I signed up with Comcast for, I think, 30 megabit cable internet. I
had a service problem a while back so they upgraded "for free" to 50.
I just ran a speed test and it's 920+38 Mbits. This is with a CAT5
cable right from their modem.
At work, we have a MonkeyBrains dish. We pay for 50+50 and get
500+500.
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for,
same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
I signed up with Comcast for, I think, 30 megabit cable internet. I
had a service problem a while back so they upgraded "for free" to 50.
I just ran a speed test and it's 920+38 Mbits. This is with a CAT5
cable right from their modem.
At work, we have a MonkeyBrains dish. We pay for 50+50 and get
500+500.
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for,
same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
On 9/12/2023 10:18 AM, John Larkin wrote:
I signed up with Comcast for, I think, 30 megabit cable internet. I
had a service problem a while back so they upgraded "for free" to 50.
I just ran a speed test and it's 920+38 Mbits. This is with a CAT5
cable right from their modem.
At work, we have a MonkeyBrains dish. We pay for 50+50 and get
500+500.
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for,
same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
A lot of those multi-hundred megabit connections will go to a wireless
router where all user devices are connected to it via 802.11n or
802.11ac in a super-cluttered RF environment, and topping out at 50 or
100 megabits throughput on a good day
On 12/09/2023 15:18, John Larkin wrote:
I signed up with Comcast for, I think, 30 megabit cable internet. I
had a service problem a while back so they upgraded "for free" to 50.
I just ran a speed test and it's 920+38 Mbits. This is with a CAT5
cable right from their modem.
Is that a fibre to premises circuit?
Mine out in the wilds could only
supply ~300M on a nominal 500M line on a "free" trial so I opted to fall
back to the 150Mbps service that I had ordered (I get 100% of that).
At work, we have a MonkeyBrains dish. We pay for 50+50 and get
500+500.
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for,
same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
I'm surprised that they upgrade you 10x for free. In the UK they
invariably try to extract extra money out of you for such speed upgrades >which means a lot of people are still on rather slow legacy speeds.
Likewise with phone contracts they try to extract constant or ever
increasing amounts of money from you by increasing mobile data.
A lot of those multi-hundred megabit connections will go to a wireless router where all user devices are connected to it via 802.11n or 802.11ac in a super-cluttered RF environment, and topping out at 50 or 100 megabits throughput on a good day
On 9/12/2023 10:18 AM, John Larkin wrote:
I signed up with Comcast for, I think, 30 megabit cable internet. I
had a service problem a while back so they upgraded "for free" to 50.
I just ran a speed test and it's 920+38 Mbits. This is with a CAT5
cable right from their modem.
At work, we have a MonkeyBrains dish. We pay for 50+50 and get
500+500.
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for,A lot of those multi-hundred megabit connections will go to a wireless router where all user devices are connected to it via 802.11n or
same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
802.11ac in a super-cluttered RF environment, and topping out at 50 or
100 megabits throughput on a good day
On Tue, 12 Sep 2023 15:33:31 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 12/09/2023 15:18, John Larkin wrote:
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for,
same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
I'm surprised that they upgrade you 10x for free. In the UK they
invariably try to extract extra money out of you for such speed upgrades
which means a lot of people are still on rather slow legacy speeds.
Likewise with phone contracts they try to extract constant or ever
increasing amounts of money from you by increasing mobile data.
It seems like suppliers here are upgrading for free to keep up with competition. We could use cable, a microwave dish, or a couple sources
for Gbit fiber.
We had an AT&T internet connection over the traditional phone twisted
pairs, but it was slow and expensive and died when it rained. Comcast
threw in POTS telephone service for free when we got their internet
service. I unplugged the phones because all the calls were spam.
On 12/09/2023 17:57, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 12 Sep 2023 15:33:31 +0100, Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 12/09/2023 15:18, John Larkin wrote:
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for, >>> same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
I'm surprised that they upgrade you 10x for free. In the UK they
invariably try to extract extra money out of you for such speed upgrades >> which means a lot of people are still on rather slow legacy speeds.
Likewise with phone contracts they try to extract constant or ever
increasing amounts of money from you by increasing mobile data.
It seems like suppliers here are upgrading for free to keep up with competition. We could use cable, a microwave dish, or a couple sourcesThat seems very socialist. It surely makes more sense for them to
for Gbit fiber.
extract at least some additional income for increasing your speed. UK
telcos are considerably more mercenary about upgrading their customers.
We had an AT&T internet connection over the traditional phone twisted pairs, but it was slow and expensive and died when it rained. Comcast threw in POTS telephone service for free when we got their internet service. I unplugged the phones because all the calls were spam.I presume the POTS phone service is actually a POTS connector on an all digital VOIP service offered over their backhaul.
This is causing a lot
of trouble in the UK with BT rolling out "Digital Voice" over an
unwilling population of mostly elderly people who depend on features of copper based POTS for living independently. Notably that POTS phones
still work if the mains fails and various alarms and care on call
services will only work correctly with a true copper physical line.
That seems very socialist. It surely makes more sense for them to extract at least some additional income for increasing your speed. UK telcos are considerably more mercenary about upgrading their customers.
I presume the POTS phone service is actually a POTS connector on an all digital
VOIP service offered over their backhaul.
This is causing a lot of trouble in
the UK with BT rolling out "Digital Voice" over an unwilling population of mostly elderly people who depend on features of copper based POTS for living independently. Notably that POTS phones still work if the mains fails and various alarms and care on call services will only work correctly with a true copper physical line.
ADSL in its various forms shouldn't be that unstable unless there is something
fundamentally wrong with the local wiring (as there is in my village - no-one past me gets more than 2Mbps ADSL on copper).
