Connecting DSL to the home

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Liver

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Another thread regarding new service out in TX.

The technician in coming out on Thursday to run DSL to the house. I have called Century Link, but get transferred endlessly.

At any rate, hope you guys can help.

Its brand new construction, and no phone lines are in the house. It is wired with Cat6 cabling. I have 2 Cat6 terminations on the outside of the house and the other ends go to a media closet. In the media closet is the modem and router.

Will the tech be able to use the Cat6 cable from outside to inside? I absolutely do not want a home phone, or the potential possibility of having a home phone in the future.

The outdoor CT box is a couple hundred yards away. Still on my property.

Is there anything I need to make this go smoother?
 
Yes they will. though that single line will ONLY be able to used for DSL. Why? b/c they are going to take a pair (orange white and solid orange as an example) to run the connection to the modem.

question. Why DSL?
 
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Orddie said:
Yes they will. though that single line will ONLY be able to used for DSL. Why? b/c they are going to take a pair (orange white and solid orange as an example) to run the connection to the modem.

question. Why DSL?
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That line was dropped only for the dsl. So that's good.

I don't have any other choice. Other option would 3G or satellite. That would be much much worse.
 
Liver said:
That line was dropped only for the dsl. So that's good.

I don't have any other choice. Other option would 3G or satellite. That would be much much worse.
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new construction, in TX, and can only get DSL, 3G, or satellite? Farm house?
 
wow, I would have to seriously reconsider moving into an area that lacked good broadband. that is going to be a problem when you sell the house also
 
jiminator said:
wow, I would have to seriously reconsider moving into an area that lacked good broadband. that is going to be a problem when you sell the house also
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Damn what a narrow point of view. There is a world out there beyond the internet.

I do not anticipate ever selling, however if I do they won't be buying the house, they will be buying the acreage.

Yes, its a farmhouse. Its a good move for the family.
 
jiminator said:
wow, I would have to seriously reconsider moving into an area that lacked good broadband. that is going to be a problem when you sell the house also
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This rhetoric has been rehashed every time Liver has made a post regarding the internet situation at their new house... and I don't understand it. If there's no options where they want to live, then there are no options. There are more decisions to be made when purchasing a plot of land to build a house than the type of internet you have available. Regardless, their decisions could be entirely personal and they don't owe anyone an explanation, as far as I'm concerned.

Sounds like you should be good to go Liver. I imagine the tech they will send on site should be able to work with what you have just fine. Good luck!
 
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Cmustang87 said:
This rhetoric has been rehashed every time Liver has made a post regarding the internet situation at their new house... and I don't understand it. If there's no options where they want to live, then there are no options. There are more decisions to be made when purchasing a plot of land to build a house than the type of internet you have available. Regardless, their decisions could be entirely personal and they don't owe anyone an explanation, as far as I'm concerned.

Sounds like you should be good to go Liver. I imagine the tech they will send on site should be able to work with what you have just fine. Good luck!
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I appreciate all the advice with this issue. We will see on thursday what happens. I was worried (and made this thread) that just having a cat 6 cable to connect to would be an issue. It still may be one, if the tech wants it to be, but from this thread it looks like it will not be.

So my wife and 2 girls (2 and 4) have already moved down there. Its better than we had hoped. The girls absolutely love it, for so many reasons. Number one is family and extended family.
 
The only real differences (when it comes to POTS) between CAT3 and CAT6, well outside of CAT3 only (generally) being 2-pair, are the numbers of twists per inch.
It really is the same copper wire inside the sheathing.

DSL is fed over the same wire as POTS/dialtone. So while they may install a "dry line," (eg, no dialtone, only DSL), there will always be the possibility of getting dialtone; even if you don't want it.
 
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gimp said:
The only real differences (when it comes to POTS) between CAT3 and CAT6, well outside of CAT3 only (generally) being 2-pair, are the numbers of twists per inch.
It really is the same copper wire inside the sheathing.

DSL is fed over the same wire as POTS/dialtone. So while they may install a "dry line," (eg, no dialtone, only DSL), there will always be the possibility of getting dialtone; even if you don't want it.
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Will that affect anything substantive? Is it an issue or just a fact of life without consequence?

I've never had DSL.
 
