dialup issues

[klem kedidelhopper]

I have two pots lines in my house. One is business class and the other
is residential. As far as I can tell the one difference between the
two is that the phone company gets to charge me twice as much for the
business line.

A few years ago before we went to DSL we had dialup service here. On
the business line I was never able to get any better than a 26K
connection. I never really investigated this and with no audible
aberrations on the line this was never a problem as we just used the
dialup on the residential line instead. On that line we usually could
get a 45K connection and sometimes even 50.

I recently dropped the DSL service and will likely drop the
residential service as well. We went back to dialup with the same
provider. The business line speed problem noted years ago is still
there. I've dialed up the telco's "quiet line" to listen to both lines
off hook, (while we still have the residential line) and they both
sound clean. I plan to go to the interface to look at this but we now
have a big storm coming so for now the 26K will suffice. If plugging
directly into the interface yields a good (45K) connection on the slow
line then I realize that the problem is then in the premises and I'll
have to troubleshoot that.

My question is if the problem is in the premises wiring what could be
the most likely cause of something like this? As I previously
mentioned I can't "hear" any problem but of course that doesn't mean
that one doesn't exist. Before I start dismantling my inside wiring it
would be nice if I had a clue as to what I was looking for. The phone
company by the way has been no help with this.

If anyone has any ideas that they would share I would be extremely
grateful. Lenny

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Fri, 8 Feb 2013 09:22:52 -0800 (PST), klem kedidelhopper
<captainvideo462009@gmail.com> wrote:

I have two pots lines in my house. One is business class and the other
is residential. As far as I can tell the one difference between the
two is that the phone company gets to charge me twice as much for the
business line.

Nope. It depends on how the line is run. If you have copper pair
going all the way back to the CO (central office), then you'll
probably do ok for 56kbits/sec dialup. However, if your line is
delivered via an ISDN pair gain split or SLC (subscriber line
constipator), you'll see only about 24Kbit/sec.

You should have kept the residential line, and move the business
number to it. Too late.

The business line speed problem noted years ago is still
there. I've dialed up the telco's "quiet line" to listen to both lines
off hook, (while we still have the residential line) and they both
sound clean.

You can't hear the noise on a quiet line. You'll need an instrument
to measure the residual noise level. However, I don't think that's
the problem.

My question is if the problem is in the premises wiring what could be
the most likely cause of something like this?

No. The most likely culprits are:
1. Bridged taps.
2. Equalizers left in the line from previous service owner.
3. Rotten connections on the poles (noise and high loop resistance).
4. Excessive crosstalk from other services in the bundle.
5. AM Radio station pickup.
6. Whatever else I forgot.

I've seen pairs in the same bundle, where most work just fine, but
where one or two pairs are garbage or worse. I recently had that on
my home POTS pair, which required considerable effort on the part of
Ma Bell to untangle the mess they created.

I've also seen intermittent problems, where 56K was possible during
daylight hours, but would magically drop to 26K after midnight. That
turned out to be AT&T running "preventive maintenance" tests and
forgetting to turn off the tones and sweeps.

If anyone has any ideas that they would share I would be extremely
grateful. Lenny

This brings back nightmares from 15 years ago. Welcome to the stone
age:
<http://www.LearnByDestroying.com/aty11/aty11.htm>
(Most of the links are dead.... Oh well). Using a USR modem and this
method, I've been able to identify screwed up phone lines fairly
easily.

I hate to point out the obvious, but you can get "dry" DSL service
(i.e. no voice service) for not much more than POTS voice. Then, get
yourself a really cheap VoIP provider (http://www.future-nine.com or
http://www.ooma.com), and you've got voice and data.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[William Sommerwerck]

I've seen pairs in the same bundle, where most work just fine,
but where one or two pairs are garbage or worse.

So... inasmuch as a house's internal cabling usually has unused pairs -- would
it be worth switching to another pair?

 

[Sofa Slug]

On 2/8/2013 9:22 AM, klem kedidelhopper wrote:
<snipped>

I plan to go to the interface to look at this but we now have a big
storm coming so for now the 26K will suffice. If plugging directly
into the interface yields a good (45K) connection on the slow line
then I realize that the problem is then in the premises and I'll have
to troubleshoot that.