However since I now have a fibre connection I don't care. The failing junction
box (think black plastic policeman's helmet with multicoloured wire knitting and joints inside) is buried in the verge in front of my house. If the water table rises it floods and shorts out circuits. When the guys come to sort it out it sounds like maracas when they shake it!
In theory I think it is supposed to be water tight but in practice rodents do for the catches or seals and after a few years it isn't.
On 12/09/2023 17:57, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 12 Sep 2023 15:33:31 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 12/09/2023 15:18, John Larkin wrote:
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for,
same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
I'm surprised that they upgrade you 10x for free. In the UK they
invariably try to extract extra money out of you for such speed upgrades >>> which means a lot of people are still on rather slow legacy speeds.
Likewise with phone contracts they try to extract constant or ever
increasing amounts of money from you by increasing mobile data.
It seems like suppliers here are upgrading for free to keep up with
competition. We could use cable, a microwave dish, or a couple sources
for Gbit fiber.
That seems very socialist.
extract at least some additional income for increasing your speed. UK
telcos are considerably more mercenary about upgrading their customers.
We had an AT&T internet connection over the traditional phone twisted
pairs, but it was slow and expensive and died when it rained. Comcast
threw in POTS telephone service for free when we got their internet
service. I unplugged the phones because all the calls were spam.
I presume the POTS phone service is actually a POTS connector on an all >digital VOIP service offered over their backhaul. This is causing a lot
of trouble in the UK with BT rolling out "Digital Voice" over an
unwilling population of mostly elderly people who depend on features of >copper based POTS for living independently. Notably that POTS phones
still work if the mains fails and various alarms and care on call tly >services will only work correctly with a true copper physical line.
ADSL in its various forms shouldn't be that unstable unless there is >something fundamentally wrong with the local wiring (as there is in my >village - no-one past me gets more than 2Mbps ADSL on copper).
However since I now have a fibre connection I don't care. The failing >junction box (think black plastic policeman's helmet with multicoloured
wire knitting and joints inside) is buried in the verge in front of my
house. If the water table rises it floods and shorts out circuits. When
the guys come to sort it out it sounds like maracas when they shake it!
In theory I think it is supposed to be water tight but in practice
rodents do for the catches or seals and after a few years it isn't.
On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 09:35:03 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 12/09/2023 17:57, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 12 Sep 2023 15:33:31 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 12/09/2023 15:18, John Larkin wrote:
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for, >>>>> same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
I'm surprised that they upgrade you 10x for free. In the UK they
invariably try to extract extra money out of you for such speed upgrades >>>> which means a lot of people are still on rather slow legacy speeds.
Likewise with phone contracts they try to extract constant or ever
increasing amounts of money from you by increasing mobile data.
It seems like suppliers here are upgrading for free to keep up with
competition. We could use cable, a microwave dish, or a couple sources
for Gbit fiber.
That seems very socialist.
Capitalist competition is the opposite of socialism. Compete or die.
It surely makes more sense for them to
extract at least some additional income for increasing your speed. UK >>telcos are considerably more mercenary about upgrading their customers.
We had an AT&T internet connection over the traditional phone twisted
pairs, but it was slow and expensive and died when it rained. Comcast
threw in POTS telephone service for free when we got their internet
service. I unplugged the phones because all the calls were spam.
I presume the POTS phone service is actually a POTS connector on an all >>digital VOIP service offered over their backhaul. This is causing a lot
of trouble in the UK with BT rolling out "Digital Voice" over an
unwilling population of mostly elderly people who depend on features of >>copper based POTS for living independently. Notably that POTS phones
still work if the mains fails and various alarms and care on call tly >>services will only work correctly with a true copper physical line.
The AT&T POTS twisted pair worked direcly into an old analog phone. I
guess some people here still do that. It was expensive, with a big
"long distance" charge. I think most people here just use cell phones,
with wi-fi connection at home.
ADSL in its various forms shouldn't be that unstable unless there is >>something fundamentally wrong with the local wiring (as there is in my >>village - no-one past me gets more than 2Mbps ADSL on copper).
However since I now have a fibre connection I don't care. The failing >>junction box (think black plastic policeman's helmet with multicoloured >>wire knitting and joints inside) is buried in the verge in front of my >>house. If the water table rises it floods and shorts out circuits. When
the guys come to sort it out it sounds like maracas when they shake it!
In theory I think it is supposed to be water tight but in practice
rodents go for the catches or seals and after a few years it isn't.
On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:02:42 -0700, John Larkin ><jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 09:35:03 +0100, Martin Brown >><'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 12/09/2023 17:57, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 12 Sep 2023 15:33:31 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 12/09/2023 15:18, John Larkin wrote:
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for, >>>>>> same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
I'm surprised that they upgrade you 10x for free. In the UK they
invariably try to extract extra money out of you for such speed upgrades >>>>> which means a lot of people are still on rather slow legacy speeds.
Likewise with phone contracts they try to extract constant or ever
increasing amounts of money from you by increasing mobile data.
It seems like suppliers here are upgrading for free to keep up with
competition. We could use cable, a microwave dish, or a couple sources >>>> for Gbit fiber.
That seems very socialist.
Capitalist competition is the opposite of socialism. Compete or die.
It surely makes more sense for them to
extract at least some additional income for increasing your speed. UK >>>telcos are considerably more mercenary about upgrading their customers.
We had an AT&T internet connection over the traditional phone twisted
pairs, but it was slow and expensive and died when it rained. Comcast
threw in POTS telephone service for free when we got their internet
service. I unplugged the phones because all the calls were spam.