A phone cable is basically two twisted pairs, each twisted pair supports one phone line, so a standard phone cable can support two lines. Ethernet cable contains 4 twisted pairs so it can support 4 separate lines. For DSL you will have your phone line plug into the device. All other phone lines will need filters so as to not interfere with the DSL signal. DSL signal is affected by the amount of copper connected to the line, so the less the better. DSL can come in two flavors, shared line and dry loop. Shared line goes on the same line as your phone service. If you are not getting phone service then you get dry loop. It will tend to be more expensive. Perfect scenario would be with dry loop to run a dedicated line from the phone box directly into your DSL modem so as to minimize the copper in your home loop. Potential DSL speed is directly affected by the amount of copper your signal has to travel through. This is usually described in terms of feet, distance to central office or DSLAM, which will be a box off the street.

If I sound like I am harsh on DSL, it is because I have a lot of experience with it. Some are fine with it, others tend to have a lot of problems. Your results will probably depend on your distance from CO
 
Liver said:
Will that affect anything substantive? Is it an issue or just a fact of life without consequence?

I've never had DSL.
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Not sure which part in particular you are referring, but regardless there are no issues.
Just a fact of life.
POTS and DSL are delivered over the same twisted pair; both from the DSLAM to the NID and from NID to interior of residence (technically; though they could wire a new home-run from NID to modem, and install a filter @ the NID for existing POTS internal wiring which would be irrelevant to you at the moment.)
They just don't "activate" the POTS side. Only wire it up to the port on the DSLAM for DSL signal.

DSL just operates at a much higher (read: inaudible) frequency. That's how they can deliver both audible dialtone and DSL over the same pair.
 
If I ask for a "dry loop" what are the chances of getting it? Meaning if we ask the technician. I know there are a lot of variables, but in your experience?

Speed of this this set up will not be great, but it is what it is. They have an advertised speed, but I'm skeptical and realistic (redundant, I know). To help alleviate some of the issues I am getting two identical DSL connections put in. Two modems and a load balancing router.
 
What kind of DSL are you getting put in? I am an installer in Canada, and we typically install ADSL 3-7Mbps (distance of 2-5 kilometers from CO or cabinet) or VDSL 10-50Mbps (distance of 100-1500 meters from CO or cabinet). Our policy here is that any pair hooked up to a modem must have dial-tone to call 911 emergency services even if the customer doesn't want voice services (we call that a delink line). They also have the option to call in and subscribe to voice services using that pair as well. Don't even have to roll a truck then. We usually make sure any existing phone jacks (or at least one) is active and ready for that. We install a high and low frequency splitter to seperate the signals from the respective pairs we hook up past the demarcation point.

I really prefer this system because its very difficult to tell if you have sync only on one side of the pair without dial-tone.

I used to have a pair of ADSL modems hooked up to a WRT54GL running Tomato firmware for dual WAN. Worked really well until our provider jacked the price up on the connection that I wasn't getting an employee discount on.

PS aaaaaaaand I just read your sig after posting this LMAO

Liver said:
If I ask for a "dry loop" what are the chances of getting it? Meaning if we ask the technician. I know there are a lot of variables, but in your experience?

Speed of this this set up will not be great, but it is what it is. They have an advertised speed, but I'm skeptical and realistic (redundant, I know). To help alleviate some of the issues I am getting two identical DSL connections put in. Two modems and a load balancing router.
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Liver said:
If I ask for a "dry loop" what are the chances of getting it? Meaning if we ask the technician. I know there are a lot of variables, but in your experience?.
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Honestly? I have no idea.
My current DSL provider specifically provides the option of DSL-only, with no dialtone/home phone. Cost is the same with either option, though.
I previously worked for a DSL ISP in a different region, and DSL was only available with dialtone.
 
You can't ask for dryloop, you have to order it (if available). The installer will just do whatever it says on his work order. You can certainly cancel and make a new order but that may not be worthwhile. There also is a possibility that they can change your order to dryloop, but it would involve a different copper pair thus a different physical connection be made at the CO/DSLAM. The connections can probably be automated on some lines but others a technician may need to make the connection. As an asset the line would have to be marked as in use so... no guarantees. There are various DSL resellers available. You can go to one of the websites and put your address info in. They will tell you if dryloop is available from your phone company. If they can get you good speeds with shared line though it may not be necessary. A good DSL speed IMO would be 6+ Mbps if consistent, although some can go much higher.
 
They stood us up two days in a row. Citing other installs that took too long. I get that, but a phone call would have been nice.
 
I would be calling to make sure they are doing all of the install free and a free month of service, tell them if you dont get installed one day, you should be first priority the next day.
 
I hear you. Install is free and the first 3 months are $30 a month (both lines).

Update. They are giving us a $100 visa gift card. More importantly we now have the cell number to the LOCAL technician / installer supervisor.
 
