Question about DSL

bikerboybikerboy PA
edited May 2004 in Science & Tech
I'm trying to convince my dad to get DSL. He's all for it :celebrate, except that he thinks that you need the new fiber optic phone wires instead of the old copper ones that we have. I disagree with him though. He said that he wants to have an "expert" tell him which one is needed. I immediately thought of you guys. The question is do you need copper or fiber oiptic phone wires for DSL to work properly? :scratch:

Comments

  • floppybootstompfloppybootstomp Greenwich New
    edited May 2004
    I have DSL with old copper phone wires, 14 months now, no probs. Only limit is how far you are from the telephone exchange, not sure of the distance, but I seem to recall 6 kilometres being mentioned, but I could be wrong.
  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited May 2004
    Copper. SHow dad this:

    http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=digital%20subscriber%20line

    Dexter...
  • MediaManMediaMan Powered by loose parts.
    edited May 2004
    Short answer: DSL on the phone line works just fine. I had it for 2 years on a regular phone line.


    Fibre would not make a difference as the ISP limits upload/download regardless. It also won't affect your phone line at all. They put a filter on the line so your phone works as it always has and there is no interferance at all.

    Fibre optic will be preferable one day...but waaaaaaaay into the future when the amount of homes that have it start to make it profitable for the ISPs to make $ on it by offering faster upload/download. It's all about marketing.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    I've never even heard of DSL over fiber..... Is there such a thing? :confused:
  • KwitkoKwitko Sheriff of Banning (Retired) By the thing near the stuff Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    If DSL is available in your area, then the phone company has made sure the lines can handle it. And the biggest factor isn't copper or fibre, but your distance from the CO.

    The only "expert" opinion that matters is that of your phone company. Go to their website and check for availability in your area.
  • leishi85leishi85 Grand Rapids, MI Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    yeah prime, that's what my phone company told me at least, at the house we lving in right now, it's a new house, buil;t 3 year ago, and the phone company said the phone wiring in the house and around the neighborhood is all fibber, and i am using adsl, so i guess there is such a thing.
  • gtghmgtghm New
    edited May 2004
    primesuspect wrote:
    I've never even heard of DSL over fiber..... Is there such a thing? :confused:

    DSL is over copper and like Mr. K siad its a matter of distance to the CO.
  • gtghmgtghm New
    edited May 2004
    leishi85 wrote:
    yeah prime, that's what my phone company told me at least, at the house we lving in right now, it's a new house, buil;t 3 year ago, and the phone company said the phone wiring in the house and around the neighborhood is all fibber, and i am using adsl, so i guess there is such a thing.


    sorry to beg to differ with you, but there are no communities that have fiber to the residences yet in the US, and there probably won't be.

    It is possible that you have a new switch in the area that is run on fiber T1's from the switch to the CO and that the switch supports ADSL or other various DSL type cards which allows the customer to have DSL services. However, the lines that run from the switch or CO to the neighborhood are all copper.

    FYI, Its all the same DSL, there are several varrients of it such as ADSL, HDSL1-3 and VDSL... The main difference between them is the distances that are allowed for the customer to be from the switch/remote or the CO to quallify for the service. The new HDSL 3 allows for the customer to be out a lot further than HDSL1...
    Not all switches or remotes run all types of DSL cards, some won't run DSL at all and new cabinets are being placed next to the existing switches that should allow for certian DSL services to be offered.

    db loss is the key and it varys from customer to customer. Size, guage and bridge tap on the lines going to your home are what determine the amount of loss that occurs thus either shortening or lengthing the distance you can be from the swicth or CO and still quallify for DSL services... There is more to it than just a specific distance...

    Hope that helps
    "g"
  • KwitkoKwitko Sheriff of Banning (Retired) By the thing near the stuff Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    leishi85 wrote:
    yeah prime, that's what my phone company told me at least, at the house we lving in right now, it's a new house, buil;t 3 year ago, and the phone company said the phone wiring in the house and around the neighborhood is all fibber, and i am using adsl, so i guess there is such a thing.

    The "last mile" would not be fiber, however. It's always copper, AFAIK.
  • gtghmgtghm New
    edited May 2004
    Oh yea..., when your house was built if contractors installed fiber then you might have it but I guarrantee you that its not being used by the phone company...
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    Mr. Kwitko wrote:
    The "last mile" would not be fiber, however. It's always copper, AFAIK.

    In my case, last quarter block is copper, the rest is fiber. One of the tings Sprint did was to run fiber next to streets and under sidewalks in utility access conduits as well, down here in my little town. The nearest Home Depot has fiber all the way to the miniature computer ops center local to store.

