Phone Tutorial, Part 1

CharlesL

PFG, Picture Framing God
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Gone but not forgotten
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Clayton, NC
Several people have asked questions about fone service, and I will attempt to explain, without being too wordy, (yeah, right!!) some basics.

Part 1- As for purely local fone svc, almost ALL end up getting to your home/business on copper pairs, otherwise known as just plain ol' wire.

I mentioned 'load coils', or loaded/unloaded pairs on another thread. Here's the deal: The fone co's consider a frequency bandwidth of 3000 Hertz to be as much as you need to talk, and, until recently, over which to send analog data.
In years past, almost ALL pairs were loaded, or had little donut-shaped inductance coils on them to make the 0-3000Hz bandwidth more 'talkable'.
Most analog modems will be equipped with enough 'error correction' to compensate for load coils, but, the downside is that your connect speed may vary from one time to the next.
We learned, years ago, that high-speed data, as low as 2.4Kbps for digital, high-speed analog (IE: 56Kbps), and anything up to and/or higher than T1 rate, 1.544 Mbps, only work reliably on unloaded pairs. T1 will ONLY work on unloaded pairs!
It's really easy for a phone man to use a test set to determine whether a pair is loaded or non-loaded. Trying to send data over loaded pairs is the leading cause of problems.

See: Load Coils and HERE

Another method, to save the number of copper pairs from the CO, (central office) is to use a Subscriber Line Carrier. Or SLC, which we call a 'slick'. SLC's can leave the CO on copper or fiber. It takes 2 copper pairs, one for transmit, and one for recieve, to get to the SLC cabinet in the field. From there, most SLS's will serve 96 customers.
You can see that instead of using 96 pairs for 96 customers, the fone co's can use only 2 pairs to serve the same 96 customers. If it's a copper SLC, you still get copper pairs to your home/business. If it's a fiber SLC, you MAY be able to get FITL, or Fiber In The Loop, as discussed in the other thread. But most of the time, you are still served by copper pairs.
Most SLC's, presuming 96 channels, operate at a T1 rate, or 1.544 Mbps, from the CO to the field unit, or SLC cabinet. Various types of modulating and de-modulating take place at the SLC cabinet and in the CO to enable 96 customers to be able to use dial-ups simultaneously.
If a fiber SLC AND FITL is available, you can get fiber all the way from the CO to your house, but it ain't cheap, and neither is the equipment to decode the fiber signal down to individual fone lines (talk) and data transmission lines.

[ 02-21-2003, 05:43 PM: Message edited by: CharlesLowry. ]
 
Hey Charles, that was interesting.

You might be going to answer this in parts 2,3,4, etc,

Are there any tricks that can be done to improve modem speeds if a person is connected via SLC? We have 2 lines at the house, one on what the foneman calls "the old carrier system" and the other on "the new carrier system". The only difference that I can tell is that one system has battery backup and other doesn't. An old fashioned phone or butt-in will work on one line during a power failure and the other line is dead on a power failure. The best that I can get from the phoneman is we're a really long ways from the CO (maybe 50,000 ft). A good internet connection is 22kbps... average is 16kbps. On a bad day it drops to 4800. We have been guaranteed that there is no way any system upgrades are planned for less than 10 years to come.

We've finally decided to give up one line and replace it with a CellSocket that connects all the phones in the house to our cellphone in a charging cradle with a gain antenna. At least we'll be able to talk. Verizon on the ground, Verizon in the air... where will we find them next?

Looking forward to future parts...

[ 02-21-2003, 07:56 PM: Message edited by: Rick Bergeron - CPF ]
 
Rick, depending on where you are, and your local company, SLC cabinets, or 'huts' have batteries that are 'supposed' to hold up for 24 hours, but almost NEVER do. If you have one line that stops working during a power outage, I'd bet the farm it's on the SLC, and the batteries in the hut are defunct.
If your phone works on copper, straight from the CO, no SLC, the CO has really 'HUGE' batteries, AND a generator in case of power failure. This type phone will never quit. There is, however, a caveat; the phone in question, at your house, HAS to be an old-type phone that is just a fone, connected to the jack. A cordless fone is no good, as, when the power goes out, the reciever/transmitter link between the handset and the base becomes defunct.
I suspect the former, though. The cordless phone will be the deciding factor. Get a $20 fone, very basic, from Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowes, etc, and use it on the copper line as a backup.
We're on a SLC, the batteries suck, so every time the power goes out, out corded fone is good for about 1/2 hour, until the SLC hut batteries die.

As to speed vs distance from CO, loaded pairs again. Non-loaded pairs will work for a l-o-n-g ways. Loaded pairs will ALWAYS give trouble.

Hope that helps. Let me know if I can be of further service!

[ 02-21-2003, 08:12 PM: Message edited by: CharlesLowry. ]
 
I'm going to up my meds. For concentration purposes, you understand. What the devil.

I don't like the visible edit thingie. I hit the thumbdown icon and had to change it: not so, Charles: interesting data.

[ 02-21-2003, 10:26 PM: Message edited by: MerpsMom ]
 
Cathie, email me and tell me what your problems are. Who your LOCAL fone co is, etc...

