Satellite > HughesNet Satellite > Victory is mine!

reply to FightingBlue

Re: Victory is mine!

Siryak,

A lot of it has to go with luck. DSL only goes so far, period. As far as I know there are no boosters or repeaters, etc. Luck mostly meaning where you live, how the lines are routed, and the condition of the lines.

But, often a subscriber's line can be routed a shorter distance by tying into free lines between different junction boxes between the residence and the DSLAM.

More often unloading a line means removing lines that tee off to nowhere , maybe an old old party line. The technical name is a Bridge Tap. Just like a dead end spur line off a railroad. They were very common in the party line days or if you want a phone to ring on the same number in two houses. Some times they would get put in for laziness to activate a new line but leave the one final destination there.

These Bridge Taps cause an echo on the line. Very slight considering the speed of light over a thousand feet or so but enough that the echo is enough out of phase with the real DSL signal it reduces it in amplitude.

So some times you hear them say Condition a line, Unload a line (usually means removing all bridge taps built up over the years), you will it called sweeping and cleaning a line.

Plus like is said sometimes they can find free pairs to reroute a line through a shorter distance, from junction box to another. And if they find more than one free pair, they will sweep each one as some are better than other's.

If they can do this, remove Bridge Taps, Maybe find a short path through the junction boxes and maybe find a better pair between the junctions, they can sometimes at least offer someone 256K or 512K DSL.

Some times you are even a little past that and some telcos will allow a hook up if you agree that errors are just going to happen, you might only get 128 to 156 K range then they might put it in.

Just talking to sales in most cases won't work. You have to put in an order, ask them if the line can be Conditioned and you would be willing to take anything you get.

Good luck. Because 1/2 mile is a long way from barely too far. The good news is if your telco puts in DSL2, which will add a couple thousand feet to most connections.
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| Speedstream 4200 Modem - 3m/386 plan | W98-W2KSP4-XPSP2 - All AMD | Buffalo WHR G54S with OpenWRT WR0.9 | 2 downstream switches feeding 5 total clients (no wireless)|

O well I am 4.5 miles from the hub, so they probably couldn't get it short enough. TY for the info anyway.
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Wildblue Pro Pack / Beam 40 / Laredo NOC / Windows MCE SP2

reply to snowman41
"Any words of wisdom as to how you got the phone company off their butts?"

It's mostly thanks to one really good tech who thought that it should be possible to get it working out here. He personally de-loaded my line, then fixed the wiring (taps) in several places to get a signal out to me. Very dedicated, and he single-handedly saved me as a customer for them.

"Did you have to pay them to unload the line?"

I suppose you might say that, since I've been paying for the DSL service for several months (under a deal where I got $45 a month off my satellite TV service), but otherwise no, I just called up customer support and kept harassing them until they sent someone out.

"Who's providing the dsl? A third party?"

Nope, the local phone company (Frontier Comm). They seem to have pretty loose limits as to how far they'll sell their DSL services.

Siryak; don't rule it out. I'm something ridiculous like 5 miles from the CO, but I've still got service. It really depends on the lines and the system. Lots of factors.

reply to Piggie
Piggie,

I thought unloading the line was removing the load coil(s) that were originally added to get the voice signals to go further? Those are death to DSL because they act as a low pass filter and destroy the high frequency DSL signals...