Liver said:
...
Update. They are giving us a $100 visa gift card. More importantly we now have the cell number to the LOCAL technician / installer supervisor.
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There are advantages to smaller rural companies/branches. If you grow a garden, be sure to find out if that supervisor would like some. Might improve the response time on the next trouble call.
 
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Liver said:
I'll do that. Until then Coors Light is still currency out here.
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I love being rural because you know your neighbors. When I need work done from the telco ( once a month on average) I phone in like everyone else and get the ticket number. Then I call my neighbor who is a Bell tech, he gets his boss to allocate the ticket to him (it's good for him too because my work is always close to home for him). He takes care of my crap and we have a great working relationship where he doesn't treat me like a moron. In return he calls me from install sites all the time to troubleshoot getting Internet working in some of these homes with weird situations.

He has one of the highest customer satisfaction ratings amongst all his peers, I have great service. What more could you ask for?
 
So long as you have a home run from their box outside to where you want the modem you'll be fine. If so they will be just use the existing Cat6 but terminate it with a RJ11 connector and only use one (or two if you are on bonded DSL iirc) that can plug into their DSL modem.
 
They came by today. Measured the property, will come back tomorrow with more cable.
 
Liver said:
Damn what a narrow point of view. There is a world out there beyond the internet.
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ChRoNo16 said:
They ever come back?
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Ha ha ha. No.

Of course no one listened to me or understood the words coming out of my mouth. It's new construction so there aren't cables laid. That's what they failed to understand.

So the supervisor came out and said whoa. Now it's up to Century Link "engineering" to come out and lay the cable (s).

I'm ready though. I bought a PepLink dual wan router and a Ubiquiti Pro model access point. I also got some punch outs and tools to terminate cables while I'm here.
 
Liver said:
Ha ha ha. No.

Of course no one listened to me or understood the words coming out of my mouth. It's new construction so there aren't cables laid. That's what they failed to understand.

So the supervisor came out and said whoa. Now it's up to Century Link "engineering" to come out and lay the cable (s).

I'm ready though. I bought a PepLink dual wan router and a Ubiquiti Pro model access point. I also got some punch outs and tools to terminate cables while I'm here.
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How far is the house from the closest pedestal? If it's less than 1500ft and they have right of way down the road you should only be waiting for a drop. From my dealings if there isn't a pedestal that can service the house the builder didn't get the telco involved during the utility planning stage like they are supposed to. This stuff is supposed to happen right around the time electricity is run to the site if you need a pedestal installed.
 
When will people use RJ45 and RJ11 right :(

RJxx is a cable with connectors in an given configuration and not an connector, the connector for RJ45 cable is 8P8C.
 
rma said:
When will people use RJ45 and RJ11 right :(

RJxx is a cable with connectors in an given configuration and not an connector, the connector for RJ45 cable is 8P8C.
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Doesn't really matter unless you're placing an order for connectors.
 
bds1904 said:
How far is the house from the closest pedestal? If it's less than 1500ft and they have right of way down the road you should only be waiting for a drop. From my dealings if there isn't a pedestal that can service the house the builder didn't get the telco involved during the utility planning stage like they are supposed to. This stuff is supposed to happen right around the time electricity is run to the site if you need a pedestal installed.
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It cost me about 10k to have electrical run out here. A payment directly to the electrical company. They came in an laid the electrical.

A month prior I was talking with Century Link. So it's not a matter of me (or our builder) not trying to coordinate.
 
Updates!

As of today (9/13) we have Internet at the house. I'm not physically there, but my family is.

The technician tested both lines and they work. I don't know the speed. He tried using my modems and no-go. Both modems are Netgear ADSL2 Plus.

So he installed a Zytel C1100z modem and wireless router. Hey, it works.

I need to get 2 modems and then hook them up to the Peplink for load balancing. So the Zytel c1100z has to go (plus it's a Centurylink rental).

Did I prepurchase the wrong modem? I looked at the Zytel and it is vdsl and the Netgear is adsl2.

I really don't know that much about dsl, except it is my only realistic option.
 
The Zytel appears to only support VDSL1/2, and no ADSL support. So this would mean you have VDSL, not ADSL.
So unfortunately, yes the Netgear ADSL2 plus will not work as they only support ADSL2+ (maybe ADSL2, tech sheet has limited detail)
 
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Thanks.

Do you have a recommendation on a vdsl modem? I'll need two. All I go is amazon reviews, and that's not a great plan.
 
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