dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
761
brosio
join:2001-10-20
Mississauga, ON

brosio

Member

how to measure your distance from co

Hello

Does anyone know if there is a site that you can enter your phone # or postal code which will tell you how far you are from the CO.

I was thinking of going ultra hse, but want to know if I am within the 2.5 km.

Brosio
zwjohn
join:2002-07-02
Scarborough, ON

zwjohn

Member

I think there is no way u can tell that,because even bell technical support cant tell.I applied ultra and they checked my range with their tool and their tool said I was in the range.But when they switched me to ultra then I found out that my speed actually decreased to download 450kbps only.So I called then they spent 4 days and tell me that I am too far from their CO.I really wish there is a bell CO map available for people to check their distance.
And it looks like no ISP can offer me 3MB service since bell cant.
What a pity!

Buck Fush
Great Minds With Great Debts.
join:2001-02-24

Buck Fush to brosio

Member

to brosio
only Nexxia people can tell you the real distance, maybe off by a few feet but it will be real close.
neeloy
join:2002-03-08
North Las Vegas, NV

neeloy to brosio

Member

to brosio
I can tell you the real distance and I don't work for Nexxia.
monster_13
join:2002-06-12
Edmonton, AB

monster_13 to brosio

Member

to brosio
Even if you have a map of where the CO is, you can only get a rough approximation of the distance. The cables don't travel as the crow flies and may actually take a very round-about way to reach your house. The only way to tell for sure is to get a cable make up which can only be done by the ILECs. (They have the cable records). Distance is only one factor in determining the speed, even if you are really close things such as bridge taps, cable gauge, # or cable changes, type of drop cable, AM radio interference, etc. will all have an effect on your speed.
neeloy
join:2002-03-08
North Las Vegas, NV

neeloy

Member

Yup, I know all that, even then I can tell you exactly how long a phone line running from your house to the closest CO will be. As long as you are in and around the GTA.

You would also be surprised how little those other factors affect a DSL line on a 1.5 Meg service because the line actually has enough bandwidth for so much more. Plus load coils and bridge taps can be removed by Bell at a charge. In either case a very simple test with a Fluke line tester can tell the DSL installer what the maximum speed the line will carry is.

Exit

join:2001-04-10
Canada

Exit to brosio

to brosio
said by brosio:
Hello

Does anyone know if there is a site that you can enter your phone # or postal code which will tell you how far you are from the CO.

I was thinking of going ultra hse, but want to know if I am within the 2.5 km.

Brosio
Just get a long tape measure and go for a walk. Its to bad that sympatico users site is gone. They had a list of all the CO locations

Steve
monster_13
join:2002-06-12
Edmonton, AB

monster_13 to neeloy

Member

to neeloy
Those factors can play a huge, I mean HUGE factor is DSL service (especially AM radio interference, cable gauge and gauge changes).

BTW, how do you know the cable lengths?

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt to neeloy

Premium Member

to neeloy
said by neeloy:

You would also be surprised how little those other factors affect a DSL line on a 1.5 Meg service because the line actually has enough bandwidth for so much more. Plus load coils and bridge taps can be removed by Bell at a charge. In either case a very simple test with a Fluke line tester can tell the DSL installer what the maximum speed the line will carry is.
Can any measurement be done with an oscilloscope to determine anything. I was told by bell that I don't qualify for even 1mbit DSL, and I'm in the middle of freakin Scarborough! Ridiculous.
monster_13
join:2002-06-12
Edmonton, AB

monster_13

Member

Your chances of measuring the through put with a 'scope are very slim (unless you have a few Ph.Ds in physics and EE!)

TELUS (and I am assuming BELL) techs have DSL test sets (sunrise, cable shark etc) that will give them an estimate of the possible train rate. Good test sets can even tell you the number of bits/bin and then calculate an estimate for your speed.

Of course I don't think they will send out a tech making $30/hour to test you line unless you plan on spending some $$!
mikelov
join:2002-07-10
L'Ile-Perrot, QC

mikelov to brosio

Member

to brosio
I read the following in the "distance" chat a while back,

check it out if you have a multimeter laying around!

Michel

------------

A quick estimate of your distance to your CO can be had by shorting the tip/ring phone wires with a handheld multimeter set to measure a DC milliamp current. Your phone is a current operated device. The father away you are the smaller the current you will read. A typical phone line will present to you with 20 to 60 milliamps of current. This current gives you a distance estimate:

Typical Phone @ 50.4 volts, 400 ohm source, 2x20 fuses
---------------------
Current (mAmp) 75 60 51 44 39 35 31 28 26 24 23 21
Distance (Kfeet) 03 05 07 09 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25

Current is short circuit current between tip and ring
Distance is in thousands of feet to your CO

Modern phones may well be current limited at 40 milliamps even though the actual distance to the CO is less than 10 Kft. By this table, currents below 25 milliamps are bad news for getting DSL service. Currents above 35 milliamps indicate you probably can get DSL.

This kind of distance table is based on measuring the DC resistance of your line. See the Distance Confusion discussion (this forum) for a discussion of a more detailed way to inspect your line for distance.

