Folded phone line can mess up DSL.

[micky]

The networking ng is dormant so I thought I'd report this here.

Folded phone line can mess up DSL.


I think a couple years ago when I had 100 feet of phone line but was
only using 40 feet, but wanted to save the whole 100' in one piec, I had
40 feet played out and 60 feet rolled on the spool, and I asked here or
somewhere else if that could cause a slow DSL connection. And iirc the
answer was no, but I'm not sure of that.

So a couple months ago I finally finish installing my home burglar alarm
and I want to connect it to the monitoring company via the phone line.
Since my main phone connection goes in via the second floor, to the
computer on the 2nd floor, I go to the NIC and put a Y connector in it,
adding back the original wire to the basement. Somewhere I have a 6"
piece of phone wire with modular plugs on the end, but I can't find it,
so I put in one of the cords that comes with most phone devices, maybe 8
feet folded up, maybe 6 circle's-worth, squeezed flat.

This is some time between Thursday and Saturday, and Sunday morning I
leave for two months.

I got back two weeks ago today and the house and car were just the way I
left them, and the computer worked fine. For 3 or 4 days. Then it
stopped loading webpages, except very intermittently (so little as to be
unusable), loaded email and newsgrooups only 20% or 30% of the time.
People told me to call Verizon, as if I hadn't thought of that. But
they charge about $60 if it's not their fault, and anyhow, the point is
to figure it out on my own.

Check the NIC. It's popped open. It's under a roof but maybe it got
wet. Doesn't look wet. After a couple days with no better ideas, I
decide to unplug things in the NIC to give them a chance to dry, and
only then I notice the folded phone cord (with the Y-connector). Take
it out, and everything works fine again.

But how come it worked fine for the first 3 or 4 days I was back? And
at least 12 hours, maybe 2 days, before I left?

[Jason]

In article <jpccfdpqjrlaoibes...@4ax.com>,
NONONO...@bigfoot.com says...

> I go to the NIC and put a Y connector in it,
>

Are there DSL isolators in line where they should be? I
couldn't tell from your post.

[ABLE1]

Micky,
I am not going to answer your question as to why. Don't know.
However, with you alarm system connection you need to place
the alarm dialer as the first thing on your phone line from the NIC.
This is done with a RJ31X block properly installed.
Also, depending on your specific use of DSL Filters the line
to the alarm dialer needs to be a DSL Filtered line. Otherwise
the communication can be compromised. Twisted pair cable is most desirable.

Good luck.

Les

[Lucifer Morningstar]

On Fri, 11 May 2018 20:34:49 -0400, micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com>
wrote:

On similar lines I was using a network cable that was way
longer than needed and the excess was coiled up.
At 1 gigabit packet loss was around 50%.
I replaced it with a much shorter cable and no packet loss.

[Lucifer Morningstar]

On Fri, 11 May 2018 21:46:29 -0400, ABLE1 <some...@nowhere.net>
wrote:

>Micky,
>I am not going to answer your question as to why. Don't know.
>However, with you alarm system connection you need to place
>the alarm dialer as the first thing on your phone line from the NIC.
>This is done with a RJ31X block properly installed.
>Also, depending on your specific use of DSL Filters the line
>to the alarm dialer needs to be a DSL Filtered line. Otherwise
>the communication can be compromised. Twisted pair cable is most desirable.
>
>Good luck.
>
>Les

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_quoting

[Tim]

Lucifer Morningstar <luc...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:nelcfd9vejpj68htf...@4ax.com:

>
> On similar lines I was using a network cable that was way
> longer than needed and the excess was coiled up.
> At 1 gigabit packet loss was around 50%.
> I replaced it with a much shorter cable and no packet loss.
>

That one is easy. Gigabit eathernet is very sensitive to interference.
Having the wires coiled like that very likely degraded the line electrical
characteristics to the point that you were getting a lot of lost/error
packets. CAT5/CAT6 is very sensitive to proper conditions for transmission
and reception. It doesn't take much to degrade a packet to the point that
it is not decipherable at the other end.

