1. Home
  2. Digital Subscriber Line
  3. Questions on starting DSL service

Questions on starting DSL service

Begging your patience....I'm a technical person, but new to DSL and have questions.

My parents are in the process of getting aDSL from Earthlink, their phone company is BellSouth. They live in an older neighborhood, approx

40 years old, with lines about ground on poles. It is approx 6-8k ft to the CO.

I have read about and think I understand the two typical configurations

1) splitter on side of house or 2) splitter inside at the appropriate phone jack and filters on all other phones. They are supposedly getting the latter....a home install kit with DSL modem and line filters to install on all the other phones.

The Earthlink rep said BellSouth would provision the line, then notify earthlink to ship the cable modem equipment to my parents, then they would plug in the filter first, then the DSL modem.

I was concerned about getting the DSL before the filters were installed, but the earthlink rep said the DSL signal didn't really start until the DSL modem was plugged in, so it wasn't a problem. He also said no one would typically come to the house for any work, it is usually done remotely.

Questions / concerns:

1) Is it true that even though the line is "provisioned", that the DSL doesn't really start until the DSL modem is plugged for the first time? Does the modem request a sync and that turns on the high freq DSL signal the first time? That would alleviate my concern about not having the filters plugged in when the line is "provisioned".

2) How often can the phone company successfully setup everything from the central office, without making a trip to the house? I have read about the possibility of loading coils that are typically every 3k feet on older circuits. I also thought that they have to come to the house to test the circuit.

3) I am concerned about using the filters (vs splitter on side of house) configuration in an older house. I know their phone wiring is not as clean as the newer home installs. What kind of success have folks seen using the filters in 40 year old home installations? Thanks, Tim C. snipped-for-privacy@volcanomail.com
Reply to
fs63
Loading thread data ...

Tim,

1) The majority of the work in setting up DSL service is done between the ISP and the CO. The assumption is that everything is OK between the CO and the CP, so most DSL service initiation is done without a visit to the CP. The high frequency DSL signal will be present on the line, but without a DSL modem connected it won't be heard (If a tree falls in the forest, and there's nobody there to hear it, is a sound present?).

2) The LEC makes the assumption that there are no loading coils present, since their records aren't always accurate. If your service, once setup, indicates a problem, then will they do an investigative trace for problems.

3) For most houses, and age is not always relevant, individual filters on each phone should perform as well as a single whole house filter. If affordable and convenient, it is a good idea to run a single, dedicated line between the NID and your DSL modem; this is when a whole house filter is typically installed, to filter the dedicated line.

And Tim, posting your email address openly will get you more unwanted email, than wanted email. Learn to munge your email address properly, to keep yourself a bit safer when posting to open forums. Protect yourself and the rest of the internet - read this article.

formatting link

Reply to
Chuck
Reply to
Neil W Rickert

Just to put your mind at ease, in addition to the other excellent responses. My house was built in '51, and worked perfectly well with the standard setup. I have since installed a whole-house splitter/filter, mostly to make it easier to move phones around; it didn't have much affect on the aDSL signal.

Reply to
Rick Wintjen

The CO->modem signal is far enough out of the audio range to not be an issue. It's the modem->CO signal that you can hear. Until the modem is there, you'll notice nothing.

That Depends[tm]. But you can't do much ahead of time. Get the kit, deploy, and if it fails to work, then raise Hell.

I prefer a single filter but if the users don't object to the filter/phone, you can start there.

Note: as far as I can see -- there's no performance difference between a ""filter"" and a ""splitter"" -- the splitter may have screw terminals and/or a weatherproof box, but... I have put in perfectly good installations (including mine..) with one filter for all the phones..

Reply to
David Lesher

To all who replied to my original post,

Thanks for all the great responses. I am posting as Tim C. instead of fs63 (and not posting my email address - thanks Chuck).

We are moving forward with my parent's DSL - This past Monday DSL was ordered, Wednesday the line was provisioned, Thursday the ISP shipped the DSL modem. The moment of truth will be next week when it arrives and we plug it in. I have since visited my parents and looked at their house and existing wiring. Turns out their house was built in 1951 too (Rick) and it has an excellent setup for an external splitter. We are planning on getting the service up and running first with the phone filters, then go back and install an external splitter. I have found a number of splitters on ebay and other places. The answers and advice you have given is invaluable.

Thanks, Tim C.

Reply to
Tim C.

Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.