My question is if the problem is in the premises wiring what could
be the most likely cause of something like this? As I previously
mentioned I can't "hear" any problem but of course that doesn't mean
that one doesn't exist. Before I start dismantling my inside wiring
it would be nice if I had a clue as to what I was looking for. The
phone company by the way has been no help with this.

If anyone has any ideas that they would share I would be extremely
grateful. Lenny

FWIW, I had a problem with low DSL speed similar to yours. It turned out
to be a tarnished/corroded RJ-11 wall plate jack. Once the wall plate
was replaced, the problems disappeared.

 

[Fred McKenzie]

In article
<eb641195-020d-45d6-ba7c-21016805cd1a@y9g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
klem kedidelhopper <captainvideo462009@gmail.com> wrote:

My question is if the problem is in the premises wiring what could be
the most likely cause of something like this?

Klem-

There should be a modular phone connector in the box where your phone
line attaches to the house. You can isolate a problem to being inside
or outside, by connecting your equipment to the outside jack, and seeing
if the problem goes away.

Fred

 

[mike]

On 2/8/2013 9:22 AM, klem kedidelhopper wrote:

I have two pots lines in my house. One is business class and the other
is residential. As far as I can tell the one difference between the
two is that the phone company gets to charge me twice as much for the
business line.

A few years ago before we went to DSL we had dialup service here. On
the business line I was never able to get any better than a 26K
connection. I never really investigated this and with no audible
aberrations on the line this was never a problem as we just used the
dialup on the residential line instead. On that line we usually could
get a 45K connection and sometimes even 50.

I recently dropped the DSL service and will likely drop the
residential service as well. We went back to dialup with the same
provider. The business line speed problem noted years ago is still
there. I've dialed up the telco's "quiet line" to listen to both lines
off hook, (while we still have the residential line) and they both
sound clean. I plan to go to the interface to look at this but we now
have a big storm coming so for now the 26K will suffice. If plugging
directly into the interface yields a good (45K) connection on the slow
line then I realize that the problem is then in the premises and I'll
have to troubleshoot that.

My question is if the problem is in the premises wiring what could be
the most likely cause of something like this? As I previously
mentioned I can't "hear" any problem but of course that doesn't mean
that one doesn't exist. Before I start dismantling my inside wiring it
would be nice if I had a clue as to what I was looking for. The phone
company by the way has been no help with this.

If anyone has any ideas that they would share I would be extremely
grateful. Lenny

I had a speed problem back in the day.
Called the number (in india) on the bill and was told the line was fine.
But they'd gladly send someone out to tell me the same thing for a fee.
I poked around and discovered the direct phone number to the district
manager in my town. Problem was fixed in minutes. Somebody had the
switch in the wrong position back at the CO.

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Fri, 8 Feb 2013 09:56:36 -0800, "William Sommerwerck"
<grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

I've seen pairs in the same bundle, where most work just fine,
but where one or two pairs are garbage or worse.

So... inasmuch as a house's internal cabling usually has unused pairs -- would
it be worth switching to another pair?

Definitely, if you can get the phone company to do it. In my case,
the bundle was fully subscribed and there were no spare pairs.
However, as cable telephony and VoIP became more popular, many people
gave up their POTS lines, making alternatives available. As soon as I
found one good pair that was available (tested with a TDR), I
convinced the phone company to mark mine bad and switch my line to a
new pair. I've also done similar swaps for customers. It's not easy,
but it is possible. Oddly, the most recent repair was a general
cleanup of the noisy lines between my house (near the end of the line)
to the termination box (about 3/4 mile). It took one installer, 3
hours and a bucket truck to fix all the crappy connections. He did it
right. I inspected the work and it was perfect. That's 30+ years of
crappy POTS service fixed in 3 hrs. Cleaning up phone lines is not
rocket science.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Fri, 8 Feb 2013 09:56:36 -0800, "William Sommerwerck"
grizzledgeezer@comcast.net> wrote:

I've seen pairs in the same bundle, where most work just fine,
but where one or two pairs are garbage or worse.

So... inasmuch as a house's internal cabling usually has unused pairs -- would
it be worth switching to another pair?