[Paul]

ABLE1 wrote:
> Micky,
> I am not going to answer your question as to why. Don't know.
> However, with you alarm system connection you need to place
> the alarm dialer as the first thing on your phone line from the NIC.
> This is done with a RJ31X block properly installed.
> Also, depending on your specific use of DSL Filters the line
> to the alarm dialer needs to be a DSL Filtered line. Otherwise
> the communication can be compromised. Twisted pair cable is most
> desirable.
>
> Good luck.
>
> Les

Where I live, they have two practices for ADSL.

The ADSL original setup, they handed out filters
per phone jack in the house. So they would put
four filters in their "kit", as back then the
modem was a rental. This was back in the days
of "no truck roll" installs.

When ADSL2 rolled out, they started using a
tiny whole-house filter, installed at the demarc.
What's supposed to happen in that case, is the
"existing" house phone wiring, is put on the
filtered port. (And the alarm dialer could go
on that network of wires.) Whereas the customer can
run a cable to the ADSL (unfiltered) port on the
filter, to make the ADSL2 modem work properly.
The filter box was pretty small, and only
2x3 inches or so.

Paul

[Ron D.]

There is a minimum bend radius of at least 1" for CAT5. See

*https://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-6/issue-6/contents/standards/the-case-for-a-2-inch-cable-bend-radius.html
<https://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/print/volume-6/issue-6/contents/standards/the-case-for-a-2-inch-cable-bend-radius.html>*
Silver Satin cables are bad news. I don't know if that's the type of cable
your using. The wires are all parallel and not twisted.

My house has many phone locations, more than 8, and not home run. Nearly
everything is wired with quad wire. This won;t support DSL filters,

So, the best way to handle it was to install a DSL splitter at the NID.

When I upgraded from WIFI based dial-up to DSL, I did things right. The
NID to DSL port is only about 4 foot long. Then i found a 5' length of
CAT4/CAT5 6P4S straight-thru cables that run to teh DSL modem. Now that
distance is short.

Then I ran the LAN port via power line Ethernet to the center of the
basement where it should be. The AP (Wireless) should really be centrally
located which it is.

Later, that power line Ethernet connection was upgraded to wired. It also
broke.

The telco guy said that I had pristine DSL. During one of the service
calls, the guy brought back a 12" piece of cable where the insulation was
eaten. He also said he removed 1000' of length of cable.

There is no way I could have this pristine DSL if it wasn't done right from
the beginning.

I do have some upgrade plans, but they have not been implemented yet..

One thing I must have is the ability to easily switch out a stand-alone
modem to wired `Ethernet for the normal one in Bridge mode.
I will eventually be able to do this with a push of a few buttons. Anytime
trouble shooting needs to be done, I have to eliminate nearly everything at
my end.
The older modems have better trouble-shooting information.

Then I started the "structured wiring" panels. They are mounted, but not
connected. Some locations have low voltage plates, but unconnected too.
Everything will be CAT6 RJ45's. If the jacks are telco, they will be
reduced to 6 pin jacks using sleeves.

I want to install a 24 port POE switch as well which I also have.

[Jason]

In article <XnsA8E053B695DAtimothybilyahoocom@
69.16.179.28>, onely...@gmail.com says...

> Having the wires coiled like that very likely degraded the line electrical
> characteristics to the point that you were getting a lot of lost/error
> packets.
>

Why? Twisted pairs are resistant to interference.

[Mike S]

Absolutely, the twisted repairs counteract interference, and each pair
is twisted at a slightly different rate to reduce crosstalk between the
pairs. Here's a simple summary.

https://www.quora.com/How-does-twisting-the-cables-reduce-the-interference-between-the-wires

[Clifford Heath]

Yes, but coiling the cable means that pairs (with twist pitch X)
interfere with other turns of themselves (still with pitch X),
so coiling the cable can increase scattering.

[micky]

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Fri, 11 May 2018 21:46:29 -0400, ABLE1

<some...@nowhere.net> wrote:

>Micky,
>I am not going to answer your question as to why. Don't know.

