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pjsutton
join:2013-06-25
Kempton, PA

1 edit

pjsutton

Member

[Wiring/Filter/Splitter] Best wire for a long-ish run to wall jack?

My DSL will be ready any day now, and I want to prepare for the install. My desk is on the opposite site of the room as my wall jack. I currently have a 25-or-so foot long phone line that connects to the fax machine and answering machine. My current plan is to use a POTS/DSL splitter filter (you know ... one side is POTS and the other side is DSL) and run a second line or so over to my desk.

Is there a certain type of line I should look for, since it needs to be so long?

Should I even worry about such a long distance?

The wall jack is only 2 years old, and it is very close to the NID. When we moved in to this house, there was clearly a jack that had been removed and just replaced with a blank wall cover. I connected a brand new jack. When we had our phone turned on, a tech had to come and replace the old-school "NID" (was more like just a small box that had 2 metal screws) with a modern one, and he then re-wired the existing runs to the NID. So, I think I should be pretty much set in terms of that.

I'd like to avoid having to run a separate jack, just so it is on the other side of the room.

If worst comes to worse, I may just rearrange the desk.

tschmidt
MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Consolidated Com..
·Republic Wireless
·Hollis Hosting

1 recommendation

tschmidt

MVM

Twisted pair is best however you are not going to be able to find that type of phone cord.

Lets put things into perspective the DSL signal has traveled thousands of feet to get to your house. While twisted pair is much preferred I'd adopt a wait an see approach. Just get a long phone cord and see what happens, if speed and margin are the same with and without the long cord you are fine.

If signal is degraded you have a several options:

1) Locate the modem near the jack and use Cat 5e Ethernet cable to connect wired devices.
2) Move your desk to be near the jack.
3) Install a whole house POTS/DSL splitter near the NID and wire up a ADSL modem drop to a new jack near your desk. The advantage of this is you no longer need inline filters at each non-DSL device and the splitter does a better job isolating voice from DSL, that can be helpful in marginal situations.

/tom

pjsutton
join:2013-06-25
Kempton, PA

pjsutton

Member

I was thinking something like this: »www.amazon.com/Belkin-Hi ··· one+wire

But is that unnecessary? Although I guess I can't really beat that price!

tschmidt
MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Consolidated Com..
·Republic Wireless
·Hollis Hosting

1 edit

tschmidt

MVM

There is a lot of FUD in the product description and reviews but the bottom line it uses twisted-pair cable which is what is important.

»www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F3L900/

Based on the Belkin catalog description it comes in 7, 15 or 25 feet. The Amazon link is only 15 ft.

/tom

pjsutton
join:2013-06-25
Kempton, PA

pjsutton

Member

I know, I can't believe the number of people who tried to use it as an Ethernet cable ...

And yeah, I know that link was for 15 feet but I also happened to see one for 25.

wiggie116
Premium Member
join:2013-10-31
Pittsfield, MA
D-Link DSL-2750B
Actiontec GT784WN

wiggie116

Premium Member

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Have you opened up your NID to see if it has POTS/DSL splitter built in already. I've seen people use one pair (red/green) for phone then the second pair (black/yellow) for data then purchase a dual jack and label one port for phone and the second port for data. That way you don't have to run a second line or use any filters in the house. This Picture is my interface. I have one line running to a punch block and the second line to my modem in the basement. I used cat3 it's only a 15 foot run to my equipment rack.

pjsutton
join:2013-06-25
Kempton, PA

pjsutton

Member

It only has the part with the half-ringer. What makes a POTS splitter any better than using the filters?

wiggie116
Premium Member
join:2013-10-31
Pittsfield, MA
D-Link DSL-2750B
Actiontec GT784WN

1 recommendation

wiggie116

Premium Member

I really have no clue I believe the DSL splitter provides more isolation between voice and DSL signal. It's also pretty common for a micro filters to go bad. I agree with Tom that you should wait and see how your signal is. Your signal could be fine and no need for a hole home filter.

tschmidt
MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Consolidated Com..
·Republic Wireless
·Hollis Hosting

1 edit

1 recommendation

tschmidt to pjsutton

MVM

to pjsutton
said by pjsutton:

What makes a POTS splitter any better than using the filters?

I'm using a Corning/Sicor splitter. It is a three stage passive filter whereas the typical inline filter has only a single stage, this provides better isolation of DSL from POTS. In addition it has secondary over voltage protection and a half ringer after the filter allowing the one on the NID to be removed.