    In bikerboy's case, best ask the phone company where the fiber interface is, if any. But basically, dual lines to fiber is a decent way to go if you have very weather resistant hookup points. Bad line, or corroded hookup points or wire ends, stinks big time.
  • MediaManMediaMan Powered by loose parts.
    edited May 2004
    Fibre Optic FAQ

    Boiling it all down, at this moment in time, fibre optic offers no speed increase or bandwidth increase over DSL or ADSL but that is not because it isn't capable...it's because the ISPs cap the bandwidth.

    And the basics of fibre optics vs. copper.

    http://www.techoptics.com/pages/Fiber%20Optics%20-%20Basics.html

    Course...this is far too much information for an answer...lol.
  • bikerboybikerboy PA
    edited May 2004
    Thanx guys, You gotta understand my dad, I showed him everything and he just came up with another excuse. :thumbsdow Russell knows how my dad is. (He doesn't want to sign a contract, he claims he might lose his job in August)
  • gtghmgtghm New
    edited May 2004
    bikerboy wrote:
    Thanx guys, You gotta understand my dad, I showed him everything and he just came up with another excuse. :thumbsdow Russell knows how my dad is. (He doesn't want to sign a contract, he claims he might lose his job in August)


    Well I can't blame him then... Life is all about priorities... Making sure you have a roof over your head and the basic bills all paid is the main thing... DSL is one of those extras that a person coiuld live with out when push comes to shove....

    Hope your pop keeps working, times are kinda tough all around...

    "g"
  • bikerboybikerboy PA
    edited May 2004
    Yeah i understand even though me and my siter agreed to pay for it if he couldn't anymore. We both have reliable jobs that can easily cover DSL.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    MediaMan wrote:
    Fibre Optic FAQ

    Boiling it all down, at this moment in time, fibre optic offers no speed increase or bandwidth increase over DSL or ADSL but that is not because it isn't capable...it's because the ISPs cap the bandwidth.

    And the basics of fibre optics vs. copper.

    http://www.techoptics.com/pages/Fiber%20Optics%20-%20Basics.html

    Course...this is far too much information for an answer...lol.

    Well, they do sell fiber with higher bandwidth caps, but do so to enterprise and AV feed companies....

    Even cable is capped, all media feeds on internet are unless you pay by total in a time frame of transfer, and that is REAL expensive. Yuo either pay for a capped connect or a uncapped at very high rates money-wise also for a cap at very high performance with fees per GB per month....

    Fiber is hyper expensive to install, and the companies still have alimited pipe at the end. Just a bigger one than they had, in a multifiber optical trunk cable. But they still have to switch it, and recover install costs, and get it repaired when a trench digger goes through unarmored delicate fiber cable using a backhoe.

    However, down here, higher caps for same cost are becoming a competitive thing that is resulting in a situation where one of my boxes downloaded a WU at 496 KBytes/sec, I got an ISO of a SuSE 9.1 LiveCD that is about 688 MB in 37 minutes, and I am paying the SAME bandwidht lease rates I paid for HALF that bandwidth 9 months ago. Trick is to see where the infrastructure has been built out, and for what, where you live.

    Uploading, on cable is another story, try about 8% of download rate for upload rates. That is how Comcast limits costs.

    Balanced up and down are hyper-expensive as the ISP's bill for that is almost twice to three times what the existing situation would have in pure bandwidth or guaranteed minimum bandwidth fullfilment cots, and the balance would be about what Prime pays to feed this site in the sense of what bill he gets monthly- I think the bandwidth rate the site feed is capped at is in a thread somewhere, I will let the owners decide if they want to reveal it.

    So, yeah is capped, that is normal for every provision contract. What most ISPs do is have multiple contracts, feed via the least costly method at demand time to place demanded or to a gateway to that place, using dynamic DNS and routing, letting routers use costing methods to route, in part by favoring connects to what is least expensive for this purpose NOW-- at time of demand, given source and destination of connect wanted. Higher end Cisco and Image Stream routers can do "least cost" route forwarding.
  • KwitkoKwitko Sheriff of Banning (Retired) By the thing near the stuff Icrontian
    edited May 2004
    John_D wrote:
    Uploading, on cable is another story, try about 8% of download rate for upload rates. That is how Comcast limits costs.

    Um, up here it's 12.7% of downlaod rtae. An dfor Optimum Online, it's hyper-more than that, upload is 16.7% fo downlaod rate.
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