Yep, I've finally managed to get DSL out here!

Being right out at the edge of the exchange area we've had something of a shortage of pairs in the little estate of houses where I live. Demand for new telephone lines has been high in recent years as many places have been converted from holiday homes to permanent residences, and DACS (pair-gain units) have popped up like mushrooms all over the place.

I finally got my own pair, but wouldn't you know it, my existing ISP refused to provide DSL service out here, so I had to change providers.

Anyway, being 5 miles from the C.O. I'm not getting blazingly fast DSL speeds, but at 576kbps it's still a vast improvement on dialup. I'm happy!

Paul, ain't technology grand? Welcome to the real world. My guess is that we'll be hearing a lot more from you now.

I'm only about three miles from a Verizon remote (the Stonewall remote from Chancellor's DSO that I told you about). Even at that distance (only about 16,000 feet) we couldn't get reliable DSL service. This, despite the fact that there is an optical DSLAM located in the remote office. Most of our buried copper in this area is less than 20 years old, but still chock full of problems. Out here in the country, open pedestals and shotguns make for big problems.

I've been forced to endure the luxury of cable modem service here. When it works, it's great. The key is when it actually "works". When it gets especially hot or cold, the thermal compensation in the LE's (line extenders or amplifiers) must be changed to allow the coax to compensate for temperature extremes. I can't wait until FIOS comes to our area, although it is likely ten years away for my area.

By the way, what's dial up? Just kidding!

DSL has only been available at all from the Stalham RCU since September 2004. The little Hickling remote a few miles away (serves about 800 lines) only got it about a year later, so it's still relatively new out here.

Ed, you've seen the pictures of the two multipairs which run out to Eccles on Sea. We actually had one of them replaced a few weeks ago. I had to wait for the bucket-truck to move on the way out, so I chatted with one of guys. I jokingly asked if we were actually getting more pairs out here, but he laughed and just told me they were replacing one of the cables from the DP in Lessingham (next village on the way to Stalham, about a mile away). I guess they finally got so many bad pairs in there that with demand as it is they had to replace one. That and one of the main distro poles on the estate just doesn't have room for any more DACS (Digital Access Carrier System) units!

On which point, a lot of people here who are still waiting for DSL don't understand about our equivalent of SLCs.

"But I've had a phone line for 5 years. I already have the line, surely?"

Some grasp the principle when I tell them that you need your own dedicated pair for DSL, but I'm sure others don't follow it. I think they're still thinking about a "shared" line as being along the lines of an old party line, and think that they can't be sharing a pair of wires because they never hear anyone else.



I still have a Hayes SmartModem 2400 in the cupboard. I guess in a few more years it will be a museum piece!

A couple years ago they upgraded from a 25 pair cable (originally installed 1980 or so, with portions replaced in 1988 or so when our road was redone) to a 50 or 75 pair cable. It improved dial-up a bit (on a 33.6 modem). A 56K modem I got summer 2003 worked well. I got "high speed" phone line based broadband internet, not DSL, but some technology called Etherloop, which isn't blazingly fast (1Mmps tops, maybe 600K in reality), and a bit dated gear (I must rent). It is akin to running a 14.4 modem when everybody else is using a 56K modem.

If you have wifi, don't forget to put on the protection, and when you did, let me know how to do it.
(Mike, how do you add smilies?)

With WiFi make sure you turn the encryption and make a strong password. I would still put my LAN connected machines behind a firewall.

Speaking of which, that's about the top speed attainable here with a V.90 modem on a DACS line. A lot of people using dialup in more remote areas have no idea why they've been connecting just fine at 44 - 48kbps ever since they got their modem, then they go to use it one day and find they're down to 33k or less from then on, because they've been "DACSed" due to pair shortages.

BT will re-arrange the lines to restore the plain loop upon request if it's possible, but is under no obligation to do so. Of course, a lot of the people affected don't even realize that their sudden loss of speed is due to being switched to a carrier system and frantically go off trying to find faults with their own equipment because "it was working fine before."



I'm using the Voyager ADSL modem/router which came with the package, which doesn't have wireless.

It does have an integral ATA though, and I got a VoIP phone number with free evening & weekend calls to anywhere in the U.K. as part of the package. Being from a traditional telephone background, I've never really thought much of VoIP, but as it was no extra cost I thought I'd take the option to give it a try.

I've really only played with it a little so far, but the quality doesn't seem too bad -- After I reconfigured the ATA settings for a higher audio rate. The default quality was attrocious.