Corning got out of the splitter biz a while ago, The TII splitter is comparable:
»www.tiitech.com/reposito ··· 1211.pdf

»www.ebay.com/itm/Tii-ADS ··· 946d48c3

Having a single filter rather then multiple ones provides a better impedance match to the phone line - resulting is less DSL signal degradation. Not to mention the hassle of putting a filter on every non-DSL device, especially if you have a home alarm system.

DSL is pretty forgiving of line impairments, going the extra mile is only important if you are pushing speed or distance. In my case I'm pretty far from the CO and my ISP does not cap speed. Whatever the circuit is capable of is the speed I get. So it makes sense to try and tweak inside wiring.

/tom

wiggie116
Premium Member
join:2013-10-31
Pittsfield, MA

2 recommendations

wiggie116

Premium Member

I wish G4 was in western ma, I know they are located in a few isolated areas in MA. That is really sweet they let the quality of line/circuit determine the speed...

pjsutton
join:2013-06-25
Kempton, PA

1 recommendation

pjsutton

Member

In case anyone's curious, I ended up having to move the desk to the other side of the room, anyway, because of a plumbing issue that required ripping open the wall it was against. So, I am now about 2 feet from the jack!

wiggie116
Premium Member
join:2013-10-31
Pittsfield, MA
D-Link DSL-2750B
Actiontec GT784WN

1 recommendation

wiggie116

Premium Member

There is a good chance Verizon will dispatch a tech to your house. When I had my self install kit sent out it was on my front steps within two days. Then I received an email +phone call explaining a technician would need access to my home. exact same scenario happened to one of my coworkers. Both of us were told it was going to be a self install only, but Verizon dispatch a technician to both addresses. I'm not sure what triggers them to send a technician out. Both locations never had DSL before so that could be it. I also didn't have a NID on the outside of the house, and after he left I still did not. They replaced the drop a month later. I am not sure if he had a NID or not.

pjsutton
join:2013-06-25
Kempton, PA

pjsutton

Member

My NID is on the inside, only 2 years old. We'll see what happens!

Zenit_IIfx
The system is the solution
Premium Member
join:2012-05-07
Purcellville, VA
·Comcast XFINITY

1 recommendation

Zenit_IIfx

Premium Member

If VZ comes out, have them install the DSL splitter. If not, its pretty easy to do this yourself if you have a little bit of cable.

»www.amazon.com/Outdoor-P ··· +outdoor

This one would be very easy to wire up.




You would disconnect your existing interior wiring from the NID, and run a short line from the NID to the Network connection in the DSL splitter. Connect the modem jack to the Data lugs, the Voice Jacks to the Voice lugs.

If I was still on DSL, there would be one of these next to my NID to try to squeeze every last drop of performance out of the line.

pjsutton
join:2013-06-25
Kempton, PA

pjsutton

Member

If they install a splitter, do they have to run a separate line to it, or can you use an existing jack?

tschmidt
MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Consolidated Com..
·Republic Wireless
·Hollis Hosting

1 recommendation

tschmidt

MVM

If it is an external splitter as pictured above telephone inside wiring is moved from the NID to the voice terminals of the splitter. A new cable connects the NID to the network terminals of the splitter. And a new run goes from the data terminals to a jack near the modem location.

If the Telco does the installation most likely they will not use an external splitter but install one in the NID. In that case inside wire will get moved to voice and new run to jack near modem.

Assuming you house is wired with two-pair cable (4-conductors) and you only have a single phone line the spare pair can be used for DSL eliminating the need to install new wire.

Ideally all phone wiring should be twisted-pair. Depending on the age of you residence it may or may not be twisted-pair.

/tom

pjsutton
join:2013-06-25
Kempton, PA

pjsutton

Member

The house was built in 1980. The phone wire has 4 wires inside the beige sheath (red, yellow, green, black). So, they would just rewire the jack? Or would they install a new jack? I don't want them to have to run new wires and cut walls, etc., because I think that could be rather difficult...but they're probably also pretty good at it!

Zenit_IIfx
The system is the solution
Premium Member
join:2012-05-07
Purcellville, VA
·Comcast XFINITY

2 recommendations

Zenit_IIfx

Premium Member

The 1980 cable sounds fine. It was probably put in by Contel or specified by Contel as the inside wiring at that point belonged to the telephone company.

Old telephone-company grade cable is definitely better than the newer flimsy cheap builders grade telephone cable. A name brand Cat-5 or above would be better than any voice grade cable, but given that the DSL travels so far on really old outdoor copper, a short run does not have that much of an effect if its wired correctly.

How is the quality of the cable? Thick sheath, does not feel cheap?

