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From: casey@gauss.llnl.gov (Casey Leedom)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: Help: My telco has mid and high frequency loss
Message-ID: <89180@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 11 Jan 91 03:10:11 GMT
References: <88953@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <17323@cbmvax.commodore.com>
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Reply-To: casey@gauss.llnl.gov (Casey Leedom)
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| From: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins)
| 
| >   The other possible source of these problems is the house wiring.  The
| > wiring in the house is very old, untwisted aluminum 3-pair.
| 
| I'd find it really weird if it was aluminum and not tinned copper...

  Believe it.  We've scraped away at it and it just stays silver all the
way to the other side.  I suppose it could be silver (very doubtful), but
it really doesn't bend like silver.  It has a tendency more to break than
bend very well which makes it extremely difficult to deal with.

| You can replace the wire if you want, but I wouldn't be too optimistic
| about improvements.

  I'm not.  But we really want to put service all over the house, run a
net, etc., so I may as well just replace the trash.  It certainly can't
hurt my performance!

| > 4.	We're thinking of running twisted copper 6-pair throughout the
| > 	house to accommodate future expansion with an Ethernet, AppleTalk
| > 	net, and up to three phone lines.  Does anyone see any problem
| > 	with cross talk doing this?
| 
| Shouldn't be too much a problem, although you might hear some "digital"
| noise in your phone due to pick up of "RF" signals from the network
| stuff.  If this happens you can treat it the same way you would CB or Ham
| Radio pickup.

  Uhmmm, what's the way one would treat CB or Ham Radio pickup?  Sorry to
be so dense.

| I'd suggest complaining to the telco in terms they can understand.  Tell
| them that the volume is too low or there's ugly static any time it rains.

  Actually I tried that and then ended up admitting that I was looking to
improve my modem service.  As I mentioned in my first posting, my
experience with PacBell technicians has been outstanding.  The guy that
came out to investigate my claim of weak voice service tried his hardest
to do something, but he couldn't find any way to do a frequency sweep
loss test.  Apparently they used to have a number, PREFIX-0027, that
would produce a 0DB frequency sweep, but they discontinued that number.
Now all they've got is PREFIX-0020 which produces a 1004Hz tone at 0DB
which isn't much help.  A friend of mine who's been in the telco business
forever claims that they have to have a way to test the frequency
response of their loops and so the Central Office is probably just trying
to keep the facility a secret so they don't have to fix lines that are
showing low service.

| They might either install a booster amp or give you a different circuit.
| This *might* help.  On the other hand, you just might be so far from the
| central office that this is all the quality you're going to get.

  This is what I'm afraid of.  The service technician who came out said
that he could install some kind of passive device on the outside of my
house but that it would hurt my modem service rather than improve it.
(This was several weeks ago and my memory is fading.  Sorry I can't
remember the correct terms here.)  He also said I'm on one of the better
(newer) exchanges.  I think I'm on a digital switch at the central office
and the alternative is to be on some old analog equipment.  Unfortunately
I just can't really remember what was what any more though.

Casey