sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Home Cabling Question

To Hal :toast:

Everyone::: Why don't you paste your arguments of CAT 5 vs CAT 3 into the thread Ken started then we can clean this one up for Jerry.

Thanks,
Bill

Click here for Kens thread Is Cat 5e better than Cat 3 for Voice and why ?

Qualifications: USAF Radio Relay Repair, 1966-1970. PacBell N-carrier, TRCC, T-Carrier, Step-by-Step, Official Company Services since 1988 (I install/maintain voice & data for Pacific Bell. My DSL was installed Dec. 29th, 1999. I wrote it up on usenet, refering to the installers as Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber. Karma's a bitch -- I was loaned to install DSL Mar - May, 1970. Moderator at dslreports.com for a couple of years. DSL is my passion. (I'm a master tech only because all of the older and wiser techs upped and retired and left me to fend on my own.)

The design limit for DSL is 18,500 feet -- mine is at a measured 20,400 feet. Mostly 19 gauge cable, but the last fifty feet from the pole is on 1940's vintage no-twist-at-all drop wire.

As others have stated, the most important factor for DSL is your distance from the C.O.. You can usually find the address of your C.O. at dslreports.com/coinfo. Plug in that address and your address into maps.google.com to get your door-door driving distance, add 15% and assuming your driving and the cable are relatively direct you'll have a good first approximation of your loop length.

If this figure is under 1000 feet or over 14,000 feet you should not, IMO, be using distributed filters.

The other factor that matters is bridge taps. You have a pair of wires from the Central Office to your house. Along that pair you could have another pair tapped in leading nowhere. This is a bridge tap -- it does not take much to degrade a DSL signal.

If you are having dropped DSL connections you only need to be concerned with the connection from the CO to your modem. Your house wiring matters only in that, by using microfilters, you have a substantial bridge tap. If you are on a long loop that bridge tap will hurt. If you have a marginal signal it can be improved substantially by switching to a NID filter.

Really need to know your loop length before I can offer much advice.

(FWIW, my DSL is It is presently running 640kbps downstream with a 5.5 db noise margin. Holding that only 'cause I have an old Cayman 3220H. Tried hooking up a 2Wire modem and it couldn't connect at any speed. Due to my loop length, my service drops roughly once a week -- I don't notice 'cause my Cayman router reconnects within a half minute or so. If you didn't twig, I like my Cayman!)

There is a problem with using dslreports.com/coinfo, at least around here, and that is that it will show you where the main central office is, but around here your phone line is far more likely to be terminated in a remote which is much closer to you than the main central office.

That means you are in the boonies. Braggart! (The older I get the more I want OUT of L.A..)

Generally, if yout DSL is out of an RT, you do not have drop-out problems. Jerry has "been having some sporadic dropped connections in my DSL service" -- the most likely cause being that he is synched close to the maximum line speed, due to distance, and drops out of synch due to fluxations in the line. A 20-30 degree temperature swing is enough to knock you out of synch if you are at the edge.