To install the DSL splitter they could utilize the second set of pairs (yellow/black) and rewire the jack, as tschmidt stated.

The only additional wiring would be at the NID - no further.

pjsutton
join:2013-06-25
Kempton, PA

pjsutton

Member

So would it end up being a "double" jack? Or could it just have a 2-way splitter on it? That's the same jack where the phone/answering machine plugs in, so it can connect with the fax machine so faxes work properly.

I'm not really sure about the quality...I've only really looked at it once. When the POTS was turned on, the tech installed a new NID and rewired all the lines into it, so they should have pretty good connections.

Zenit_IIfx
The system is the solution
Premium Member
join:2012-05-07
Purcellville, VA
·Comcast XFINITY

1 edit

Zenit_IIfx

Premium Member

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Ok, hearing that the jack is shared by the telephone and the future DSL modem clears things up a lot.

To me, the best way to accomplish this would be a double jack - green/red pairs feeding the voice outlet, yellow/black feeding the DSL modem jack.

It could be done with a single jack with an adapter plugged in...problem is these adapters all look like cheap junk that will just degrade the signal quality. Same for all the new wall outlets, actually. :/
I tried looking around for a good quality dual, or even single outlet wall plate but its hard to find good quality screw-down rj-11 outlets now. All the old Western Electric/Lucent or Automatic Electric/GTE stuff was astronomically expensive.

I think a better option for this application would be a Keystone jack. Some don't need a punch down tool, and the process to install the tooless jack will be very easy - place the wires in the holder as indicated by the color diagram, and push down the plastic flap:

»www.monoprice.com/Produc ··· format=2

The jacks snap into this wall plate:
»www.monoprice.com/Produc ··· format=2

So, in your case, one jack will get the green/red pair, the other the yellow/black.

I attached a diagram I made in paint showing the ideal setup for this. The outlet you intend to run DSL to is not daisy chained, correct? The line goes from the NID right to the outlet?

tl9
join:2005-05-23
MA

tl9

Member

said by Zenit_IIfx:

... To me, the best way to accomplish this would be a double jack - green/red pairs feeding the voice outlet, yellow/black feeding the DSL modem jack. ...

Not a good idea... BTDT. This will cause a lot of DSL disconnects caused by the interference from the voice pair--problem especially bad during the high-voltage ring tones from incoming calls. I ran a separate CAT-5E twisted-pair line from the splitter in the basement to a dedicated outlet on the 2nd floor home office for the DSL modem. FYI.

pjsutton
join:2013-06-25
Kempton, PA

pjsutton

Member

I am *assuming* it goes right to the NID. There are 3 wires at the NID and, actually, only 2 jacks in the house. I think one was removed during a kitchen remodel.

If I don't do any of this, and a tech comes for the install, what will they do? Would they charge me if they did that? Or could they just leave me filters and call it a day?

Zenit_IIfx
The system is the solution
Premium Member
join:2012-05-07
Purcellville, VA
·Comcast XFINITY

Zenit_IIfx to tl9

Premium Member

to tl9
That is interesting, I wonder how a dry loop can survive being surrounded not only by POTS circuits but also T-Carriers and other custom circuits the ILEC offers.
What kind of cabling was it that caused problems for you?

I agree that the best way is to run a dedicated line, but if the walls cant be torn open then your stuck.

If you have three wire cable, its definitely old telephone company cable - the third wire was used for the ringer (not sure of the specifics here).

A tech visit will definitely cost if they modify inside wiring, inside wiring is your responsibility since 1984's divestiture of Ma Bell and the sweeping changes that came with it. Its sounding like a new outlet with a new Cat5 to the NID + DSL Splitter would be best setup. How difficult would it be to run the cable? Do you have a basement? Is the office on the ground floor?

A quick way to run it would be through the floor next to the wall, and up into a RJ-11 biscuit, if that's acceptable for you. (If you have a drill)

wiggie116
Premium Member
join:2013-10-31
Pittsfield, MA
D-Link DSL-2750B
Actiontec GT784WN

1 edit

wiggie116 to pjsutton

Premium Member

to pjsutton
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this wire is old not sure how old, has green/red/yellow
Do you mean that you have (3) phone lines out to the NID. I see nothing wrong using yellow/black for data, and red/green for phone. However, if the phone wire you plan to use has a short then it can deffintley cause problems. It really is going to depend on the quality of the wire being used like tschmidt said.

If you only have 3 single wires in each phone line it's pretty old wiring.

tl9
join:2005-05-23
MA

tl9 to Zenit_IIfx

Member

to Zenit_IIfx
said by Zenit_IIfx:

... What kind of cabling was it that caused problems for you? ...