I presume the POTS phone service is actually a POTS connector on an all >>>digital VOIP service offered over their backhaul. This is causing a lot >>>of trouble in the UK with BT rolling out "Digital Voice" over an >>>unwilling population of mostly elderly people who depend on features of >>>copper based POTS for living independently. Notably that POTS phones >>>still work if the mains fails and various alarms and care on call tly >>>services will only work correctly with a true copper physical line.
The AT&T POTS twisted pair worked direcly into an old analog phone. I
guess some people here still do that. It was expensive, with a big
"long distance" charge. I think most people here just use cell phones,
with wi-fi connection at home.
In the Boston area, I had exactly that until recently, and for those
same reasons, when the local traditional telephone company discounted
all copper service and forced everybody to optical fiber a year ago.
They also thought that they would just sweep in and install the new
equipment in some random place, but there was not space in my basement
for that, so I insisted on doing the physical install myself. They
were balking until I explained that I also had cable, and so if the
telco threw me out, my next call would be to their main competitor -
no install needed. So they sent me the stuff, and I installed it, and
added a dedicated power outlet for it to use.
If the local power goes out, this stops working unless one has a
backup battery, which they made quite awkward (must be a large
collection of ordinary alkaline D batteries; rechargeable not
available for homes, only businesses. So the fallback is cell phones,
until they run out of juice.
ADSL in its various forms shouldn't be that unstable unless there is >>>something fundamentally wrong with the local wiring (as there is in my >>>village - no-one past me gets more than 2Mbps ADSL on copper).
In the Boston area, many people had ADSL, and the general report was
that it never worked while it was raining. One assumes that a little
bit of water was getting into the legacy cables, and then it dried
out.
However since I now have a fibre connection I don't care. The failing >>>junction box (think black plastic policeman's helmet with multicoloured >>>wire knitting and joints inside) is buried in the verge in front of my >>>house. If the water table rises it floods and shorts out circuits. When >>>the guys come to sort it out it sounds like maracas when they shake it!
In theory I think it is supposed to be water tight but in practice >>>rodents go for the catches or seals and after a few years it isn't.
Around here, the rodents seem to have color preferences, which is odd
because mostly this happened in permanently dark places. Must be
taste or smell.
Joe Gwinn
On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 15:41:39 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:02:42 -0700, John Larkin >><jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 09:35:03 +0100, Martin Brown >>><'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 12/09/2023 17:57, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 12 Sep 2023 15:33:31 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 12/09/2023 15:18, John Larkin wrote:
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for, >>>>>>> same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
I'm surprised that they upgrade you 10x for free. In the UK they
invariably try to extract extra money out of you for such speed upgrades >>>>>> which means a lot of people are still on rather slow legacy speeds. >>>>>>
Likewise with phone contracts they try to extract constant or ever >>>>>> increasing amounts of money from you by increasing mobile data.
It seems like suppliers here are upgrading for free to keep up with
competition. We could use cable, a microwave dish, or a couple sources >>>>> for Gbit fiber.
That seems very socialist.
Capitalist competition is the opposite of socialism. Compete or die.
It surely makes more sense for them to
extract at least some additional income for increasing your speed. UK >>>>telcos are considerably more mercenary about upgrading their customers. >>>>
We had an AT&T internet connection over the traditional phone twisted >>>>> pairs, but it was slow and expensive and died when it rained. Comcast >>>>> threw in POTS telephone service for free when we got their internet
service. I unplugged the phones because all the calls were spam.
I presume the POTS phone service is actually a POTS connector on an all >>>>digital VOIP service offered over their backhaul. This is causing a lot >>>>of trouble in the UK with BT rolling out "Digital Voice" over an >>>>unwilling population of mostly elderly people who depend on features of >>>>copper based POTS for living independently. Notably that POTS phones >>>>still work if the mains fails and various alarms and care on call tly >>>>services will only work correctly with a true copper physical line.
The AT&T POTS twisted pair worked direcly into an old analog phone. I >>>guess some people here still do that. It was expensive, with a big
"long distance" charge. I think most people here just use cell phones, >>>with wi-fi connection at home.
In the Boston area, I had exactly that until recently, and for those
same reasons, when the local traditional telephone company discounted
all copper service and forced everybody to optical fiber a year ago.
They also thought that they would just sweep in and install the new >>equipment in some random place, but there was not space in my basement
for that, so I insisted on doing the physical install myself. They
were balking until I explained that I also had cable, and so if the
telco threw me out, my next call would be to their main competitor -
no install needed. So they sent me the stuff, and I installed it, and >>added a dedicated power outlet for it to use.
If the local power goes out, this stops working unless one has a
backup battery, which they made quite awkward (must be a large
collection of ordinary alkaline D batteries; rechargeable not
available for homes, only businesses. So the fallback is cell phones, >>until they run out of juice.
ADSL in its various forms shouldn't be that unstable unless there is >>>>something fundamentally wrong with the local wiring (as there is in my >>>>village - no-one past me gets more than 2Mbps ADSL on copper).
In the Boston area, many people had ADSL, and the general report was
that it never worked while it was raining. One assumes that a little
bit of water was getting into the legacy cables, and then it dried
out.
However since I now have a fibre connection I don't care. The failing >>>>junction box (think black plastic policeman's helmet with multicoloured >>>>wire knitting and joints inside) is buried in the verge in front of my >>>>house. If the water table rises it floods and shorts out circuits. When >>>>the guys come to sort it out it sounds like maracas when they shake it! >>>>
In theory I think it is supposed to be water tight but in practice >>>>rodents go for the catches or seals and after a few years it isn't.
Around here, the rodents seem to have color preferences, which is odd >>because mostly this happened in permanently dark places. Must be
taste or smell.
