OK, so I've become increasing infuriated with satellite internet. My CO was recently upgraded with a DSLAM, but I have a new dilemma with the wire length test. DSL Reports lists me at about 12,300 feet from the CO. When I drive to it, I get a similar number. When Verizon runs the wire length test, they get 19,200 feet (just past the 18,000 maximum wire length for DSL). I know this test is wire miles, not crow-flies miles, but I'm curious where in the hell the extra mile and a half of wire is running on this line. So I have a couple issues I'd like to resolve, but it's f*cking MADDENING working through the phone company.

1) Is it possible to get a phone company to reveal their wire diagram for the poles?

2) Given that diagram, assuming there is, say, one mile-and-a-half offshoot of the line, is it possible to pay to have that section bridged over to get a more direct line to the CO?

3) If so, is this so expensive as to be a non-option?

4) The max limit of DSL is 18,000 feet. What happens past that? I know signal to noise goes up quickly. Does anyone know how quickly? Will DSL just stop working at 18,000 or is there some distance past where you just lose performance -- or is the assumption that at 18,000 the signal has degraded so much as to be unusable or not beneficial? Assuming you just start to get signal degradation at 18,000, is it possible to sign a waiver and have DSL installed anyway? Honestly anything past 56k with a decent ping time would make me happy -- surely even a noisy DSL line can pull this off at 19,200 right?

Signed.
Desperate in VA

Greetings!

What little I know about phone companies (I work for a major US Phone and Telegraph company) is that your answers are:

1) No. Although you could trace the poles out and map them. You extra distance is more likely spare loops around the poles, in the central office or POP.

2) No. The might be able to give you a different number, but they will not likely be able to tie it from another central office or POP. If they did, it would also change your local exchange, making local calls no longer local...

3) Unknown, but I would suspect it would take them over one year to figure out how to bill you properly if they tried...

4) I suspect that the noise gets you. As you reach the maximum, the bandwidth out of that DSL line degrades. The further out you are (not necessarily beyond that limit) the lower your achievable bandwidth is. If you are that close to the line, at best you will be able to get the very minimum they can certify. Your usable bandwidth might only be slighly better than a standard 56K modem...

Sorry if I seem a little cynical about phone companies...

Over here in the UK some frustrated people have spent years trying to get details out of BT (UK telco) about line length, noise figures, etc. I think a few of them convinced BT to send an engineer to do a test on their lines (as opposed to simply stating the rule book) although I think the tests confirmed the theory.

In reply to:

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Sorry if I seem a little cynical about phone companies...

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I spent 3 days on the phone with Verizon being bounced around to thirteen (THRTEEN!) different departments (including two interactions that promised a callback and never did) to try and find the one that handled residental ISDN for my area. The correct phone number for the department that handles it had me on hold waiting for a human for seven hours. SEVEN HOURS. There is no need to apologize for being cynical about the phone company, because you're not really a cynic, you're a realist. They're completely retarded. Verizon is a beautiful case study in why monopolies are a bad thing. I have NEVER had Verizon process a request properly the first time. It's always a nice customer service rep who tells me that everything is taken care of and they proceed to set my request on fire and drop it in the trashcan. It's like the entire company is out to f*ck with me. There is no company that makes me more mad. OK, well, maybe Direcway -- they're duking it out for first and second place.

ms

This is actually my next stage of my journey that I begin on Monday. I have heard that it's possible to have an engineer verify the database and the line length tests. I, of course, am looking forward to engaging in this process -- I can't see how it could possibly make me angry, frustrated, or annoyed. </sarcasm>

ms

I know of people next door to each other, from the same pole getting line loss levels just inside and outside the limits. Similar for line length - one guy got his neighbour behind him to have a new line installed and run a slightly illegal extension down their garden to his house.

The maximum line length for the UK is 6km = 19,685ft. I think over about 5km you get RADSL where the upload is limited to 128kbps or something.

