, and see whether or not you can get stable DSL service where you need it. If so, you're finished with no work and no cost. If not, then decide on a Plan B depending on your specific needs and how much the alternatives cost in time and effort.

On 2/27/2010 11:34 AM, Peter wrote:
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Thanks. I appreciate what you're saying (also the analogy someone made about old water pipes) but I have to do *something* before hooking up the DSL modem because the only phone jack in the building is a wall jack wired with untwisted cable and no nearly electrical outlets. So at minimum I need to run one new cable and install a jack somewhere, near an electrical outlet. Tomorrow after church I'll open up the demarc box (I think they call 'em NID's now) and see what I have to work with there.
Part of this project is upgrading the phone system even thought it's just one line; add a phone in the kitchen and one in the pastor's office, plus leave the old phone jack out in the foyer because that's where the phone has been for the past 47 years and someone would get peeved if I move it. (I might look for a 1960's rotary dial phone to put there ;-) ) I'm thinking the DSL modem/router will go back by the sound system -- I'll put 2 jacks there and put them on different pairs from the same cable.
My whole budget is maybe $125 because that is what the phone company would charge to install 1 jack somewhere. :-)
Bob

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I think I would run a phone wire to the nearest place you could put the DSL modem and then put an isolator/filter at the telephone junction box and use it to isolate all the phone lines. Then get a wireless router so you could use a computer anywhere in the Church.

On 2/27/2010 12:17 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
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The DSL modem we're renting from the telco has a wireless router built-in — it costs $1 per month more than a modem without the router. I just need to make sure I have access to the network security settings in the router because I don't know what kind they use. I'm gonna run one ethernet cable from the modem to the pastor's office so one connection will be up even when the wireless is down. I can use that loose piece of CAT5e plenum cable I found in the ceiling to do that. I have a modular plug crimper already, although I might use RJ45 wall plates to make it look tidier.
Bob

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Sounds like you have a good idea of what you want, just split off the old phone wires going to the splitter from the new lines going to the modem, at the splitter itself. If things are flaky with the modem, disconnect the wires to the phones on the output of the splitter and see if things improve.

On 2/27/2010 1:37 PM, hr(bob) snipped-for-privacy@att.net wrote:
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I still don't know if I want a real splitter or not, but I think I can defer that decision until I see how it works w/o it. I can temporarily disconnect the old wiring and see if the old people are OK with me moving the phone ;-)
Bob