Joe Gwinn
Why would a squirrel do this?
<https://www.dropbox.com/s/8b8mz7ppsnypjkz/Cable_Chewed.jpg?raw=1>
On Thursday, September 14, 2023 at 4:35:14 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown
wrote:
On 12/09/2023 17:57, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 12 Sep 2023 15:33:31 +0100, Martin BrownThat seems very socialist. It surely makes more sense for them to
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 12/09/2023 15:18, John Larkin wrote:
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed
up for, same price. The backbone fibers must be moving
petabits.
I'm surprised that they upgrade you 10x for free. In the UK
they invariably try to extract extra money out of you for such
speed upgrades which means a lot of people are still on rather
slow legacy speeds.
Likewise with phone contracts they try to extract constant or
ever increasing amounts of money from you by increasing mobile
data.
It seems like suppliers here are upgrading for free to keep up
with competition. We could use cable, a microwave dish, or a
couple sources for Gbit fiber.
extract at least some additional income for increasing your speed.
UK telcos are considerably more mercenary about upgrading their
customers.
That's one of the strangest comments I've heard anyone make... even
here.
Competition is the core of capitalism. If they are upgrading the neighborhood, it may well be they simply don't have the slower speed
anymore, or that they've changed their rate structure so that the
higher speed is the same price as the old lower speed.
We had an AT&T internet connection over the traditional phoneI presume the POTS phone service is actually a POTS connector on an
twisted pairs, but it was slow and expensive and died when it
rained. Comcast threw in POTS telephone service for free when we
got their internet service. I unplugged the phones because all
the calls were spam.
all digital VOIP service offered over their backhaul.
Maybe for new installations, but this is an area where the rule
applies, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!". The POTS home
connection works very well once in place. Even if they install
fiber, they don't remove all the POTS wiring.
This is causing a lot of trouble in the UK with BT rolling out
"Digital Voice" over an unwilling population of mostly elderly
people who depend on features of copper based POTS for living
independently. Notably that POTS phones still work if the mains
fails and various alarms and care on call services will only work
correctly with a true copper physical line.
Yeah, a friend moved into a retirement community some years ago and
they use fiber to the home, but he's actually has voice with his
cable service. No 911 location info and when power goes out, so does
the phone. I gave him a UPS for his cable box, and a non-powered
phone plugged directly into the unit. So, as long as the rest of the
cable system works, he can get a call out. But, they've also given
him an emergency alert unit that is supposed to work in a power
failure. I just don't know who it summons.
On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:02:42 -0700, John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 09:35:03 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
ADSL in its various forms shouldn't be that unstable unless there is
something fundamentally wrong with the local wiring (as there is in my
village - no-one past me gets more than 2Mbps ADSL on copper).
In the Boston area, many people had ADSL, and the general report was
that it never worked while it was raining. One assumes that a little
bit of water was getting into the legacy cables, and then it dried
out.
However since I now have a fibre connection I don't care. The failing
junction box (think black plastic policeman's helmet with multicoloured
wire knitting and joints inside) is buried in the verge in front of my
house. If the water table rises it floods and shorts out circuits. When
the guys come to sort it out it sounds like maracas when they shake it!
In theory I think it is supposed to be water tight but in practice
rodents go for the catches or seals and after a few years it isn't.
Around here, the rodents seem to have color preferences, which is odd
because mostly this happened in permanently dark places. Must be
taste or smell.
On 14/09/2023 11:02, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, September 14, 2023 at 4:35:14 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown
wrote:
On 12/09/2023 17:57, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 12 Sep 2023 15:33:31 +0100, Martin BrownThat seems very socialist. It surely makes more sense for them to
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 12/09/2023 15:18, John Larkin wrote:
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed
up for, same price. The backbone fibers must be moving
petabits.
I'm surprised that they upgrade you 10x for free. In the UK
they invariably try to extract extra money out of you for such
speed upgrades which means a lot of people are still on rather
slow legacy speeds.
Likewise with phone contracts they try to extract constant or
ever increasing amounts of money from you by increasing mobile
data.
It seems like suppliers here are upgrading for free to keep up
with competition. We could use cable, a microwave dish, or a
couple sources for Gbit fiber.
extract at least some additional income for increasing your speed.
UK telcos are considerably more mercenary about upgrading their
customers.
That's one of the strangest comments I've heard anyone make... even
here.
Competition is the core of capitalism. If they are upgrading the neighborhood, it may well be they simply don't have the slower speed anymore, or that they've changed their rate structure so that theCompetition might be, but if the provider can get more money for shareholders by selling the upgrade to their customers they will do so.
higher speed is the same price as the old lower speed.
It is very anti-capitalist to give something away for nowt!
In the UK if you aren't talking to customer retention at least every
couple of years you will be ripped off. That applies to utilities,
mobile phone, internet and insurance. There is a big penalty in the UK
for being loyal to your supplier since they like to price gouge.
(most people don't seem to notice either)
Sometimes the only way to get a decent deal is to switch supplier.
As a concrete example our Village Hall gets its electricity from British
Gas because they were the cheapest electricity supplier when we last
looked at it (there is *no* mains gas in the village!).
We had an AT&T internet connection over the traditional phoneI presume the POTS phone service is actually a POTS connector on an
twisted pairs, but it was slow and expensive and died when it
rained. Comcast threw in POTS telephone service for free when we
got their internet service. I unplugged the phones because all
the calls were spam.
all digital VOIP service offered over their backhaul.
