Low quality phone line, replace lines?

Joseph

Hi all,

Apparently I have some noise on my line which means I cannot get over 4 MB broadband speed.

Am wondering is there a test that can be done to check whether replacing local house lines (eircom do it for 130E i think) with a higher quality line improve the speed capibility?

Cheers

ttm

I wouldn't waste any money on your internal phone wiring unless its an obvious mess. Copper wire inside the house doesn't normally deteriate that much over time, the joints might if damp or badly made but you can remake them yourself.

Threre could be up to say 3 miles of overhead and or underground copper wire between you and the exchange. This wire and all the connections are potentially exposed to rain and sun and wind. Wind streches the overhead wires a bit and the sun heats things up and degrades plastic, then wet gets into the junction boxes and under the cable sheathing and starts to damage the cable. This means over time all copper cable degrades. On a phone system that needs not much more than wet string to get a call working it doesn't matter too much as after years of exposure the cable will still work with the odd fault which can be patched. Trouble is worn out infrastructure is not so good for ADSL connections hence the need for a line test before you get a connection.

Look at is this way if there is 2 miles of old exposed cable between your house and the exchange and you have 20yards of protected cable inside your house where do you think the problem is likely to be?