Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Denholm on August 01, 2008, 09:58:22 AM
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Hello there,
I have worked on this setup for some time pulling a decent 70-80 Kbps out of the line. Recently though I was feeling the need, the need for speed. So I figured that we were losing about 630 Kbps in our 100 foot long phone line which runs from the phone jack to our surge protector to our DSL modem. Now I recall that every 50 feet of line the speed of the signal degrades, or something to that effect. I also know that you can insert something every 50 feet to keep that signal fresh. The only problem I'm having is figuring out the name of that device.
So, my question. What is the name of the device used to "refresh and rejuvenate" the strength and speed of the signal which is inserted every 50 feet of phone line? Also - if you have used them - what is the brand you recommend?
Thanks in advance.
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Repeater.
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Repeater.
The is correct. However, where to get one is the next question. I couldn't find one to buy via googling other than a company out of England, but you had to call them to see what they had available.
I would call your phone company and see if they offer any.
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This may seem like an obvious question that you have already ruled out, but can't you move the DSL modem closer to the phone jack and put in an Ethernet link from there to the router/firewall? Ethernet gets repeated at every switch, and can handle 100 feet with no problem. Or is the DSL modem also the switch/router/firewall?
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Well, currently our computers along with the DSL modem are in what was once the dining room. There are no phone jacks here and the closest one is in our Kitchen. So we have a 100FT cable running along the bottom of counters, behind the refrigerator, and into the dining room where it enters the surge protector and then the DSL modem.
I was thinking about moving the DSL modem closer, there are only two problems:
1. Moving the DSL modem into the kitchen would not fit the decor.
2. We don't have the room to run two 50-100 FT CAT5 cables down the side of our counters, behind the refrigerator, then into the computers.
That is why I was asking for the name of the repeaters. So I will obviously ask the phone company if they have any.
Thank you so much for the assistance already provided. :aok
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Whats the next closest phone jack?
I'm sure there must be someplace you could put that modem where it would be a lot closer. Like on top of the fridge, or behind a breadbox, etc.
Run a single lan cord to the room where your computers are. Then go with a simple 5 port switch (hub).
That would let all computers that plug into the hub access the modem.
Also instead of going around the counters going up into the ceiling or down into the floor space might be a better answer. Lets you get it out of sight and possibly a more direct run, shorter distance.
I used to run a lan cable down to my daughters basement room. Opposite corners of the house and down one floor.
Took 75' of cable to get there, and I had no problems with it at all.
The other option of course would be to go wireless, but I can't say I'm a big fan of it.
However some people seem to get along fine with it.
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I was thinking about moving the DSL modem closer, there are only two problems:
1. Moving the DSL modem into the kitchen would not fit the decor.
2. We don't have the room to run two 50-100 FT CAT5 cables down the side of our counters, behind the refrigerator, then into the computers.
Not fitting the decor can be addressed with an appliance cover of some type. Or put it in the cupboard. Or make a bracket and mount it under a cupboard.
Only one 50-100 foot Cat5 cable is required. It plugs into a hub/switch in the dining room, which the PCs also plug into.
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If there are thousands of feet of twisted pair between your house and the nearest phone company facility (can't remember what they are called) then why would and extra 100 ft inside your house make any difference? I guess I don't understand how DSL works? I thought a hard wired phone line was just that- a separate piece of twisted pair line that runs all the way to the phone companies local office.
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If there are thousands of feet of twisted pair between your house and the nearest phone company facility (can't remember what they are called) then why would and extra 100 ft inside your house make any difference? I guess I don't understand how DSL works? I thought a hard wired phone line was just that- a separate piece of twisted pair line that runs all the way to the phone companies local office.
"I thought a hard wired phone line was just that- a separate piece of twisted pair line that runs all the way to the phone companies local office."... with repeater stations every now and then to help keep the signal strong.
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...Also instead of going around the counters going up into the ceiling or down into the floor space might be a better answer. Lets you get it out of sight and possibly a more direct run, shorter distance.
I used to run a lan cable down to my daughters basement room. Opposite corners of the house and down one floor.
Took 75' of cable to get there, and I had no problems with it at all...
I would LOVE to do this. Of course the problem is that my Father owns the house, and I don't. Obviously he's fine with the speed of the Internet, so he wouldn't want to mess with it.
I do appreciate the suggestions though and will take a few into consideration. Thanks again for the responses! :aok
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Alright, I just bought our family two new surge protectors with phone-line protection. One of the two will be used to place near our toaster (oh the irony) to protect the phone line. From there it will run about 30 feet to the new location of our DSL Modem. From the modem the CAT 5 cables will run to the computers. This should replace the need for a repeater.