Maybe for new installations, but this is an area where the ruleHow odd! The reason for installing fibre in my village is precisely
applies, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!". The POTS home
connection works very well once in place. Even if they install
fiber, they don't remove all the POTS wiring.
because the corroding copper is on its last legs and I had about the
only good for 5Mbps copper line pair on the exchange. They couldn't take
it off me quickly enough once my fibre line was operational.
I'm on transitional drop cabling which is a figure of 8 profile with the fibre on one half and a copper line pair on the other. In the air it has
a distinctive whirlygig appearance so you can tell at a glance who has fibre. The copper line pair is not even terminated just cropped off.
There is a waiting list for copper circuits! They had already DACS'd all
the copper lines not used for internet connections a long time ago. They tend to break one copper circuit for every three they try to mend.
This is causing a lot of trouble in the UK with BT rolling out
"Digital Voice" over an unwilling population of mostly elderly
people who depend on features of copper based POTS for living
independently. Notably that POTS phones still work if the mains
fails and various alarms and care on call services will only work
correctly with a true copper physical line.
Yeah, a friend moved into a retirement community some years ago andIt has become a bit of a mess. They can't source enough batteries for
they use fiber to the home, but he's actually has voice with his
cable service. No 911 location info and when power goes out, so does
the phone. I gave him a UPS for his cable box, and a non-powered
phone plugged directly into the unit. So, as long as the rest of the
cable system works, he can get a call out. But, they've also given
him an emergency alert unit that is supposed to work in a power
failure. I just don't know who it summons.
the old people they are trying to upgrade and have left vulnerable
people with no phone for way too long. If they had standardised the
optical receiver and router to take power from USB C it would be easier
but as it is they each require their own random choice of voltage and connector (and two mains sockets nearby to power them)!
On 14/09/2023 20:41, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:02:42 -0700, John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 09:35:03 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
ADSL in its various forms shouldn't be that unstable unless there is
something fundamentally wrong with the local wiring (as there is in my >>> village - no-one past me gets more than 2Mbps ADSL on copper).
In the Boston area, many people had ADSL, and the general report wasWe must surely have a lot more rain than in the US
that it never worked while it was raining. One assumes that a little
bit of water was getting into the legacy cables, and then it dried
out.
and yet our phone
lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as in flooding).
Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem to last
5 or 10 years before they fail badly again.
I'm not sure how they
protect wet wires from corrosion though.
There are places near me with
hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectifies
ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps.
On 14/09/2023 20:41, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:02:42 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
On Thu, 14 Sep 2023 09:35:03 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
ADSL in its various forms shouldn't be that unstable unless there is
something fundamentally wrong with the local wiring (as there is in my >>>> village - no-one past me gets more than 2Mbps ADSL on copper).
In the Boston area, many people had ADSL, and the general report was
that it never worked while it was raining. One assumes that a little
bit of water was getting into the legacy cables, and then it dried
out.
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our phone
lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as in >flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem to last
5 or 10 years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how they
protect wet wires from corrosion though. There are places near me with
hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectifies
ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer microwave
has been claiming these dead zones for some time - farmers need it.
However since I now have a fibre connection I don't care. The failing
junction box (think black plastic policeman's helmet with multicoloured >>>> wire knitting and joints inside) is buried in the verge in front of my >>>> house. If the water table rises it floods and shorts out circuits. When >>>> the guys come to sort it out it sounds like maracas when they shake it! >>>>
In theory I think it is supposed to be water tight but in practice
rodents go for the catches or seals and after a few years it isn't.
Around here, the rodents seem to have color preferences, which is odd
because mostly this happened in permanently dark places. Must be
taste or smell.
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems to guide >their choice of exactly what to nibble.
We solved our problems on radio
telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitrogen.
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our phone lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem to last 5 or 10
years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how they protect wet wires from corrosion though. There are places near me with hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectifies ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer microwave has been claiming these dead zones for
some time - farmers need it.
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems to guide their
choice of exactly what to nibble. We solved our problems on radio telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitrogen.
On Fri, 15 Sep 2023 11:21:06 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 14/09/2023 20:41, Joe Gwinn wrote:
Around here, the rodents seem to have color preferences, which is odd
because mostly this happened in permanently dark places. Must be
taste or smell.
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems to guide
their choice of exactly what to nibble.
I've heard lots of theories on why rodents like to chew on wire, but
none has ever been shown to be more likely than any other, let alone
proven.
We solved our problems on radio
telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitrogen.
That would certainly do it.
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our phone
lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as
in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.
Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)?
Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the subscriber's premises?
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+ pair
that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) rain
can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the lineman
can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
Connections to the premises wiring are done above ground in a
"telephone network interface" box:Â the utility's feed is
terminated in a pair (typically) of RJ11 jacks. The premises
wiring presents as one or more RJ11 plugs. So, a subscriber can
"unplug" their wiring from the network to allow the utility
to check THEIR wiring without the subscriber's impacting the test.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem to
last 5 or 10 years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how they
protect wet wires from corrosion though. There are places near me with
hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectifies
ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer microwave
has been claiming these dead zones for some time - farmers need it.
Our problem is with the hundreds of feet of 100(?) pair cable
that feeds the neighborhood from the main junction box at the entrance to
the subdivision. Lots of places for a partial short or line imbalance
to present.
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems to
guide their choice of exactly what to nibble. We solved our problems
on radio telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitrogen.
Various "burrowing creatures" are more of a problem with the
AC mains (which are also below grade). Part of the service
procedure for each of the ground-mounted transformers is to
fill the exposed earth *inside* the enclosure with mortar
and wet it to form a bit of a crust to discourage the critters
from gaining entry to the high voltage wiring (fried critters!).
Packrats tend to enjoy feasting on the wire in automobiles,
accessing that from the underside.