I won't answer 'til tomorrow, 'cause this is one sleepy fone guy! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[ 02-22-2003, 12:22 AM: Message edited by: CharlesLowry. ]
 
Both our house and our business are across the road from the boxes that serve them. The connection at the house is r-e-a-l slow, but the one at the studio is really good. Is there a difference in the type of box? The one at the studio is bigger and must be some kind of main junction of lines because they are always in there working on things. :rolleyes: :eek:
 
Anne, A question comes to mind.
-Are both of your connections dial-up, or is one or more DSL?

The size of the box has little to do with speed of service. Usually, the bigger the 'box' the more stuff, or provisions for expansion it contains. My experience has been that the older, really BIG boxes are splice cabinets for strictly copper cable, or twisted pairs, as we like to call them.

Also, keep in mind that, if you ARE on twisted pairs, your number could leave the box, and, while the box is just a short distance away, the pair could be 2 miles long, before it eventually winds it's way to your place. I hate to beat a dead horse, but I speak from experience when I say, the longer the copper pair, the MORE chances there are for load coils, and the more splice cabinets the pair goes through, the more chance for a poor splice, which can also wreak havoc with your speed.

It would be really helpful to know if you're on POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service, or on DSL.

Lemme know, and we'll put our heads together.

For everybody: DO NOT be afraid to question slow connect speeds, and frequent loss-of-internet with load coils, or excessive splices. Fone men are very well-equipped to find either, or both of these problems with a test set in about 20~30 minutes.
 
Hi again Charles,

Is there a certain terminology that a person should use to question the line connection?

I know if I call Verizon for line trouble, sometimes I get the Seattle, WA office; sometimes I get the Ft Worth, TX office. The customer service rep just runs some sort of line test, tells me that everything checks out OK and if they send a repairman who finds no trouble, that I get the bill charged at $75 per quarter hour. When the repairman comes, he finds no problem and tells me that the line is only guaranteed to carry voice conversations and if data works... Good.... if the data doesn't work, Sorry, that's not guaranteed.

I do know that we are on POTS connected to a SLC box somewhere.
 
Rick, our lines were 'guaranteed' to run at at least 9600kbps. The part about 'voice only' is BS!

The bottom line is this: A good, unloaded copper pair ought to run at LEAST 40~52kbps.

At $75/ 1/4 hour, I'd file a formal complaint with your Utilities Commission, or whatever passes for that. Fone co's have to go before the Commissions to ask for rate hikes, and the more formal, customer complaints they have on file, the less likely they are to get rate hikes. Gets their attention.

Feel free to ask any other questions, providing, of course, I've answered yours, so far....
 
Verizon LOVES to point the finger, especially if a third party is involved that sells a similar service to theirs.(dsl, t1, etc with verizon local loop) You basically have to keep the upper hand to get what you want, or they'll just pass the buck. I have a second job similar to Charles and have to deal with them on a daily basis - and it gets frustrating!


We have a lot of 100 year old+ lines still in use for this area of the country and many of them have bridging clips, load coils, and inbalanced (wires of uneven length/creates hum or static)

What often works here, when all else fails - and there is still an obvious problem: (and you have already tested from the network interface box outside your house to make sure it isn't the inside wiring) I tell them "it only happens when it rains or is windy". That usually causes then to send out a crew to switch you over to a new "pair" of wires from your building to theirs. Nine out of ten times this clears up the issue, and it's an automatic changeout.

Mike
 
Public Utilities is my first choice, but you must document!
The other alternative is to INSIST that the various vendors meet at a pre-determined time, taking YOU out of the middle.

Any sugestions for Part 2? Inside wiring, etc? Just trying to be helpful here.
 
Both are dial up. And I know for a fact that the one at the house comes direct from the box, we've had it traced. It runs under my flower beds and in someplaces it is at a depth less than recommended. I've accidently dug it up because it wasn't were it was suppose to be! :eek: It is also an old system and it has been known to ring during thunderstorms and get knock out by them easily. :rolleyes:
 
If you ever hit it with a shovel and broke through the waterproof coating, water may have gotten in there (in the garden) and this could easily be the cause of your problem.

Mike
 
[ 02-27-2003, 04:09 PM: Message edited by: RHODY ]
 
I was wrong about $75 per quarter hour. It's $45 for the first 15 minutes and $15 per each 15 minutes afterwards... works out to be just a little bit more than the shop rate for picture framing. When I asked them about removing any loading coils, I was quoted the above rates for the labor it took to remove them ... $45 to $60 just to get started. I guess that's the pleasure we get for living at the end of the line and 3/4 mile past the end of the road and have peace and quiet.
 
Anne, If it rings during, or while it's lightning, it's probably lost it's ground.
I'd get the Foneco to come and dig it up and splice it like they're supposed to! I once cut my whole pair with a pair of hole-diggers, put it back together with Foneco Gel, and wrapped it with Foneco tape. It still works good, after 15 years!
Also get them to check your 'heat coils'. You have them at the box outside your house, and there is another pair in the CO.
Remember, don't let the b@st@rds win!!!!
 
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