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ADSL works over wet string (2017)

revk.uk

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Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyway, my hat is off to the people who designed and implemented ADSL. It's a blessing-and-a-curse: too many incumbent ISPs in highly-developed nations used ADSL's ability to run on anything as an excuse to put-off FTTH deployments (looking at you, BT).

I think we (in Stamford Lincolnshire, UK) must be pretty unique right now with TWO competing FTTP startups both rolling out on the same streets. One day you will see Lightspeed Broadband pulling their fibre through the BT ducts and putting boxes on the top of telegraph polls. The next day Upp Brordband will be on the same street. So bizarre they they are doing the same town! Apparently we are due to have BT put in th…

Very strange! Mine was not quite as happy a story, but here in Silicon Valley (1mi from Facebook) I got a local ISP announcing fiber, and the very next week AT&T was running their own lines. This was back in 2019, and it felt like "everyone" had fiber before we did. 2 years later I guess it feels like old hat. And the local ISP has not yet run the fiber they promised. But one fast ISP is better than zero!

Good luck with your deployment. I'm still so happy about it.

Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)

#72

ADSL, being essentially a form of alternating current, will pass through an air gap. I was enlightened on this by an AT&T tech who pointed out that one of my ADSL lines had several breaks and could not carry DC but the ADSL signal still came through. The other line was dead so I was running essentially on one wire with an earth ground. Here is an interesting discussion: "Phone line with 1 broken wire still gets ADSL2…

> Anyway, my hat is off to the people who designed and implemented ADSL. It's a blessing-and-a-curse: too many incumbent ISPs in highly-developed nations used ADSL's ability to run on anything as an excuse to put-off FTTH deployments (looking at you, BT).

>>...*my hat is off to the people who designed and implemented ADSL.*

Maybe a few will recall: San Jose California, in the epicenter of Silicon Valley -- but for some reason Comcast (was previously called *COVID*) -- and you couldnt get DSL in San Jose at the time .... literally down the street from Netflix, and freaking home DSL took YEARS for it to reach our houses...

(My point is that it was ironic that in the heart of silicon valley we couldnt even get DSL due to COVID/Comcast

Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)

#73

ADSL, being essentially a form of alternating current, will pass through an air gap. I was enlightened on this by an AT&T tech who pointed out that one of my ADSL lines had several breaks and could not carry DC but the ADSL signal still came through. The other line was dead so I was running essentially on one wire with an earth ground. Here is an interesting discussion: "Phone line with 1 broken wire still gets ADSL2…

> Anyway, my hat is off to the people who designed and implemented ADSL. It's a blessing-and-a-curse: too many incumbent ISPs in highly-developed nations used ADSL's ability to run on anything as an excuse to put-off FTTH deployments (looking at you, BT).

Meh

Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)

#75

Since seeing this article I've been curious about organic conductors .. apparently most carbohydrates / celluloses are really not good basis for conduction but maybe there are tricks to change that. - https://www.quora.com/Is-cellulose-fibre-conductive?share=1 - https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=conducting+polymers+example...

Conductive polymers are commonly used these days. Pedot:pss can be engineered expressly this way, but less exotic ones like polyamides can do this too.

Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyway, my hat is off to the people who designed and implemented ADSL. It's a blessing-and-a-curse: too many incumbent ISPs in highly-developed nations used ADSL's ability to run on anything as an excuse to put-off FTTH deployments (looking at you, BT).

>>...*my hat is off to the people who designed and implemented ADSL.* Maybe a few will recall: San Jose California, in the epicenter of Silicon Valley -- but for some reason Comcast (was previously called * COVID* ) -- and you couldnt get DSL in San Jose at the time .... literally down the street from Netflix, and freaking home DSL took YEARS for it to reach our houses... (My point is that it was ironic that in the h…

Are you thinking of COVAD? IIRC, they were a competitive local exchange carrier, unrelated to Comcast.

As a CLEC, they could place DSL equipment in the incumbent carriers (mostly Pacific Bell/ATT, but Los Gatos Telephone company was absorbed by GTE/Verizon and I think sold to Frontier) and use the existing wiring to run DSL. In silicon valley, this doesn't offer great coverage; to get reasonable line lengths, you need to be in the telephone company's remote terminals and that's not available to CLECs.

Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)

#77
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is common in places where they don't expect moisture to reach, but then things change and it gets there anyway. If your POTS lines are down and the telecom company is telling you a "wet pulp repair" is underway, your phones are going to be down for a while because a bunch of paper-insulated cables need to be manually rewired because they got wet and corroded. I found this interesting: http://etler.com/do…

I know there are some telecom folks on here that may be provoked to correct me but pulp was standard before the advent of cheap plastic insulation in the 1950s on up. I live in the midwest and my brother is a lineman for AT&T. There is an astonishing amount of pulp-insulated phone line still in service today. In order to keep it dry, the conduit that the pulp lines are run through is pressurized to 5-10psi. Anyone th…

The more you learn about this ancient cable technology the more absurd it becomes. We shower these fuckers with money but they would rather keep their paper insulated phone lines with permanent compressors and dryer running than braindead simple fiber. No wonder it is permanently broken and they can't keep a single 9 of reliability.

Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)

#78
post #11

Related: ethernet over barbed wire: http://www.sigcon.com/Pubs/edn/SoGoodBarbedWire.htm

There are IEEE standards for single-pair Ethernet: > In addition to the more computer-oriented two and four-pair variants, the 10BASE-T1,[17] 100BASE-T1[18] and 1000BASE-T1[19] single-pair Ethernet physical layers are intended for industrial and automotive applications[20] or as optional data channels in other interconnect applications.[21] The single pair operates at full duplex and has a maximum reach of 15 m or 49…

Sadly, there's not much in the way of equipment for this. I could really use two small 10BaseT-1 to 10BaseT converters, preferably both powered from one end.

Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)

#79
post #77
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know there are some telecom folks on here that may be provoked to correct me but pulp was standard before the advent of cheap plastic insulation in the 1950s on up. I live in the midwest and my brother is a lineman for AT&T. There is an astonishing amount of pulp-insulated phone line still in service today. In order to keep it dry, the conduit that the pulp lines are run through is pressurized to 5-10psi. Anyone th…

The more you learn about this ancient cable technology the more absurd it becomes. We shower these fuckers with money but they would rather keep their paper insulated phone lines with permanent compressors and dryer running than braindead simple fiber. No wonder it is permanently broken and they can't keep a single 9 of reliability.

I would bet this is a capex/opex thing.

Re: ADSL works over wet string (2017)

#80
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potentially apocryphal, but Telstra's copper cable network supposedly had its insulation made of paper, not rubber. I remember when it rained the curbside pits fill with water, causing slowdowns and frequent ADSL dropouts (until things dried out).

Many parts of rural Prince Edward Island (PEI) has DSL running on a phone system that’s probably original from modernization initiatives in the 1960s - 1980s. Party lines were the norm in some areas up west until late-1980s.

You spelled Germany wrong... X_x
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