Yes, a hard question. (I didn't count packets like another post
suggests)

>However, with you alarm system connection you need to place
>the alarm dialer as the first thing on your phone line from the NIC.

This is a whole story in itself.

>This is done with a RJ31X block properly installed.
>Also, depending on your specific use of DSL Filters the line
>to the alarm dialer needs to be a DSL Filtered line. Otherwise
>the communication can be compromised. Twisted pair cable is most desirable.

My friend owns the burglar alarm company I'm dealing with and he's been
very patient with me. As he is with almost everyone.

He knew that before I met him, I installed my own wired alarm, without
monitoring, 35 years ago and it worked every work day for 15 years until
one day a little wisp of smoke was coming out of the keypad/controlboard
at the front door. I had it grounded to a 6-foot copper rod nailed
into the ground, so the ground was probably good, but stiill it burned
out.

Didn't do anything for 9 years until planning long trip. He gave me a
new model control box and I almost got it installed. He even came over
and worked on the last switch before he took me to the airport, but we
didn't get it working.

10 years later, last year, I try again and fail for lack of time. But
this year before another long trip, I start a month in advance and I
finish on Thursday or Friday, plane leaves Sunday morning.

Separately, the home phone stops working 20 years ago, a short in the
wiring. I had put in several extensions but it has that stupid pinch
connector in the basement and it's hard to disconnect them for testing.
Or I was depressed, or a combination. I decide it's better if the
phone line goes straight to the computer on the second floor, and from
there to my new cordless phone base station, next to the computer. So
I stop trying to get the basement to work and just run the wire up the
front of the house, in the window, and to the next bedroom. (Later I
drill a hole in the floor of the overhanging 2nd floor bedroom and run
the wire through that.)

Everything is good for years but now there is no phone line in the
basement, just a cordless extension. THAT IS WHY I PUT IN THE
Y-CONNECTOR, to try to have phone lines in the basement too.

My friend explained that I should run 4 wires to the phone, so the alarm
would interrupt all the other phone service (for two good reasons), but
he didn't insist on it. And the two reasons don't apply to me too
much. ( 1) I never set the alarm when I'm home anyhow, and 2) I could
be wrong but in my lower middle class n'hood, I don't think the burglars
are smart enough to start dialing before the alarm dials. (For the long
trip, I hid the cordless phone in the kitchen, the only one on the first
floor.))

When I coudlnt' get the phone line in the basement to work at all, I ran
heavy duty speaker wire up two flights of stairs to the phone line by my
computer. I sort of hated that, but I'm getting used to it.

It works for now. My friend thought the 35 year old switches might
cause false alarms, but I was gone for 2 months and no false alarms.
However on the plane back, it dawned on me that I couldn't remember the
code and I coudlnt' remember the password. After 10 minutes I
remembered the password and after 30 I remembered the code, but got it
wrong! I thought it was 1357 and it was really 3579. So when I came
in the house, after 30 seconds the sirens went off. I ran to the
basement to take out the fuses leading to the sirens, and when I got
upstairs the monitoring company called, and I did have the right
password. They said there'd been no prior, false alarms, but it did
work that day.

I still couldn't disarm the alarm and I was sort of trapped in the house
for a day, but I found an email I'd sent a friend with the code in it.


I'm probably going to get FIOS and the installer will probably insist on
connecting the wiring to the basement, and if he doesn't I will insist
on it.


>Good luck.

Thanks. I'll need it.

[micky]

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 12 May 2018 12:50:56 +1000, Lucifer

Very interesting.

Besides acting as an antenna and picking up interference, I was thinking
something like your or my coiled wiring, this time or the previous time,
could act as a choke. But I'm just guessing.

[Tim]

Jason <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote in
news:MPG.356179746...@news.eternal-september.org:

Yes, twisted pairs are more resistant to interference, but the conductor
diameters, wire spacing, and insulation for CAT5 and CAT6 cables are very
carefully selected for among other things interconductor capacitance. For
the same reason that puting a CAT3 connector on a CAT5 cable limits the
cable to CAT3 specifications, having the cable being pinched at any spot
will change the electrical characteristics of the cable in a negative
manner, with a corresponding drop in performance.