On 15/09/2023 16:39, Don Y wrote:
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our phone
lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as
in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.
Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)?
Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the
subscriber's premises?
Modern build is usually the latter but where I am the cables travel >underground from the exchange to the village and then up onto poles
inside the village. We are a bit unusual in that our lines are archaic >"Exchange Only" lines with no cabinet between us and the exchange.
Electricity also comes in overhead on the same set of poles which makes
it difficult for the telco - they have to bring in a cherry picker to
work on their signal level cables at height because of the live wires!
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+ pair
that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) rain
can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the lineman
can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
That is pretty much the situation here except that it is a lot wetter
and the groundwater is mildly alkaline and so corrosive. In addition
tree branches can strip the insulation off the overhead cable runs which >makes it very noisy and can break conductors.
Connections to the premises wiring are done above ground in a
"telephone network interface" box: the utility's feed is
terminated in a pair (typically) of RJ11 jacks. The premises
wiring presents as one or more RJ11 plugs. So, a subscriber can
"unplug" their wiring from the network to allow the utility
to check THEIR wiring without the subscriber's impacting the test.
That is how modern installs are done with a so called master socket so
you can isolate the house wiring and plug into the test socket. You are >supposed to do this before reporting a fault. My master POTS socket is >"conveniently" located at the far end of the loft where the old copper
cable enters the house. The new fibre install comes from a different
pole and has a splice box at ground level with a fibre up to my office.
Prehistoric ones were little more than a 4 way terminal block with a
Bakelite soap bar shaped cover over the top.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem to
last 5 or 10 years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how they
protect wet wires from corrosion though. There are places near me with
hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectifies
ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer microwave
has been claiming these dead zones for some time - farmers need it.
Our problem is with the hundreds of feet of 100(?) pair cable
that feeds the neighborhood from the main junction box at the entrance to
the subdivision. Lots of places for a partial short or line imbalance
to present.
It is almost invariably the wet corroded joints that cause trouble or
rodents chewing off the insulation. Ours are incredibly fragile now and
any disturbance from working on a fault tends to break something else.
It got so bad at one point that they had to ship in additional POTS
engineers from outside the county to get on top of pending repairs.
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configuration
(it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet isn't
too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lot of >multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telephone_cabinet/
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems to
guide their choice of exactly what to nibble. We solved our problems
on radio telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitrogen.
Various "burrowing creatures" are more of a problem with the
AC mains (which are also below grade). Part of the service
procedure for each of the ground-mounted transformers is to
fill the exposed earth *inside* the enclosure with mortar
and wet it to form a bit of a crust to discourage the critters
from gaining entry to the high voltage wiring (fried critters!).
Packrats tend to enjoy feasting on the wire in automobiles,
accessing that from the underside.
Apparently pine martens are keen on BMW brake hose and wiring insulation
(and they are now moving into my area of the UK).
https://www.englishforum.ch/daily-life/261913-pine-martens-brake-pipes.html
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:51:56 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 15/09/2023 16:39, Don Y wrote:
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our phone
lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as
in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.
Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)?
Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the
subscriber's premises?
Modern build is usually the latter but where I am the cables travel >underground from the exchange to the village and then up onto poles
inside the village. We are a bit unusual in that our lines are archaic >"Exchange Only" lines with no cabinet between us and the exchange.
Electricity also comes in overhead on the same set of poles which makes
it difficult for the telco - they have to bring in a cherry picker to
work on their signal level cables at height because of the live wires!
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+ pair >> that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) rain
can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the lineman >> can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
That is pretty much the situation here except that it is a lot wetter
and the groundwater is mildly alkaline and so corrosive. In addition
tree branches can strip the insulation off the overhead cable runs which >makes it very noisy and can break conductors.
Connections to the premises wiring are done above ground in a
"telephone network interface" box: the utility's feed is
terminated in a pair (typically) of RJ11 jacks. The premises
wiring presents as one or more RJ11 plugs. So, a subscriber can
"unplug" their wiring from the network to allow the utility
to check THEIR wiring without the subscriber's impacting the test.
That is how modern installs are done with a so called master socket so
you can isolate the house wiring and plug into the test socket. You are >supposed to do this before reporting a fault. My master POTS socket is >"conveniently" located at the far end of the loft where the old copper >cable enters the house. The new fibre install comes from a different
pole and has a splice box at ground level with a fibre up to my office.
Prehistoric ones were little more than a 4 way terminal block with a >Bakelite soap bar shaped cover over the top.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem to
last 5 or 10 years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how they >>> protect wet wires from corrosion though. There are places near me with >>> hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectifies
ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer microwave >>> has been claiming these dead zones for some time - farmers need it.
Our problem is with the hundreds of feet of 100(?) pair cable
that feeds the neighborhood from the main junction box at the entrance to >> the subdivision. Lots of places for a partial short or line imbalance
to present.
It is almost invariably the wet corroded joints that cause trouble or >rodents chewing off the insulation. Ours are incredibly fragile now and >any disturbance from working on a fault tends to break something else.
It got so bad at one point that they had to ship in additional POTS >engineers from outside the county to get on top of pending repairs.
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configuration
(it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet isn't >too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lot of >multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telephone_cabinet/
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems toVarious "burrowing creatures" are more of a problem with the
guide their choice of exactly what to nibble. We solved our problems
on radio telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitrogen. >>
AC mains (which are also below grade). Part of the service
procedure for each of the ground-mounted transformers is to
fill the exposed earth *inside* the enclosure with mortar
and wet it to form a bit of a crust to discourage the critters
from gaining entry to the high voltage wiring (fried critters!).
