Improving the lines in my house

Plasmoid

I have to admit the line between the phone jack and my modem makes Eircom's setup look professional. It was the bear minimum to get my 56k modem to connect at speed.

Im wondering what is the best way to go. At the moment i have around 11-12 meters of bog standard phone cable going all the way from my phone jack (which has a phone connected by a micro-filter thing) winding through my house under the carpet to my modem.

I know some people go all out to squeeze the maximum out their connection speed, but im really not that pushed. If you guys can suggest a fairly easy to do setup that will give a noticeable improvement to my connection im all for it.
Through the years i've seen some things like not using micro-filters and not using any phone line but Cat5 but to be honest i dont know if replacing one micro filter and all that crimping of cable would be worth it.

What i would really like to get my hands on, though i dont know if such a thing exists, is a long length of phone line with high quality connectors at either end, like you can get for stereo and tv cables.

JackieChan

You could always go wireless. Saves the need for all the cables and you would only need a short neat phone cable to the router?

Evergreen

I agree, wireless is the way to go.

We set up a wireless system inour house, the base station is in the attic out of sight and we can tkae the computer anywhere in the house (even out into the garden) and still have a top speed connection

OfflerCrocGod

No such thing Plasmoid; unfortunately (for me ) the quality of your line depends on the quality of what's coming into your home the several kilometers to your home are the real important distance. I have very poor quality copper coming into the home and there is nothing I can do about it. I wish I could boost the signal so I could at least support a phone and BB.

Plasmoid

Ok wireless then... but there is a prob.

1) My phone line comes in next to my microwave... so wifi is out.

2) I dont have any real cash... so its cheapo option all the way.

3) My exisiting setup limited me even on dialup connections... can i really be expect a barely 56k compliant line to support DSL past 2mb/s?

I guess those homeplug thing would be an option... though i still wouldn't have a convenient place to put my modem near the phone jack.

Assuming the thankfully short 1/4 mile to the exchange line is not limiting me, and the wiring i cant get at in my house is again not trash, any ideas worth looking into?

stiofanD

Hi Plasmoid,

For what its worth, I was never able to get above 32kbps on my phone line when I used a modem, but I have no problem now getting download speeds of 1.7mbps (on a 2mbps service)

Of course every case is different, but I wouldn't assume that dial-up performance has any impact on DSL performance

lucernarian

stiofanD wrote:

Hi Plasmoid,

For what its worth, I was never able to get above 32kbps on my phone line when I used a modem, but I have no problem now getting download speeds of 1.7mbps (on a 2mbps service)

Of course every case is different, but I wouldn't assume that dial-up performance has any impact on DSL performance

I agree there. I live too far away for eircom to enable my line yet I routinely connect at 45.2 kbps and stay at that rate. A computer I used the internet on in Drogheda itself never connected faster than 42.6 kbps, yet the line passed eircom's bb test.

ghostdancer

stiofanD wrote:

Hi Plasmoid,

For what its worth, I was never able to get above 32kbps on my phone line when I used a modem, but I have no problem now getting download speeds of 1.7mbps (on a 2mbps service)

Of course every case is different, but I wouldn't assume that dial-up performance has any impact on DSL performance

same for me, dialup was at best 33.6kbps, i can get 2.7mbps on 3mb dsl line.:)