Just moved to a new property and I notice that the line is really old. On
enabling ADSL Max, the maximum sync speed is less than 2mbit. Speaking to a
close neighbour, he says his ADSL Max syncs at 7.3Mbit. His line is new.
Could it be the old line that is holding my speed back?

I value your comments
steve

"Steve" <000009800@000.00> wrote in message
news:4giaaeF1nfrltU1@individual.net...
How have you noticed you line is "really old"? Is it cloth covered cable or
open wires from a pole? Have you tried line at nte with all internal
unplugged ie. In the test socket?

"SJP" <someone@somewhere.invalid> wrote in message
newsKqdnYMo5YJRlDnZRVnyqQ@bt.com...
The line is grey coloured wires (twin) looks like speaker cable (shaped like
a figure 8).

No NTE socket either. Just some non-standard master socket by the look of
it. No BT marking on the outside anyway : )

Cable has a two insulated single cores. Neighbours wire is black and round
in profile.

I reckon its well old.

Comments please???

steve

"Steve" <000009800@000.00> wrote in message
news:4gigc3F1ndpduU1@individual.net...
and the socket with no bt markings sounds suspect as well! :-(

Steve wrote:
Sounds like old dropwire 4, which can be perfectly ok, but then again
if it's been damaged could be causing you a problem. The clue is how
does it affect your voice calls, if they are intermitently noisey it
could be the leadin. Having said that the reason your neighbour is
getting a faster speed could be because he is on a different cable
route than you & even possibly on a completely different exchange.
Now try explaining that last one to a person who can't even get RADSL
when the person opposite to him can & they are fed from the same pole,
but from different exchanges, that's a challenge I can tell you.

"SJP" <someone@somewhere.invalid> wrote in message
news:97mdnVo5iIK-kznZRVnyhQ@bt.com...
Thats what I think. : (

I would really like to hear some words of wisdom from a BT engineer etc. Is
this line likely to be the cause of problems with line sync speed on Max?
and how much would it cost for BT to put things right??

steve

"kráftéé" <kraftee@dontspamkrafteeunless you know what'sgoodforu.pus.com>
wrote in message news:44a412b8$0$938$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader01.plus.net...
Hi,

I assume from your post that you are an engineer?? How much better is the
new type cable than the dropwire 4 that you think I am using here? Is it
better at improving SNR or is it no better at all ? Do you think
improvments could be had (maybe) by replacing the line? How is the new type
cable constructed? Is there a website which shows its construction?

steve

"Steve" <000009800@000.00> wrote in message
news:4giimhF1m76p9U1@individual.net...

steve

Steve wrote:
As I have already posted, if the cable is not damaged the it would
make little difference (it's a balanced pair & if anything the
conductors are thicker, which is good). The new leadin cables have
thinner conductors & you have 2 twisted pairs, which won't make any
diference unless the old cable is damaged/cracked etc.

The reasons why your neighbour gets a diferent speed to you are many
fold ranging from better filters/routers to different copper paths to
the exchange to even them being on another exchange altogether.

BT won't change the leadin free of charge unless it's normal wear &
tear damage, cracked insulation, brittle insulation, corrosion etc. so
if you go out & cut it tomorrow you will be charged.

Are your voice calls noisey, yes or no. If they are report it to BT &
the first thing which may be done is that your leadin will be changed,
no guarantees but very likely.

As for websites about cable construction etc, you've got the internet,
you can search Google, do you really think I'm that sad that after
over 9 hours at work I come back here & start it all over again out of
shear bliss, if so you are a very sad person.

"kráftéé" <kraftee@dontspamkrafteeunless you know what'sgoodforu.pus.com>
wrote in message news:44a422cd$0$952$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader01.plus.net...

Sorry if I offended you in some way.. I never intended to do so.

I assumed that new dropwires were different in that they handled newer
techologies (like broadband) better.
Perhaps I was wrong? Maybe they changed to this new stuff because its cheap
and cheerful : )

I see problems and answers in 'black and white', for me there are no grey
areas, and I like to know why something fails when it fails. I'm not good
at taking answers like 'well it could be this, or 'it could be that' I
accept there are many reasons why something doesn't work at its best, my
problem is, I like to know which reason is failing me. I was just looking
for a few answers to (what I thought) were reasonable questions.

Because this dropwire is so old, I thought that might be causing my low sync
speed, but the line is not giving me any problems on voice calls.

