It's been over a DECADE..why no DSL...

[Evil Tony]

...in my area?

You'd think we'd have it by now?

What's the issue that some people just can't get it...you'd think with all the fancy techno stuffwe have...how come some of us STILL cannot get it?

[Trooper110]

DSL is based off of how far you are away from the nearest router for the DSL, which I believe is about a 3 mile radius. Not sure if they need to do anything special with the lines or not, although I do know they need special stuff to terminate the lines, we had a horrible signal at my parents when they first got DSL because the phone company forgot to cap the line at the end of the road and the signal was bouncing all over everywhere. Also with the range limits I assume they need to install repeaters along the lines to boost the signal back to the base station, which may require more money than they want to spend to bring it to a low impact area. It's also not as fast as cable in most instances, or as reliable, at least in my area.

[paceman]

DSL is based off of how far you are away from the nearest router for the DSL, which I believe is about a 3 mile radius.

What Trooper110 said.

[Evil Tony]

DSL is based off of how far you are away from the nearest router for the DSL, which I believe is about a 3 mile radius.

What Trooper110 said.

Anyone else?

[juneau]

What connection do you currently have?

[WalkinTarget]

3 miles, or 18,000 feet, whichever comes first ! Note that this is not 'as the crow flies', its as the wire runs, so you can have a local DSL office test your distance from what is known as as 'central office', or a C.O. in their parlance.

The DSL service can tell you how far you are from that C.O. and they will give you some misinformation if you dig too deep as well, simply because its not their policy (at least in Verizon's case) to give estimates on when your area will see DSL access.

I've done the DSL dance every time I've moved or had an initial hookup, and it is far from a painless experience in my opinion and experiences. I'll try and keep it short, but you don't really get their attention until you start asking about DSLAMS and load coils, so continue to pester them until you get accurate judges on your line length and availability.

[-IRC-MIKE]

They base the need for DSL technology in certain areas by the demand of customer requests. That is why certain areas get it before others. Also there are some areas where DSL may never reach, and others it will be a long time.

DSL does not work through repeaters or load coils. Someone mentioned they had crappy dsl service because of capped lines. What happened there was there was what we call "bridge tap" where the phone lines branch off down different streets... like a T out from the main lines. Every bridge tap causes a reflection on an oscilliscope and can be measured in feet from the tested location. Each of these has to be dug up, sometimes under highways and such, and usually take longer to do due to getting permits from the DOT and what not. Regardless, they have to go spend money to have the roads, ditches, and streets dug up just to cut off all the bridge tap so that your copper pair goes directly to your home, and doesn't bridge down another street.

DSL Works 18000 feet from the central office, but I have installed it up to 24,000 feet and had it working on a new cable where there were no bad sections or bridgetaps in the cable. There are small boxes (about 6 feet high and 10 feet wide..sometimes less) usually up to 6 miles from the central office called 'Slick Sites' (SLC96 and other type remote terminals) which are basically mini-COs or mini-central offices. There has to be a DSLAM which is another box that has to be installed beside these mini COs so that the dsl can be bridged into the lines. These are expensive and are usually not implemented until it is cost effective due to the demand for the service. The DSLAM is a remote terminal usually within six feet of the SLC site (subscriber loop carrier) or 'slick site' and has a fiber optic cable placed (usually there is an extra one in the SLC site) which is used to connect directly from the DSLAM to the internet backbone through various hubs.

Some customer residences lie outside the boundaries for any type of service and satellite is the only way to go. It is nearly impossible to play high speed games on these type services since the upload speeds are not effective or even near what the upload speeds of a hard wired connection are.

A friend of mine has a 1.5mb satellite connection, but his actual upload speed never goes above 9.5kb/s and usually varies from 5-9. In a similar setup with a hard wired connection you would get an actual download speed of 150 kb/s (give or take a few) and and upload speed of around 28k give or take. Weather plays a large factor in sattelite service, obviously, and not being able to get dsl service in certain areas is just something that some people have to face, currently.

P.S. I was a DSL specialist for 10 years.

[mapes]

Thanks Mike I was just about to mention DSLAMs.


However I think Covad has a service that supplies some sort of extender so if your a thousand feet short or so of the CO they can hook you up...however it aint cheap.

[Hammy]

They base the need for DSL technology in certain areas by the demand of customer requests. That is why certain areas get it before others. Also there are some areas where DSL may never reach, and others it will be a long time.

DSL does not work through repeaters or load coils. Someone mentioned they had crappy dsl service because of capped lines. What happened there was there was what we call "bridge tap" where the phone lines branch off down different streets... like a T out from the main lines. Every bridge tap causes a reflection on an oscilliscope and can be measured in feet from the tested location. Each of these has to be dug up, sometimes under highways and such, and usually take longer to do due to getting permits from the DOT and what not. Regardless, they have to go spend money to have the roads, ditches, and streets dug up just to cut off all the bridge tap so that your copper pair goes directly to your home, and doesn't bridge down another street.

DSL Works 18000 feet from the central office, but I have installed it up to 24,000 feet and had it working on a new cable where there were no bad sections or bridgetaps in the cable. There are small boxes (about 6 feet high and 10 feet wide..sometimes less) usually up to 6 miles from the central office called 'Slick Sites' (SLC96 and other type remote terminals) which are basically mini-COs or mini-central offices. There has to be a DSLAM which is another box that has to be installed beside these mini COs so that the dsl can be bridged into the lines. These are expensive and are usually not implemented until it is cost effective due to the demand for the service. The DSLAM is a remote terminal usually within six feet of the SLC site (subscriber loop carrier) or 'slick site' and has a fiber optic cable placed (usually there is an extra one in the SLC site) which is used to connect directly from the DSLAM to the internet backbone through various hubs.

Some customer residences lie outside the boundaries for any type of service and satellite is the only way to go. It is nearly impossible to play high speed games on these type services since the upload speeds are not effective or even near what the upload speeds of a hard wired connection are.

A friend of mine has a 1.5mb satellite connection, but his actual upload speed never goes above 9.5kb/s and usually varies from 5-9. In a similar setup with a hard wired connection you would get an actual download speed of 150 kb/s (give or take a few) and and upload speed of around 28k give or take. Weather plays a large factor in sattelite service, obviously, and not being able to get dsl service in certain areas is just something that some people have to face, currently.

P.S. I was a DSL specialist for 10 years.

Not to split hairs here, because everything in this PLUS the posts prior are correct, most cable companies will NOT add a DSL loop to an area until there is enough demand.

My family owned a communications wiring company through dot.com and if you are more than 10,000 feet from the nearest COLO (colocation box) your throughput will diminish for every 100 ft by X bits per second.

And that is assuming a clean fiber loop and its not some Covad RENT A LOOP.

What most people dont realize in the US is that for $10,000 USD, most communication companies will get the DSL loop dropped for you and negotiate an insane rate that guarantees your bandwidth for the entire time you own the home.

Im not assuming your cash flow here- this is just information. I know a few people that did this and are paying $9 bucks a month for a pure connection for life (plus the comm fees of course.)

The reason they do this is because you expand their marketplace for them, and they reap the rewards and benefits. The distance to the COLO (communication operation location I think it stands for- basically a switch station that houses all the telephoney hardware) needs to be within that 3 mile radius we are speaking of.

But again- 10,000 ft is the optimal.