The standard 4-conductors (RGYB) telephone cable that has been in use during the 2nd half of the 20th century. The four wires are bundled together running adjacent to one another for the entire length of the cable. Running the DSL pair directly in contact with a voice pair is really not a good idea. The crosstalk interference from the voice pair simply kills the DSL connection. The DSL pair would encounter ~90VAC@20Hz ring voltage spikes from the voice pair, which overwhelm the DSL signals, thereby causing DSL disconnects. I even tried using two UTPs from the same CAT-5E cable for voice and DSL, but the interference was still too much. Separated the voice and DSL cable runs, and my DSL connection has been stable running at peak performance since then. You all are welcome to try running it together, but this was my personal experience from over ten years ago when DSL was first installed at my place.

Smith6612
MVM
join:2008-02-01
North Tonawanda, NY

Smith6612 to Zenit_IIfx

MVM

to Zenit_IIfx
Just take note that those Suttle xDSL splitters have 3dB of insertion loss. Frontier might have some higher quality units in stock that have 1dB of loss or less.

tschmidt
MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Consolidated Com..
·Republic Wireless
·Hollis Hosting

tschmidt to wiggie116

MVM

to wiggie116
said by wiggie116:

If you only have 3 single wires in each phone line it's pretty old wiring.

I'm not sure when the Bell system changed over to quad-four. In the 50s and 60s three conductor inside wiring was common. Yellow was terminated to Earth ground to provide selective ringing on two-party lines. Two subscribers were assigned to a single copper circuit. The ringer on one was Tip (Green) to ground the other was Ring (Red) to ground. That way only the proper called party would ring.

In rural areas 4 and 8 party lines were used.

I don't think party lines are even an option any more.

/tom

Zenit_IIfx
The system is the solution
Premium Member
join:2012-05-07
Purcellville, VA
·Comcast XFINITY

1 recommendation

Zenit_IIfx to tl9

Premium Member

to tl9
tl9: Something tells me that there was something wrong with that cable. After all, a DSL line travels a long way on huge copper cables with many other circuits that can cause interference. How could a dry loop even function if this was the case always?
Its just so odd to me. I do agree that individual separate runs are ideal, but that cant always be done.

Smith6612: Too bad the Suttle splitter has 3db loss. The newer TII ancillary splitter has only 1db loss but I cant find one under $50...I will look better later.

tschmidt: I know that C&P Telephone (Bell Operating Company in VA/MD/W.VA) retired its last party line in the mid-80's - it was in West Virginia. As far as I know Verizon does not offer party lines anywhere in its footprint. All of C&P Telephone was on electronic switching by 1990 - either WECO ESS or Nortel DMS. (If I recall C&P was the first RBOC to complete a 100% digital switching rollout).

I assume GTE/Contel took longer to retire their old party lines. After all, GTE still had some Step By Step panel switches in operation until the mid-90's, meanwhile the Bell's had moved entirely over to ESS, with some crossbar remaining.
Zenit_IIfx

Zenit_IIfx to pjsutton

Premium Member

to pjsutton
»www.amazon.com/95s-1-12- ··· 3&sr=1-2

Here we go. This is what VZ puts in NID's - I was at a friends house yesterday (they had DSL until recently) and in the NID was a TII splitter. Oddly enough they only had 1.5mbit even though their loop was literally 2000ft to the central office - the cost for them to get 15mbit with phone was the same as Comcasts offer of 30mbit, so they ditched the DSL.
Weeks after they switched a trash bag appeared on a splice case downstream from their terminal (its been there for months now) So it looks like that segment of copper plant is starting to fail - good timing for the switch!
/sorry for unrelated anecdote/

To install it neatly would involve access to the telco side of the NID as well as compatibility for the splitter to fit the slot, I know my old Keptel NID would not fit this as a proper line module, so it would have to be taped down or left dangling in the NID.

So, to avoid opening the telco side, you could attach the wires from the filter onto the terminals on the line module, and move the inside wiring over to the connections on the splitter, and find a way to fasten it to the NID.

This is if you choose to not have VZ come out, of course.

pjsutton
join:2013-06-25
Kempton, PA

1 edit

pjsutton

Member

So if they use that, does that mean you don't need separate jacks anymore? Or do you?

My NID has one of those. Or something that looks a lot like it, anyway... it says "contains half ringer" on the side. All 3 phone lines have their red and green wires going into it; the black and yellow are pulled back and nearly wrapped around the cord.

EDIT: Mine is model # 95S-1-01-0...

So, maybe we already have a splitter??