[micky]

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Fri, 11 May 2018 21:41:40 -0400, Jason

No. And it worked fine after I took out the extra cable. That's the
point.

[Mike S]

Agreed, I used to install DSL and I never did that.

[Tim]

Mike S <ms...@yahoo.com> wrote in news:pd915k$26e$2...@dont-email.me:

Have you never heard of insulation creep? Under pressure, the plastic
used for modern insulation will slowly flow in such a way as to relieve
that pressure. This can result in direct shorts, changes in spatial
relationships between wires, and other problems. Any of the above will
change the capacitance and inductance of the conductors involved, in a
negative way. Changes in capacitance can cause the digital signals to
round off too rapidly, to the point thay are no longer detectable as
signal pulses at the far end, while changes in inductance can cause
mismatches in impedence that can cause unwanted reflections of the
digital signal, which can also degrade the digital pulses. That is why on
of the first things I was taught about dressing cables was to never pull
cable ties too taut, as that is a prime way of causing both problems,
either in tying up loops or in dressing cable runs.

[Mike S]

That all makes sense. We used Cat5e. On a few occasions the customer
supplied Cat6 for us to run, it had substantial nylon wire guides...
it's clear that a lot of science has gone into ethernet cables.

[amdx]

You may have the clue in your response, "excess was coiled up"
A coil of wire makes an inductor. An inductor is an impedance to high
frequencies.
Years ago, a mobile welder couldn't get his tig welder to work right,
after much consternation, he uncoiled the 75ft of welding cable that was
left on his trailer. The inductance of that coil blocked the high
frequency and it was not helping sustaining the arc.
I don't have an answer why it worked 3 or 4 days.
Mikek

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Fri, 11 May 2018 20:34:49 -0400, micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com>
wrote:

>But how come it worked fine for the first 3 or 4 days I was back? And
>at least 12 hours, maybe 2 days, before I left?

Coiling the cord makes something of an inductor. ADSL2+ goes up to
2MHz. If your coil of wire has enough inductance to act as a choke at
2MHz or less, the speed will slow down, but will not quit as it did in
your situation. That's because ADSL has 256 "tones" or channels,
while ADSL2+ has 512.
<https://www.hardwaresecrets.com/how-the-adsl-connection-works/2/>
The added inductance might cause the higher frequency channels to
drop, but the lower frequency channels and the uplink channels will
continue to work. The ADSL modem also contains an adaptive equalizer
that will partially compensate for the loss in high frequency
channels. You would need to add quite a bit of inductance for the
signal to completely disappear.

From my experience with DSL, most of the problems come from rotten
wire connections and noise coupled from nearby sources. Bad
terminals, mangled connectors, weird adapters, crude microfilters, and
such are all too common. Since the ADSL apparently quit completely, I
would tend to favor a bad connection as the most likely culprit.

It could also be your friendly local telco playing with the DSLAM,
router, or provisioning, which would also make the internet disappear.
I had this happen to me recently which caused me to go through
internet withdrawal for about a week.

There's also the possibility of local interference. Running the phone
line parallel to power lines or other services that use the same
frequency range, such as T1, can cause problems. I had someone in
another newsgroup ask why her internet would disappear at night. I
turned out that when she turned on the lights at night, the associated
noisy light dimmer would couple enough junk into the phone line to
kill the DSL signal. Rewiring the DSL to a "home run" configuration
solve the problem. If the coil of wire were sitting on top of a
length of lamp cord attached to a light dimmer, or switching power
supply low voltage light, or LED light bulb, you're likely to see some
noise coupled to the coil. Even though the balanced pair offers some
noise immunity, the lack of a twisted pair (as in CAT5 cable) in most
flat phone cords, can make the common mode rejection less effective.

I would look for a bad, loose, intermittent, or corroded connection
somewhere in the phone line.