Oh, and I have to criticize the ring-voltage generator in the Voyager modem/router/ATA. Maybe it's fine for somebody using a modern electronic phone, but it can't manage to get a decent ring with a 2500 set connected.

The problem with VIOP is when your internet is down you are in the stone age, shooting messages tied to arrows.

That 33k thing on a V.9x is because you can't exploit the digital trick that lets you use a whole T1 channel.
V.34 was about all you can squeeze out of 2400baud with compression and modulation tricks. (a POTS connection).

Yep!

One of my regular clients in town had some telephone salesman pushing VoIP as the solution to all their (non existent) problems a few weeks ago. I called in to "have a chat" and asked some questions which I'm sure he would rather have not been asked. I'm not sure he even understood them. I ended up telling him that there's no way I'm going to recommend that the business goes to VoIP as its sole telephone service.

Actually if you have phone thru cable, the situation is the same. If the cable tv is down, etcetc. same with landline. And almost all of us has a mobile phone.

Otherwise if the internet is down, that is breaking of the contract. All service providers has to agree for a period of time, after which you don't pay for the period. But in this case you have to report immediately that the net is down otherwise the time is not registered.
I have net with wifi for more than 6 years and had no problems with it.

Comcast won't give a credit unless you can prove the system was totally down for 24 hours. If it worked for 20 seconds they say it wasn't down all day. In the 6 or 7 years I had it I am not sure I ever got a rebate and the system went down a couple times a month. After the 3 hurricanes they typically were down for a week or two and they came out with some other excuse why I still had to pay. I finally cancelled the service and got DSL

In addition to the above great advice I would also recommend:

1. If it's not too late, keep your DSL Router and your Access Point (AP) in separate boxes, connected by ethernet.

2. Please change the default name and password of both your Router and your WIFI (AP). Most of the WIFI's around my house are named "Linksys" and, since I know the default Linksys password, I can log into their Routers and make any changes I wish (if I wanted to).

3. Pick a non-standard IP numbering for your LAN. Something other than 192.168.xxx.xxx.

4. Set your AP to connect to only MAC addresses that correspond to LAN devices (computers, etc.) that are yours.

5. Set up static IP addresses in all your LAN devices, and set your Router to NOT hand our dynamic IP addresses upon request.

These steps will help keep hackers out of your network. I never worried about this stuff until I got WIFI for my wife's laptop, but these are just good security practices.

Radar

Radar:

If you disable DHCP, then how do you address visitors who just want to use their laptop? Do you even worry about that? I only ask because my LAN is mostly wired, but I have a wireless IP phone from my office so I installed a wireless AP to support it. Most visitors end up staying for a weekend, so the wireless AP is serving multiple purposes.

If I disable DHCP, then wouldn't this flexibility be lost?

Yes Ed, you're correct - you will loose a lot of flexibility. Personally I don't worry about it, but if I did then I might do one of 2 things:

1. Enable DHCP and relax my security for the affected period (weekend), or

2. Go to the trouble of getting my visitor's MAC address and assigning them a hard IP address and so on.

One thing to remember is that if you enable DHCP and allow visitors in, so to speak, you are also allowing passers by in as well. So where one draws the line should be considered with care.

Best regards,
Radar

Hi Paul,
I recently (out of frustration) upgraded my connection speed from 256kbps to 1.5mbps.
The difference is glaring, all the constant line disconnections (drop-outs) and waiting time have mysteriously vanished, which sort of makes me wonder, Why?

I mean, sure the thing is faster, but it is still travelling down the same wires and connections that it was with the slower connection speed.

One other thing I can't get my head around, it costs me NZ$5/month less to have a faster connection!!??
This broadband industry is a funny thing.

Mike, if you are moving faster through the network, so is everyone else. The service providers would prefer that you move out of the fast lane with your slow-moving vehicle. Maybe that is how your ISP sees it. I suppose that silly comparison might be the reason.

Not sure about why this costs LESS, but then again, you are on the bottom side of the world. Maybe the way water drains in the opposite direction has something to do with it! Perhaps you pay less for more while we pay more for less? There's no doubt that anything that is better costs much more around these parts.

I'd like to see you figure out a way to get power under the same "higher rate" for a lower cost. Now that would be a concept.

In sincerity, I suppose that it is just more a matter of the fact that your speed being increased results in less management on the ISP's part.

Did you get a new router or modem with the faster service?

As far as the pricing goes, perhaps you were "grandfathered" in with an old pricing plan. I doubt they'll do anything to give you faster service or charge less just out of the goodness of their hearts.