Thanks for the simple solution guys.
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Alright,
So I bought all the supplies needed to move the DSL modem closer to the phone jack. Today I finally get it all hooked up so that the modem is on a 25FT Phone cable running towards the jack where it plugs into the DSL filter, into the surge-protector, and into the jack. Now one of my computers is on a 50FT Cat5e cable, the other on a 20FT Cat5e cable. The only difference between speeds when I was on the 100FT cable and now, 2 Kbps. That's right, I went from 75-80 Kbps to a guaranteed 82 Kbps out of 650-700 Kbps.
Any other suggestions? :(
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Check the wall jack the DSL modem plugs into. Make sure there is no dust|grit|corrosion on any of the little wires in there. If that doesn't fix it, you may want to call the phone company and have someone test the line. If it's an older house the wires from the outside of your house that run to their junction box could be bad.
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I'd like to run this past you guys before I run off and buy another 50FT CAT5e cable.
The AT&T support person I was talking to figures the problem lies with the CAT5 cables running behind my refrigerator. He claims the refrigerator causes EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) and to reverse it I need to move the modem and the cables 2 or more feet away from the refrigerator. I'm about to order another cable to do this, but before I do. Does this sound right to you? :huh
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How fast is that DSL line supposed to be? I have cable and I only get about 120 kps (on a good day). DSL is slower than cable. It sounds to me like you're already getting what you should out of it. Remember, 56K dial-up's probably only ~5kps.
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I'm supposed to get 768 Kbps and should be able to upload at 384 Kbps.
The speakeasy speed test reveals something similar. It says my download speed is 670 Kbps and my upload speed is 316 Kbps. Then when the test finishes it gives me this message:
Last Result:
Download Speed: 670 kbps (83.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 316 kbps (39.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
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The AT&T support person I was talking to figures the problem lies with the CAT5 cables running behind my refrigerator. He claims the refrigerator causes EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) and to reverse it I need to move the modem and the cables 2 or more feet away from the refrigerator.
Get a "shielded" cable. They shouldn't be too much more expensive and the twisted pairs are wrapped in fancy foil that removes or greatly lessens EMI. Not much you can do about a modem being too close, although I don't see why that would have any effect. Signals inside the modem itself aren't traveling that far.
EDIT: Earlier someone mentioned running CAT5 cable up/down between floors. Make sure you use specific non-wicking cable. Not only does it meet building codes, but regular CAT5 wrapping will burn quickly like a fuse up to the next floor of your house. Non-wicking is just that; it'll burn and puddle until it puts itself out.
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I'm supposed to get 768 Kbps and should be able to upload at 384 Kbps.
The speakeasy speed test reveals something similar. It says my download speed is 670 Kbps and my upload speed is 316 Kbps. Then when the test finishes it gives me this message:
Last Result:
Download Speed: 670 kbps (83.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 316 kbps (39.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
You have to realize, that though your plan says "768kb down and 384kb up" the fine print will say something like these speeds are not always obtainable or this is the maximum speed allowed. There are several major reasons for this. #1 Distance to your DSL probider's hub. #2 Distance/routing to the server you're testing to. #3 Traffic on the DSL providers network/backbone.
I use ATT DSL and pay for 3mb down and 768kb up. During peak traffic hours I use Charter Internet's speedtest website and will register 2.5-2.8mb down and 700kb up. At 3am I get maybe 3mb and 768kb. http://speedtest.charter.com
I've used Speakeasy's test before and always registered lower speeds than say when I could get from downloading a file from a different site. For me, the Charter test always seemed more accurate.
The variances you are getting Delholm are pretty small. If you were getting say 256 kbps speeds, I'd raise an eyebrow. I had a friend who moved to a new city and signed up for at the time Yahoo DSL. He was actually too far away from their hub (they didn't tell him) and his 1.5mb DSL service was as slow as dial-up.
I'm not so sure the EMI from the fridge is causing such an issue. It may, it's tough to say. I've ran cable through more EMI rich enviroments before with unshielded cable and didn't notice any real difference.
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Well I've confirmed that EMI isn't the issue. Its either on AT&T's end or whoever wired the house did it incorrectly. People next door (who also use AT&T) have Internet that's cheaper and they have speed 40x faster than mine. So its definitely not because I'm "out-of-range".
I'll call AT&T sometime asking them to come down and check the lines, because this is sickening. $50 a month for 82 Kbps. Absolutely pathetic.
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$50 for that? Why so much? I pay $30 for my 3mb DSL through ATT.