--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sun, 13 May 2018 03:27:18 -0400, micky <NONONO...@bigfoot.com>
wrote:

You also moved the extra cable and connectors, which makes me suspect
that an intermittent connection. It takes a minute or three for the
ADSL modem to sync after the carrier returns, which makes cause and
effect type of troubleshooting rather difficult. You could wiggle the
connetions and NOT see any change in the lights on the modem. If you
suspect a bad connection, drag out a roll of CAT5 cable, and plug it
directly into the phone line where it enters the house (MPOE). Also,
disconnect the rest of the house from that might be loading the line.
If that works, your problem is somewhere in your inside wiring. If
the speed, SNR, noise power, and channel levels improve drastically
when you disconnect the hour phone wiring, then you probably are
missing a microfilter, have a microfilter installed backwards, or have
a bad microfilter. Or maybe you need a better microfilter:
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/dsl/slides/DSL-microfilters.html>
(4 inductors are better than 2).

[NY]

"amdx" <noj...@knology.net> wrote in message
news:pdh7is$29m$1...@dont-email.me...

> You may have the clue in your response, "excess was coiled up"
> A coil of wire makes an inductor. An inductor is an impedance to high
> frequencies.

Would that apply so much to a two-core cable, where at any instant, a
current is flowing one way in one conductor (eg on the way to the appliance)
and the opposite way (on the return) in the other? Would the fact that there
are two conductors tend to reinforce or cancel the effect?

If you have a cable that is too long and don't want to cut it to shorten it,
what is the best way of arranging it so as to avoid/minimise inductance? Is
it better to arrange it in a zig-zag rather than loops?

[Tim]

"NY" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in
news:v5OdnTChrerT3WDH...@brightview.co.uk:

At the frequencies DSL works at, inductance is not an issue. More of an
issue is the fact that the wire was kinked. OP doesn't state how
severely, but any kink is going to disrupt the twist pattern, and thus
has the potential to interfere with transmission. The other factor is
that if the kink is severe enough, it can cause partial reflectance of
the signal in the reverse direction, potentially degradeing the signal to
some extent. Since the DSL signal can approach 4mhz at the high end, skin
effect is starting to enter the mix (barely, but there). This is going to
be more noticable in solid core wire, since the single conductor is
larger. In a stranded cable the multiple strands of smaller gauge will
tend to lessen any impact from skin effect. I am going to assume that the
wire is question is stranded as opposed to solid core conductors. In that
case it is entirely possible that one or more of the multiple strands
could actually have been broken by the kink, thus pretty much
guaranteeing some reflection of the signal, with attending degradation.

Granted, the effect of any of the conditions mentioned above will
probably be slight, but they will be additive. The ideal solution would
be to rewire the link to remove any excess wire. The only reason not to
would be that the connection is considered to be only temporary, and even
then I can make a case for not having any excess wire involved.

[Mike S]

I agree with previous posters that a bad connector, or a severe kink,
sound like the most likely cause of the problem, in that order.

[whit3rd]

On Sunday, May 13, 2018 at 12:09:42 AM UTC-7, Tim wrote:
> Jason <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote in
> news:MPG.356179746...@news.eternal-september.org:
>
> > In article <XnsA8E053B695DAtimothybilyahoocom@
> > 69.16.179.28>, onely...@gmail.com says...
> >> Having the wires coiled like that very likely degraded the line

> >> electrical characteristics...

> > Why? Twisted pairs are resistant to interference.
> >
> Yes, twisted pairs are more resistant to interference, but the conductor
> diameters, wire spacing, and insulation for CAT5 and CAT6 cables are very

> carefully selected...

Part of that selection is that the pairs are twisted at different pitches, so
that coupling over a long length averages to zero. But if you're only using
one pair, as in a DSL connection, and you coil it, coil #1 can couple to coil #2
because the twist pitch is the same. DSL and ADSL etc. are good at making
sense of the signals, but not perfect.

The coupling of SIMILAR twisted pairs, if they are adjacent, is not minimal.