Packrats tend to enjoy feasting on the wire in automobiles,
accessing that from the underside.
Apparently pine martens are keen on BMW brake hose and wiring insulation >(and they are now moving into my area of the UK).
https://www.englishforum.ch/daily-life/261913-pine-martens-brake-pipes.html
I collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
lørdag den 16. september 2023 kl. 13.19.58 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:51:56 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 15/09/2023 16:39, Don Y wrote:I collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our phone
lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as
in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.
Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)?
Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the
subscriber's premises?
Modern build is usually the latter but where I am the cables travel
underground from the exchange to the village and then up onto poles
inside the village. We are a bit unusual in that our lines are archaic
"Exchange Only" lines with no cabinet between us and the exchange.
Electricity also comes in overhead on the same set of poles which makes
it difficult for the telco - they have to bring in a cherry picker to
work on their signal level cables at height because of the live wires!
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+ pair >> >> that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) rain
can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the lineman >> >> can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
That is pretty much the situation here except that it is a lot wetter
and the groundwater is mildly alkaline and so corrosive. In addition
tree branches can strip the insulation off the overhead cable runs which
makes it very noisy and can break conductors.
Connections to the premises wiring are done above ground in a
"telephone network interface" box: the utility's feed is
terminated in a pair (typically) of RJ11 jacks. The premises
wiring presents as one or more RJ11 plugs. So, a subscriber can
"unplug" their wiring from the network to allow the utility
to check THEIR wiring without the subscriber's impacting the test.
That is how modern installs are done with a so called master socket so
you can isolate the house wiring and plug into the test socket. You are
supposed to do this before reporting a fault. My master POTS socket is
"conveniently" located at the far end of the loft where the old copper
cable enters the house. The new fibre install comes from a different
pole and has a splice box at ground level with a fibre up to my office.
Prehistoric ones were little more than a 4 way terminal block with a
Bakelite soap bar shaped cover over the top.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem to
last 5 or 10 years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how they >> >>> protect wet wires from corrosion though. There are places near me with >> >>> hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectifies
ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer microwave
has been claiming these dead zones for some time - farmers need it.
Our problem is with the hundreds of feet of 100(?) pair cable
that feeds the neighborhood from the main junction box at the entrance to >> >> the subdivision. Lots of places for a partial short or line imbalance
to present.
It is almost invariably the wet corroded joints that cause trouble or
rodents chewing off the insulation. Ours are incredibly fragile now and
any disturbance from working on a fault tends to break something else.
It got so bad at one point that they had to ship in additional POTS
engineers from outside the county to get on top of pending repairs.
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configuration
(it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet isn't
too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lot of
multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telephone_cabinet/
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems toVarious "burrowing creatures" are more of a problem with the
guide their choice of exactly what to nibble. We solved our problems
on radio telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitrogen. >> >>
AC mains (which are also below grade). Part of the service
procedure for each of the ground-mounted transformers is to
fill the exposed earth *inside* the enclosure with mortar
and wet it to form a bit of a crust to discourage the critters
from gaining entry to the high voltage wiring (fried critters!).
Packrats tend to enjoy feasting on the wire in automobiles,
accessing that from the underside.
Apparently pine martens are keen on BMW brake hose and wiring insulation
(and they are now moving into my area of the UK).
https://www.englishforum.ch/daily-life/261913-pine-martens-brake-pipes.html >> >
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
looks like artwork made by craftsmen compared to the stuff you see from India
On Friday, September 15, 2023 at 6:13:24 AM UTC-4, Martin Brown
wrote:
On 14/09/2023 11:02, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, September 14, 2023 at 4:35:14 AM UTC-4, Martin
Brown wrote:
On 12/09/2023 17:57, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 12 Sep 2023 15:33:31 +0100, Martin BrownThat seems very socialist. It surely makes more sense for them
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 12/09/2023 15:18, John Larkin wrote:
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we
signed up for, same price. The backbone fibers must be
moving petabits.
I'm surprised that they upgrade you 10x for free. In the
UK they invariably try to extract extra money out of you
for such speed upgrades which means a lot of people are
still on rather slow legacy speeds.
Likewise with phone contracts they try to extract constant
or ever increasing amounts of money from you by increasing
mobile data.
It seems like suppliers here are upgrading for free to keep
up with competition. We could use cable, a microwave dish, or
a couple sources for Gbit fiber.
to extract at least some additional income for increasing your
speed. UK telcos are considerably more mercenary about
upgrading their customers.
That's one of the strangest comments I've heard anyone make...
even here.
Competition is the core of capitalism. If they are upgrading the
neighborhood, it may well be they simply don't have the slower
speed anymore, or that they've changed their rate structure so
that the higher speed is the same price as the old lower speed.
Competition might be, but if the provider can get more money for
shareholders by selling the upgrade to their customers they will do
so. It is very anti-capitalist to give something away for nowt!
Exactly, "IF" is the magic word. But you don't seem to understand
what I'm saying, so I won't bother you with it further.
In the UK if you aren't talking to customer retention at least
every couple of years you will be ripped off. That applies to
utilities, mobile phone, internet and insurance. There is a big
penalty in the UK for being loyal to your supplier since they like
to price gouge. (most people don't seem to notice either)
Perhaps you could read what I wrote and make more effort to
understand it. If you continue to focus on your own thoughts, you
can't learn anything new.
Maybe for new installations, but this is an area where the rule
applies, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!". The POTS home
connection works very well once in place. Even if they install
fiber, they don't remove all the POTS wiring.
How odd! The reason for installing fibre in my village is
precisely because the corroding copper is on its last legs and I
had about the only good for 5Mbps copper line pair on the exchange.