Definitely, if you can get the phone company to do it. In my case,
the bundle was fully subscribed and there were no spare pairs.
However, as cable telephony and VoIP became more popular, many people
gave up their POTS lines, making alternatives available. As soon as I
found one good pair that was available (tested with a TDR), I
convinced the phone company to mark mine bad and switch my line to a
new pair. I've also done similar swaps for customers. It's not easy,
but it is possible. Oddly, the most recent repair was a general
cleanup of the noisy lines between my house (near the end of the line)
to the termination box (about 3/4 mile). It took one installer, 3
hours and a bucket truck to fix all the crappy connections. He did it
right. I inspected the work and it was perfect. That's 30+ years of
crappy POTS service fixed in 3 hrs. Cleaning up phone lines is not
rocket science.

Unless you're making phone calls from space. ;-)

A 'Magic Jack+' plugged into the Sat router/modem attached to the
Microdyne 700 wideband KU band communications system aboard the ISS, and
you can have a local phone number in orbit.

 

[Jon Elson]

Fred McKenzie wrote:

In article
eb641195-020d-45d6-ba7c-21016805cd1a@y9g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
klem kedidelhopper <captainvideo462009@gmail.com> wrote:

My question is if the problem is in the premises wiring what could be
the most likely cause of something like this?

Klem-

There should be a modular phone connector in the box where your phone
line attaches to the house. You can isolate a problem to being inside
or outside, by connecting your equipment to the outside jack, and seeing
if the problem goes away.

Well, not always. We have corrosion IN the demarcation box, and that
RJ11 needs to be replaced every couple years. This is St. Louis, MO.,
humid, but not insanely so. You can tell because the whole connector
turns black, both the jack and most especially the plug on the
pigtail, where it is really obvious because it is supposed to be
clear plastic.

Jon

 

[Dave Platt]

In article <kf3iom$8dt$1@dont-email.me>, mike <ham789@netzero.net> wrote:

My question is if the problem is in the premises wiring what could be
the most likely cause of something like this? As I previously
mentioned I can't "hear" any problem but of course that doesn't mean
that one doesn't exist. Before I start dismantling my inside wiring it
would be nice if I had a clue as to what I was looking for. The phone
company by the way has been no help with this.

I've had premises-wiring problems from all sorts of causes:

- Humidity and moisture condensation in the wall outlet box
(affecting a wall box located near our washing machine). Surface
contamination (dirt and mold buildup) plus moisture equals leakage,
which was apparently enough to cause problems.

- Corrosion of the connecting screws, wire-end ring or fork
terminals, or the wire ends crimped to the terminals... again,
probably due to moisture and contamination over the years.

- Loose screw-and-terminal connections in the connection boxes. In
many cases the screws are coarse-thread self-tapping varieties,
screwed into relatively soft plastic; over the years they can work
loose or (if loosened and tightened repeatedly) tear or wear out
the plastic into which they are fastened.

- Corroded, dirty, or bent metal "fingers" in the RJ-11/12 jacks.

- Too many branch circuits within the house... e.g. it's wired for "a
phone in every room". The usused jacks act as unterminated stubs,
and cause signal reflections (near-end echo) which can interfere
with the incoming signal. My guess is that near-end echo which is
inaudible or unobjectionable to the human ear (too low in
amplitude, too near in time to the original transmission) can still
degrade signal quality in a full-duplex modem transmission.

- Phones on other branch circuits on the line placing their ringer
impedance across the line - again a form of near-end echo but with
slightly different characteristics.

- Bad connections (e.g. sets of wires merely twisted together, perhaps
with wire nuts, rather than being either soldered or cross-connected
with a good "punch-down" system of some sort.

- Use of old-style non-twisted-pair "station cable" or (worse yet)
flat "satin" cable for the premises wiring. This leads to poor
rejection of RFI and hum. Running phone wire right by power wiring
can induce hum, and this makes life more difficult for the modem.

I can't give any objective estimate as to the amount of trouble any
one of these can cause, but I believe that all of them can have some
effect.

When looking at and diagnosing your existing premises wiring, I'd
start by looking at all of the connectors - they're probably the
weakest link. Check the wire itself (wherever it's accessible) to
look for dubious connections, breaks (rats and mice sometimes chew up
the cable), or unneeded branch connections which could be eliminated.

Pulling new wire is probably a measure of last resort but might be
necessary. The closer you can get to an "Ethernet-class" phone wiring
from your modem's connection point back to the MPOE, the better. A
single run of twisted-pair cable (CAT-3 or better), punched down onto
good-quality insulation-displacement-type RJ-11 terminations, with no
branch circuits and thus nothing else sharing the line, is probably
the best approach I can recommend.