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt

Premium Member

Well, according to my multimeter, my phoneline's current is 35mA, 50.9 vDC. So looking at that chart, that's 13,000 feet, which equals to 3.96km, enough for 1mbit DSL service, which bell says the limit is 4.5km. And Bell tells me that I can't even get 1mbit DSL. So who is right? Bell or my multimeter? hehe... I will measure my work's phone line tomorrow, which has Bell Business 3000/640 DSL service.
monster_13
join:2002-06-12
Edmonton, AB

monster_13 to mikelov

Member

to mikelov
This is a way for a "rough" measurement, but is still not that accurate for the actual distance, especially since you can't adjust for different wire gauges.

what I was wondering is how neeloy can tell the distances!

Bender2000
Bite My Shiny Metal Ass
Premium Member
join:2002-05-06
J7W 8E4

Bender2000

Premium Member

I'd be very interested in knowing how to get an accurate distance assessment. I guess only Bell knows these things. I would imagine that they have no system setup to allow public access of this which is too bad.

kevmetric
Competition, Open And Free Markets
join:2002-01-15

kevmetric to brosio

Member

to brosio
I think there may be some misconceptions about
distance, and availability.

For example, if you sign to HSE, and are too
far away from the C.O., what you could do
is move over to the cheaper plan, called
Sympatico DSL Basic. The modem will sync @
the greater distance, considering what's
in the text books, in regards to frequency
adjustments. The closer to the CO, the higher
the frequency, which means more cycles, more
speed, more data. The sync is done at the high
cycle rate, such as 3 mbit/sec, 1 mbit/sec, or
eventually, 128 kbps. The sync rate desired
determines the frequency or cycle used.

Therefore, if you can't get HSE (sync @ 1mbit/sec)
form having a dwelling too far, surely you can
sync @ DSL Basic, on the larger, slower frequency
(sync @ 128kbp/s).

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt

Premium Member

Yeah well I dont want to stoop that low and go to 128k speeds. Heck if I was gonna pay $30/month for 128k access with 1GB cap, i think i'd kill myself. I'd rather surf on free dialup. I'll just stick with Rogers, heck i've got no other choice for broadband!!!!

kevmetric
Competition, Open And Free Markets
join:2002-01-15

kevmetric to brosio

Member

to brosio
If you're long enough on 1 mbit/sec DSL,
reverting to 56k DSL means shutting down
your multimedia facilities on your computer.

Your 1 ghz CPU, 600 RAM, GeForce 32 RAM, 19 inch
monitor ... 5 piece speaker 3D system becomes
obsolete from one minute to the next.

You may as well load MS-DOS 6.22 or win 3.11
and a Pentium I 16 RAM with 2 MB color card
if you're on dialup. It's that bad ! And while
you're at it, put back the 8 bit soundblaster
pro, 800 x 600 monitor, and $12 speakers.

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt

Premium Member

Well exactly, that's why i'll just stick with Rogers... my line is capped at 1500/192, i get about 1400/185 on a good day, dips as low as 1000/150 sometimes. I had 2400/384 before they blatantly reduced the speeds without telling anyone. I guess i'll just keep bitching and complaining, thats what all Rogers subscribers do anyway heheheh.

mbob
@igs.net

mbob to Buck Fush

Anon

to Buck Fush
line length has nothing to do with nexxia

nexxia barely exists anymore

isplewser
@aei.ca

isplewser to brosio

Anon

to brosio
I saw like 2 years ago a detailed map on web showing all COs in Montreal and some other places by white dots, I can't remember now where was the address but maybe it a way to see how far you are from your CO.
neeloy
join:2002-03-08
North Las Vegas, NV

neeloy to monster_13

Member

to monster_13
said by monster_13:
what I was wondering is how neeloy can tell the distances!
At Futureway Communications we have a database of how long a new phone line run to your house from the nearest CO would be. When a customer asks for DSL availability we don't check using phone numbers and the Nexxia database, but rather by address. This way a number thats either not been updated or a phone line that has been routed funny doesn't matter to us as we know the true distance from the CO to the customers house/business. Also we offer both ADSL and SHDSL service and co-locate our Cisco DSLAMs in the COs, allowing us to serve customers up to 7 kms away from the CO and at speeds up to 2M/2M symmetric.

There's a little bit of background on me! BTW, welcome to DSLR!
monster_13
join:2002-06-12
Edmonton, AB

monster_13

Member

And I assume that you got that database from Bell? So you basically have a set of there cable records to compare too right?

Do you also have information about wire gauges, where the gauge changes are and bridge taps?

quanta
Premium Member
join:2002-05-07
Toronto, ON

quanta

Premium Member

If neeloy did, I'd imagine it would be confidential. There are some good reasons why.
neeloy
join:2002-03-08
North Las Vegas, NV

neeloy to monster_13

Member

to monster_13
Yes it is confidential, when I put in a address, I get back the circuit number, distance to CO and which of our services the customer qualifies for. Its actually a pretty good system and only fails when Bell makes changes to the circuit after we have provisioned it. The database is located on our servers and updated from Nexxia.