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We got the DSL a few years back when the company was still SBC. Apparently at the time DSL was just being installed in the area which meant the monthly charges would be higher. Still consulting with my Father to buy a new package from AT&T that gets us the Pro package for $35 a month.
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We got the DSL a few years back when the company was still SBC. Apparently at the time DSL was just being installed in the area which meant the monthly charges would be higher. Still consulting with my Father to buy a new package from AT&T that gets us the Pro package for $35 a month.
If you sign up online I believe the prices are $5 cheaper. So pro is $30, not $35. However, this may be to new customers (like I was) and you're technically transferring to a new plan. You may be able to talk India down to $30.
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Tried, however when I go to the "transfer" portion of their website to buy their Pro Internet Package, it says it can't locate a DSL account on our telephone number, although it did earlier when I was registering as a new customer. :confused:
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Alright. So now I've resolved the bill issue. I'll wait until the service switches to have AT&T check the lines.
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I'm about to order another cable to do this, but before I do. Does this sound right to you? :huh
To solve the problem you have to know what/where the problem is. Plug your DSL modem into your phone jack (the one which is closest to the place where your line comes into house) with the shortest possible cable.
Connect your modem and PC with shortest possible patch cable. Test your conection/speed. If it's significantly higher, then your cabling from phone jack all the way to PC, sucks.
If it's about the same, then either you're too far from the main office, or your house phone cabling is bad.
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I'm supposed to get 768 Kbps and should be able to upload at 384 Kbps.
The speakeasy speed test reveals something similar. It says my download speed is 670 Kbps and my upload speed is 316 Kbps. Then when the test finishes it gives me this message:
Last Result:
Download Speed: 670 kbps (83.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 316 kbps (39.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Nothing wrong with that. 670 Kbps + overhead = slightly less than advertised 768 Kbps.
You're seeing the problem where there isn't any...
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...or your house phone cabling is bad.
That sounds about right. Because if you had read the entire thread you would've noticed that I went from a 100FT phone line to a 25FT phone line. After running a speed test the only difference was our Internet speed increasing by 2 Kbps.
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That sounds about right. Because if you had read the entire thread you would've noticed that I went from a 100FT phone line to a 25FT phone line. After running a speed test the only difference was our Internet speed increasing by 2 Kbps.
Judging by your speed test you don't have any problems.
Your advertised speed is in kilobits per second. 768 kbps to be exact. That's where your modem is capped at.
The way how DSL works, you have certain overhead. Usually ATM + PPoE + TCP/IP. With PPPoE your combined overhead would be about 15%. Without about 13%, so max data transfer (payload) would be about 87% in best case.
The speed shown on your speed test is pure data throughput without overhead.
Your result shows 670 kilobits per second, which is slightly over 87% of your advertised 768 kilobits per second.
That means your connection is nearly perfect.
As for "83.8 KB/sec transfer rate", that's your speed in kilobytes. 1 byte is 8 bits. 670 / 8 = 83.75 or 83.8
KB=kilobyte
kb = kilobit
You don't have any problems. Don't bug AT&T support. Let them use that time to help people who really need support.
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Ah, never knew that. And to make you feel better. I never asked them to come out and perform a line-test. I was going to wait until they switched us to the new servers this Monday, run a speed test, and if the results are similar (speed is slower, much slower than advertised) I would ask them to come out and check the lines to find the problem.
Well, thanks for the information. :aok
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The problem is when people use the abbreviations. It's hard to tell any more if people really know the difference between b and B. Makes helping on a forum somewhat more of a task. :D Sorry I didn't realize you were confused sooner.
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Well, now I know. Thanks again guys.
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Alright guys, so it turns out there was never a problem, yet in a way, there was. When I contacted AT&T recently because we were not getting anything close to advertised speed they mentioned there were some errors occurring between them and my DSL modem. After a little chatting the AT&T guy asked me to unplug the phone-cable from any DSL Filters and any surge-protectors plugging the line directly into the DSL Modem (The DSL modem doesn't require the line to be filtered). Afterwards he ran another line test at his end and no errors were returned. Afterward he could successfully boost our Internet speed an extra 1,000 Kilobits per second increasing my download rate another 100 KBps.
He also explained to me that the DSL signal is a very high-frequency signal traveling through the phone-cable. And when it reaches the surge protector the high frequency appears more like a spike than an Internet signal. So the surge protector will suppress the signal degrading the line signal.
All is well, and just some info for you 2bighorn. I never asked them to come out and look at it. :)
Thanks for all your help guys. :D