--
Dave Platt <dplatt@radagast.org> AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

 

[Jon Elson]

klem kedidelhopper wrote:

Well I guess that before tearing my house wiring apart I'll go to the
demarc, (after this monster storm the Northeast is having is over) and
see if the line to the CO without the premises wiring in parallel with
it gets me a good connection. The best I can hope for is that it
doesn't. Then I'll know my fight is with the telephone company. That
will be interesting to see what kind of shit they'll give me at that
point as they also provide dialup service, but at 4 times the cost of
my provider.. Lenny
I used to have DSL. Our lines were not great before DSL, and were OK

after, and I used DSL for at least 5 years, first with Telocity, then
DirectTV, and finally Covad. (I think I got that order correct.)
All of these DSL services worked quite well until AT&T bought Southwestern
Bell. Then my lines went terribly bad, constant crackling and hum, and
phone service was even out for days at a time. AT&T's fix was to add over
a MILE of zig-zag trunks all over town, and my DSL just about died at
18,000 feet of wire. I had the demarc box fixed a number of times, the
buried drop from the pole was dug up and replaced 3 or 4 times, and
some buried trunk under the street, etc. was also replaced. After I
got rid of DSL and went to cable, we STILL had phone line trouble, but
they seem to have gotten it working pretty well, lately. Oh, well,
spring lightning season is soon upon us, so it will go bad again.
I changed my business line over from POTS to VOIP and I can't believe
how good it sounds, though. Compared to AT&T it sounds like a recording
studio!

I have internet through Charter Business, pretty expensive, but basically
the only game in town. I need the Business service because I have a
web store, mail server, primary DNS server, file server, etc. at my
house. Once every 18 months or so some imbecile driver goes
airborne and shears off the pole down the street and that sometimes causes
cable trunk problems, the internet keeps on working, but you get a
lot of dropped packets until they get it fixed.

Jon

 

[Jon Elson]

Dave Platt wrote:

- Too many branch circuits within the house... e.g. it's wired for "a
phone in every room". The usused jacks act as unterminated stubs,
and cause signal reflections (near-end echo) which can interfere
with the incoming signal. My guess is that near-end echo which is
inaudible or unobjectionable to the human ear (too low in
amplitude, too near in time to the original transmission) can still
degrade signal quality in a full-duplex modem transmission.
Oh, yeah. They give you some "phone filters" with the DSL modem. What

you should do is install the DSL modem near the place the phone line enters
the house. Cut the wire, connect the DSL modem with short wire to the
incoming line, and put the filter right there, and connect the rest of the
house to the filter. This should greatly help the DSL modem to work.

Of course, this won't do any good for dialup. But, then, I can't even
IMAGINE going back to dialup today. With the typical web pages offered
today, you might take 2 hours to get the first page load from Google!

Jon

 

[klem kedidelhopper]

On Feb 8, 3:46 pm, Jon Elson <jmel...@wustl.edu> wrote:

Fred McKenzie wrote:
In article
eb641195-020d-45d6-ba7c-21016805c...@y9g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
 klem kedidelhopper <captainvideo462...@gmail.com> wrote:

My question is if the problem is in the premises wiring what could be
the most likely cause of something like this?

Klem-

There should be a modular phone connector in the box where your phone
line attaches to the house.  You can isolate a problem to being inside
or outside, by connecting your equipment to the outside jack, and seeing
if the problem goes away.

Well, not always.  We have corrosion IN the demarcation box, and that
RJ11 needs to be replaced every couple years.  This is St. Louis, MO.,
humid, but not insanely so.  You can tell because the whole connector
turns black, both the jack and most especially the plug on the
pigtail, where it is really obvious because it is supposed to be
clear plastic.

Jon

Well I guess that before tearing my house wiring apart I'll go to the
demarc, (after this monster storm the Northeast is having is over) and
see if the line to the CO without the premises wiring in parallel with
it gets me a good connection. The best I can hope for is that it
doesn't. Then I'll know my fight is with the telephone company. That
will be interesting to see what kind of shit they'll give me at that
point as they also provide dialup service, but at 4 times the cost of
my provider.. Lenny

 

klem kedidelhopper <captainvideo462009@gmail.com> wrote:

Well I guess that before tearing my house wiring apart I'll go to the
demarc, (after this monster storm the Northeast is having is over) and
see if the line to the CO without the premises wiring in parallel with
it gets me a good connection.