Anyway I apolgise once more. Sorry to be a pain.

steve

"Steve" <000009800@000.00> wrote in message


It is almost certainly the reason why you are seeing low syncronisation
speeds. In my experience everytime an old dropwire4 cable has been replaced
with twisted pair the ADSL storms in. It is all down to twisted pair
technology that has been around since the days of Alexander Greame Bell.

BT don't just fit the new stuff for the good of their health. Twisted pair
cable commonly imcreases the broadband speed by improving the SNR on the
line.

Any *good* telephone engineer worth his salt would confirm this.

On 29-Jun-2006, "Steve" <000009800@000.00> wrote:

There is test equipment that will tell just what is wrong with a telephone
line, it's called a Transmission Impairment Measuring Set or TIMS for
short. BT have them, they are relatively expensive, and generally only
available to BT's commercial arm. You also need one at each end.
If the TIMS indicates a poor quality line, worse than expected for
it's construction (cable type) and length, then you need to know
where along the line the problem is, like is the street cable in a
waterlogged duct, and has water penetration, not enough to
affect voice calls, but enough to severely reduce the high
frequency broadband signals.
The test set for this is a Time Domain Reflectometer or TDR for
short. This sends a pulse down the line, and variations in it's
characteristics, for instance water penetration, show up as a hump
in the trace. Enter the velocity of propagation for the cable, and
you get a distance readout, showing distance to start and finish
of the impaired section. And the overall length of the line.
You can get black and white answers, if you invest in the equipment
and train people how to use them.
Having worked with TIMS and TDR equipment, they are the first
things you use when a line goes pear shaped, and you have to
get a circuit back quickly, in a 24/7/365 operation.

Where life is at risk, or downtime costs big bucks, then you
don't pussyfoot around hypothesing it might be this or it might
be that.
You aren't getting answers because you are a retail customer
in a small profit competative market, using cabling that may
date back to immediate post war (or even before), which has
deteriorated with age, and was never designed for broadband.

Bob Craven wrote:
Funny that, dropwire 4 was used after that.....
A good engineer will tell you sometimes it can make a difference &
sometimes not. More often it's the connections which cause the
problems anyway, normally left swinging in all weathers, without any
protection, or if you're really lucky a quick wrap or 2 of the old
self amalgamating tape (if you're not so lucky it'll just be black
insulating tape) so they are nicely corroded, with the 'BT' in the
damp window sill also causing problems If they has been done properly
& up to standard then they would last a lot longer. In practice the
field engineers are told to change the leadin (of any sort) if fault
prone or indeed faulty (yes even twisted pair leadin Bob). In fact a
long length of DW4 will have less attenuation than the newer cables
due to the conductors being as big as they are (just wish other's
didn't strip it back before crimping, it's not that big & the
connection would last a lot longer, in a serviceable condition)

As for changing lengths willy nilly, that length of cable, as I have
already said, is a balanced pair & so is less likely to cause any
problems (in good condition that is, if one leg is corroded thru then
it's not a balanced pair anymore, is it).

You can't generalise as each case has to be taken on it's own merits,
I've been to homes where just walking down the path I could see the
leadin was part of the problem & yet at others it wasn't.

To the OP, there isn't a black & white situation with ADSL in general,
what may work for one doesn't mean it will deffinitely work for
another, hence the round robin argument about whether you need a
filter for the modem, whether more expensive filters are better than
the pound shop specials, there are even some who still claim you don't
need filters at all & that's just one of the topics. There are some
who claim to be able to get ADSL 12km from their local exchange & yet
I know of roads within 1km where they can't. You have to reason it
out for yourself.

So to you Bob, go take your little barb comment & put ith where your
thoughts are coming from. Just remember FRS & SMT are things of the
past & that we are supposed to do quality before quantity, so you have
to really look for the problems instead of doing the quick easy
things, like changing a leadin on a noise fault.

In message <44a412b8$0$938$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader01.plus.net>, kráftéé
<kraftee@dontspamkrafteeunless.you.invalid> writes
Mine is just fine.
--
Devs
"Punchdown Pete the old Kroner"

"kráftéé" <kraftee@dontspamkrafteeunless you know what'sgoodforu.pus.com>
wrote in message news:44a46603$0$968$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader01.plus.net...
Well I am only commenting from 38 years in the industry. If you don't want
to listen, then close your ears.
Ive only been working with telephone networks for nearly four decades. What
would I know?
Bob

Bob Craven wrote:
If you are anything like some of my colleagues.......very little