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  • #3937498

    Questionable home internet installation

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    by treyhogue1 ·

    I am a journeyman electrician but I do mostly industrial work so I don’t have much knowledge with home WiFi. My in-laws internet doesn’t work very well and they told me that the internet provider used their old phone line as the Ethernet cable in their house. I brought some cat 6e and was gonna pull a better wire from their box outside but I found that from the pole to the house they only used one pair out of the cable and only one pair from there into the house. Is it normal for an internet provider to only use one pair? And does an old telephone line suffice as an Ethernet cable or should that be replaced anyways? Help me out IT guys.

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    • #3939605
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      No ISP I know of uses such and calls it Ethernet.

      by rproffitt ·

      In reply to Questionable home internet installation

      Two wires makes me think this is DSL. Nod to https://homex.com/ask/how-many-wires-does-dsl-use

      DSL can be quite dated and slow but is usually cheap. Users that have broadband cable or such may think DSL “doesn’t work very well” but it’s just slow.

    • #3939604

      Depends where you are and what type of Connection

      by oh smeg ·

      In reply to Questionable home internet installation

      But Yes it is common to use a 1 Pair Cable Set over old Phone Lines, in Australia on the National Broadband network with the Fibre to the Node they have just used the existing Phone Lines from the Nodes in the Burbs to the house for the National Broadband Connection and this limits the speeds possible.

      Here they actually ran new Copper Cables up the street and retained the Old Cables from the Junction Boxes on the street to the interior of the dwellings. I have an old Lead Coated Cable here with a 2 pair wire set with Paper Insulation using 1 pair and it can deliver 100 MBS max which is the fastest possible using this type of Technology.

      Of course here we have different Speeds on the NBN and when you buy it they deliver the Basic Speed Tier of 25 MBS no matter the type of connection you have from Fibre to the Node through to Full Fibre into the house. What they do not tell many here is that they have various Speed Tiers which you can buy to suit your one needs up to I Gig Per Second but that required Fibre into the House which you can of course pay to have installed however it’s anything but cheap.

      Even replacing that Old Lead Covered Paper Insulated Cable is quite a bit of money and after taking over 5 months to get connected tot he NBN I’ve just replaced all the cable from the access point in the house so it has CAT 6E everywhere from the first access point and I’m not planning on touching that Lead Cable as it is very fragile and the paper is now decades old so I’m not expecting it to be overly good. Of course till it fails all together it stays put so I’m leaving it alone and hoping for the best because once they start to dig up the yard things get messy very quickly.

      If they where going to run Fibre through I wouldn’t mind so much and probably would help then dig the trenches but for a 2 pair copper cable I do not see it being worth the effort but maybe that’s just me.

      The thing to look at is what Speed Tier they have and what is possible from their ISP.

      Even on the Hybrid Network that used prior to the NBN they ran Fibre up the poles and from the Pole to the House they used 50 Ohm Coax through at least 2 junctions to their Modem/TV Box or whatever and that was limited to 100 MBS as well and then the Phone System ran ADSL2 which while faster than Dial Up was considerably slower than what you could get on the then Newer HFC Network.

      Hope that helps some.

    • #3939601
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      ADSL

      by kees_b ·

      In reply to Questionable home internet installation

      Speed for ADSL depend on the distance from the telephone exchange. The greater the distance, the lower the speed.

      Before doing anything, run a speedtest and compare the results both with the speed they pay for and the speed with their neighbours using the same phone line. If they pay for 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload and that is what they get, there is nothing to complain about.

      If not good, contact the ISP and the phone company (might be the same) to see if it’s reasonable, given the location. If not they should check the connection and fix it if it’s bad. No need to do it yourself, no need to pay anything.

      If they have a good 3G, 4G or 5G signal for their smartphone where they live, consider using that for Internet access in stead of a wired connection (ADSL or cable).

    • #4014463

      Reply To: Questionable home internet installation

      by john.lauwss ·

      In reply to Questionable home internet installation

      Do you think that insulation can actually affect the signal? I did a renovation in my house not so long ago, and now there’s something wrong with my Wi-Fi connection.

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