If you can get into the "phone company only" side of the demarc, do so.
It should have a surge protector for each line, with three terminals:
two for the line and one for ground. Sometimes these go wrong. You can
temporarily disconnect the line from the surge protector (on a nice
sunny day) and see if that improves things. (It may help to have a
couple of sets of 6-32 screw, nut, and washer to make this connection.)
Since you have two lines, you could also swap the protectors to see if
there is a change. Don't run without the surge protector forever; just
long enough to see if there is a change. Also, there is 48 VDC across
each line and up to 90 VAC if it rings, so be careful. You can also
check for water, flora, and fauna in there. When you are done,
carefully put it back together the way it was.

It is also worth applying an eyeball to the pedestal (underground cable)
or splice cover (overhead) where your wire joins the cable in the
neighborhood, to look for missing/damaged covers, signs of trees or
critters or water getting in, etc. These are not really your baby to
fix but you can point them out to the lineman.

Matt Roberds

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Fri, 08 Feb 2013 14:46:32 -0600, Jon Elson <jmelson@wustl.edu>
wrote:

Well, not always. We have corrosion IN the demarcation box, and that
RJ11 needs to be replaced every couple years. This is St. Louis, MO.,
humid, but not insanely so. You can tell because the whole connector
turns black, both the jack and most especially the plug on the
pigtail, where it is really obvious because it is supposed to be
clear plastic.

Black or dark brown is copper oxide. My guess(tm) is that you do not
have gold contacts and have not applied any silicon grease to the
contacts to keep the moisture out. Clean the connectors, apply some
grease, and it should last longer.

Incidentally, the new AT&T NID (demarc) boxes are now coming with a
different flavor of disconnect. Instead of the RJ11 with a flat cable
jumper, it's now integrated with the inside line connector. Swivel
the assembly and it automatically disconnects.
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/ATT-Demarc/index.html>
I'm tempted to put the old box back.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[hrhofann@sbcglobal.net]

On Feb 9, 11:39 am, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:

On Fri, 08 Feb 2013 14:46:32 -0600, Jon Elson <jmel...@wustl.edu
wrote:

Well, not always.  We have corrosion IN the demarcation box, and that
RJ11 needs to be replaced every couple years.  This is St. Louis, MO.,
humid, but not insanely so.  You can tell because the whole connector
turns black, both the jack and most especially the plug on the
pigtail, where it is really obvious because it is supposed to be
clear plastic.

Black or dark brown is copper oxide.  My guess(tm) is that you do not
have gold contacts and have not applied any silicon grease to the
contacts to keep the moisture out.  Clean the connectors, apply some
grease, and it should last longer.

Incidentally, the new AT&T NID (demarc) boxes are now coming with a
different flavor of disconnect.  Instead of the RJ11 with a flat cable
jumper, it's now integrated with the inside line connector.  Swivel
the assembly and it automatically disconnects.
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/ATT-Demarc/index.html
I'm tempted to put the old box back.

--
Jeff Liebermann     je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

looks like you can't tell anything now with the connections
concealed. Progress???????

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 9 Feb 2013 17:42:13 -0800 (PST), "hrhofann@sbcglobal.net"
<hrhofmann@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

looks like you can't tell anything now with the connections
concealed. Progress???????

As Apple and AT&T would usually say "You don't need to know", or more
correctly "Now you can't find out". That's why I want to put the old
NIU back in it's place. I can't see what's happening or plug in my
tester. I'll probably end up building an RJ14 male-to-female
T-adapter cable with test points so can do something useful with it.

Made by Corning:
<http://catalog.corning.com/CableSystems/en-US/catalog/MasterProduct.aspx?cid=copper_nids_web&pid=21746>

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[micky]

On Fri, 8 Feb 2013 09:22:52 -0800 (PST), klem kedidelhopper
<captainvideo462009@gmail.com> wrote:

I have two pots lines in my house. One is business class and the other
is residential. As far as I can tell the one difference between the
two is that the phone company gets to charge me twice as much for the
business line.

A few years ago before we went to DSL we had dialup service here. On
the business line I was never able to get any better than a 26K
connection. I never really investigated this and with no audible
aberrations on the line this was never a problem as we just used the
dialup on the residential line instead. On that line we usually could
get a 45K connection and sometimes even 50.