Gareth

One of the difficulties is that, beyond a certain loop length, extra devices are added to the wires to boost the basic telephone service signals, and those devices essentially kill any hope of DSL..

Cheers

Welcome to Verizon. They're [censored] useless. They advertise on the radio in Harrisburg about how they're so wonderful so the state doesn't bust their monopoly, yet for the money they spend on one [censored] ad they could drop a $6000 (in 1998, I bet it's less now) DSL remote terminal in a vault and service remote households. And I know they have the vault, their techs told me so when the T1 that's no longer active was installed.

There are similare things with Telstra here. There is one street in the middle of town which can't get DSL because the developers thought they'd be trendy and put Fibre in the street. DSL will not go thru it. They cant even lobby Telstra because according to the system, that suburb has DSL.
We had a series of electrical storms two months ago. They have only just cleared their repair queue. And they needed to get extra techs in from two other states.
We have had numerous occations where we have been advised that a service is connected only to find that we need to lodge a fault immediately. When the tech goes to the exchange, we get told that the line was jumpered incorrectly.

I dont think you'll have any success lobbying the telco. If there are people in your area who need dsl also, start a petition.

I'm an ADSL Coach here in the UK. That means I deal with all the people who scream to OFCOM or the CEO's office about not being able to get ADSL.

Here in the UK we don't measure line length, we measure line loss in dB, currently it's set at 65dB, that is about 5.8-6km on most lines, anything after 45dB is RADSL wich means the Upstream bandwidth can drop to 128k, but on most lines stays at 256.

It's unlikley that your telco will show you any plans for their network, for security reasons. Here in the UK we have a half way point in the network, most of the time each cable feeding this has a different dB loss, this is why two neighbors can have different results.

It's my job to sort these problems out, although some people are just too far away, just ask boxer

Cheers

Cris.

Cris, maybe you can answer this question. Who does the actual throttling of line speed on UK ADSL? Is it BT at the exchange or is it under the control of your end provider?

some people are just too far away

Mentally or geographically?

It depends which product you are talking about...

IPStream - Normal ADSL (BT Yahoo! Freeserver, AOL etc...) throttling of the service is done in the data build on the ADSL Rack for 500, 1000 or 2000 product speeds. There isn't a rack for each product they are mixed in together, but each port on the rack is setup for each order and throttled to the correct speed.

DataStream - BT provided the SP a "pipe" up to 2Mbps and the SP does the throttling, Tiscali use this for most of their products at the moment, it allows the SP's to offer the 128kbps service over DSL technology. It also allows Bulldog to change the speed of the service though the day/night depending on how much you pay.

Currently 2Mbps is the fastest you can go, although I understand that if you are in a LLU (Local Loop Unbundled) exchange in London, Bulldog will give you upto 8Mbps!!! I guess you'd have to be on the doorstep of the exchange for that to work

Cheers

Cris.

I'd recommend checking out DSL Reports. They have a CO Distance calculator, and a ton of useful information regarding DSL and other broadband solutions.

You should be able to at least get iDSL. I believe it goes out to something like 26000-27000 ft. I had it before when I was ~ 21000 ft out; not the greatest speed, but better than dial up.

Edit: Next time I'll read your post more carefully and see that you've already been to DSL Reports. That's what I get for reading the board at 4 AM. Speaking of which, I should be in bed...

BT apparently have two new initiatives regarding ADSL. One of them is for when your neighbour can get ADSL but you can't because of the limits.

Cris,

As you're in the know.
Have you heard anything about when the VDSL rollout might start?
I was at a BT R&D site late last year and they were telling me 3-4 years, but I thought that might be a little optimistic of them.

Thanks

Just dredging up an old thread...

For the broadbandless UK folk among us. It looks like BT claim they can get 10km range on their ADSL products now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3642199.stm

Yeah, I saw that news. Excellent for those just outside the current limits but infuriating for those about to discover they are just outside the *new* limits!

Gareth

In related news, Verizon just announced that they are still the most retarded company in the US.