I recently dropped the DSL service and will likely drop the
residential service as well. We went back to dialup with the same
provider. The business line speed problem noted years ago is still
there. I've dialed up the telco's "quiet line" to listen to both lines

What's the quiet line? Does every phone company have this? Does
Verizon?

off hook, (while we still have the residential line) and they both
sound clean. I plan to go to the interface to look at this but we now
have a big storm coming so for now the 26K will suffice. If plugging
directly into the interface yields a good (45K) connection on the slow
line then I realize that the problem is then in the premises and I'll
have to troubleshoot that.

My question is if the problem is in the premises wiring what could be
the most likely cause of something like this? As I previously
mentioned I can't "hear" any problem but of course that doesn't mean
that one doesn't exist. Before I start dismantling my inside wiring it
would be nice if I had a clue as to what I was looking for. The phone
company by the way has been no help with this.

I have little experience and almost no idea if this relates to you,
but I have a story. And it's about DSL, not even dial-up. So for
that reason too, maybe it has no application to you. But it's a good
story.

I signed up for that 5 years ago, and using some webpage to measure my
speed, was never getting nearly as fast as I should Also, I have an
indoor wiring problem that comes and goes, and so I had run a wire
from the outside interface, up the front of the house and straight to
a simple splitter, DSL and telephone.

This meant I could only close the window and storm window maybe 95%.
I was using the kind of 4 conductor wire used to connect phones to the
wall.

To close the window 100%, I bought special, thin, flat phone wire,
from the phone section of Home Depot, meant for places like this,
between windows and the window frame. .

A few ways later, my phone continued to work, and the web radio
worked, but newsgroups, email, and web did not. I was stumped, and
the Verizon DSL guy come over. He said there is mor e than one level
of the phone line not working, and of DSL not working.. So the fact
that the phone and the web radio worked, didn't mean DSL was fully
working. He said the wire going out the window was too thin. (Or
maybe it had to do with too thin considering my aluminmum window
frames (both surrounding the glass and lining the window opening.

So now, for the last year, I use the kind of 4-conductor phone wire
that people put inside walls, stiffer and thicker,, and my download
speed has tripled and stayed tripled. .

(I'm still not using the thickest or stiffest wire used for that, but
I'm at the speed they promised me, so I suppose going to even thicker
wire won't help

I used other methods to keep the cold air from coming in the window
around the wire.

If anyone has any ideas that they would share I would be extremely
grateful. Lenny

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sun, 10 Feb 2013 00:29:42 -0500, micky <NONONOmisc07@bigfoot.com>
wrote:

What's the quiet line?

If you hear buzz, clicks, hummmmm, noise, crackly, etc on the phone,
the first step is to determine whether it's a problem at the CO
(central office), on the line, or somewhere in the inside wiring. To
eliminate the inside wiring, simply plug the tester into the NIU
(demarc), thus disconnecting the house wiring. To determine if it's
coming from the switch at the CO, dial a quiet line number. All it
does is terminate the call to a perfect dummy load, that does NOT go
through the switch. If the noise disappears, it's coming from
somewhere inside the CO. If it's still there, it's on the line
somewhere.

Does every phone company have this? Does
Verizon?

Yes, yes, and I don't know the Verizon number.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

micky wrote:

A few ways later, my phone continued to work, and the web radio
worked, but newsgroups, email, and web did not. I was stumped, and
the Verizon DSL guy come over. He said there is mor e than one level
of the phone line not working, and of DSL not working.. So the fact
that the phone and the web radio worked, didn't mean DSL was fully
working. He said the wire going out the window was too thin. (Or
maybe it had to do with too thin considering my aluminmum window
frames (both surrounding the glass and lining the window opening.

That's because DSL is "adaptive". The devices at each end are "smart" and
try the maximum speed they can. If that fails, or they get too many errors,
they try a lower speed until they can connect.

Analog modems do that too.

I can connect to the web browser interface of my DSL routers (which include
"modems") and see the exact speed the line is capable of, the speed it is
running at and the error rates. I can even run a BER (bit error rate) test
without disturbing the line.

In my case it's not very useful, as the DSL portion of my phone service
runs few hundred meters. It goes to a box somewhere near my home which
converts the DSL and analog voice to fiber optics.

That device is even smarter than you would expect, it opens its own
trouble tickets with the phone company and sends me SMSs when it does
or they are resolved.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379
Gung Hay Fat Choy! (May the new year be prosperous).