They couldn't take it off me quickly enough once my fibre line was
operational.
Sorry, by "copper", do you mean POTS? If you have significant
corrosion in copper lines, there's something very wrong with that.
The POTS to my house was installed around 80 years ago and has never
failed from corrosion. I've never heard of a POTS line failing from corrosion. Maybe this is something unique to the UK. Do they mix in
other elements into your copper wires?
I'm on transitional drop cabling which is a figure of 8 profile
with the fibre on one half and a copper line pair on the other. In
the air it has a distinctive whirlygig appearance so you can tell
at a glance who has fibre. The copper line pair is not even
terminated just cropped off.
There is a waiting list for copper circuits! They had already
DACS'd all the copper lines not used for internet connections a
long time ago. They tend to break one copper circuit for every
three they try to mend.
Wow! That's some bad copper. Someone should investigate this. It
may be something like the massive installation in the UK of foil
wrapped power lines where the foil was used as one of the conductors.
It was aluminum and corroded over a few years, requiring massive replacements. Or am I getting a detail wrong on that? Sounds very
similar to me.
It has become a bit of a mess. They can't source enough batteriesThis is causing a lot of trouble in the UK with BT rolling out
"Digital Voice" over an unwilling population of mostly elderly
people who depend on features of copper based POTS for living
independently. Notably that POTS phones still work if the
mains fails and various alarms and care on call services will
only work correctly with a true copper physical line.
Yeah, a friend moved into a retirement community some years ago
and they use fiber to the home, but he's actually has voice with
his cable service. No 911 location info and when power goes out,
so does the phone. I gave him a UPS for his cable box, and a
non-powered phone plugged directly into the unit. So, as long as
the rest of the cable system works, he can get a call out. But,
they've also given him an emergency alert unit that is supposed
to work in a power failure. I just don't know who it summons.
for the old people they are trying to upgrade and have left
vulnerable people with no phone for way too long. If they had
standardised the optical receiver and router to take power from USB
C it would be easier but as it is they each require their own
random choice of voltage and connector (and two mains sockets
nearby to power them)!
So, on top of everything else, the UK has a battery shortage???
Jeez. I can see why there is so much resistance to EVs in the UK.
On 15/09/2023 16:39, Don Y wrote:
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our phone lines >>> generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as in flooding).
Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.
Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)?
Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the
subscriber's premises?
Modern build is usually the latter but where I am the cables travel underground
from the exchange to the village and then up onto poles inside the village. We
are a bit unusual in that our lines are archaic "Exchange Only" lines with no cabinet between us and the exchange.
Electricity also comes in overhead on the same set of poles which makes it difficult for the telco - they have to bring in a cherry picker to work on their signal level cables at height because of the live wires!
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+ pair
that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) rain
can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the lineman
can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
That is pretty much the situation here except that it is a lot wetter and the groundwater is mildly alkaline and so corrosive.
In addition tree branches can
strip the insulation off the overhead cable runs which makes it very noisy and
can break conductors.
Connections to the premises wiring are done above ground in a
"telephone network interface" box:Â the utility's feed is
terminated in a pair (typically) of RJ11 jacks. The premises
wiring presents as one or more RJ11 plugs. So, a subscriber can
"unplug" their wiring from the network to allow the utility
to check THEIR wiring without the subscriber's impacting the test.
That is how modern installs are done with a so called master socket so you can
isolate the house wiring and plug into the test socket.
You are supposed to do
this before reporting a fault.
My master POTS socket is "conveniently" located
at the far end of the loft where the old copper cable enters the house. The new
fibre install comes from a different pole and has a splice box at ground level
with a fibre up to my office.
Prehistoric ones were little more than a 4 way terminal block with a Bakelite soap bar shaped cover over the top.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem to last 5 or
10 years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how they protect wet >>> wires from corrosion though. There are places near me with hybrid copper >>> meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectifies ADSL. So bad that >>> some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer microwave has been claiming these >>> dead zones for some time - farmers need it.
Our problem is with the hundreds of feet of 100(?) pair cable
that feeds the neighborhood from the main junction box at the entrance to
the subdivision. Lots of places for a partial short or line imbalance
to present.
It is almost invariably the wet corroded joints that cause trouble or rodents chewing off the insulation. Ours are incredibly fragile now and any disturbance
from working on a fault tends to break something else.
It got so bad at one point that they had to ship in additional POTS engineers from outside the county to get on top of pending repairs.
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configuration (it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet isn't too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lot of multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telephone_cabinet/
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems to guide >>> their choice of exactly what to nibble. We solved our problems on radio
telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitrogen.
Various "burrowing creatures" are more of a problem with the
AC mains (which are also below grade). Part of the service
procedure for each of the ground-mounted transformers is to
fill the exposed earth *inside* the enclosure with mortar
and wet it to form a bit of a crust to discourage the critters
from gaining entry to the high voltage wiring (fried critters!).
Packrats tend to enjoy feasting on the wire in automobiles,
accessing that from the underside.
Apparently pine martens are keen on BMW brake hose and wiring insulation (and they are now moving into my area of the UK).
https://www.englishforum.ch/daily-life/261913-pine-martens-brake-pipes.html
Not commonly. But groundwater has enough dissolved salts to corrode copper quite comprehensively.
The right sort of dedicated battery for the fibre modem and router.
If only they had made them USB C so that any old powerbank would do it.
On 9/16/2023 8:17 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
The right sort of dedicated battery for the fibre modem and router.
Does it not have provisions, internally? Many cable modems,
here, have dedicated internal (rechargeable) batteries to
keep the VoIP service "up" during outages.
If only they had made them USB C so that any old powerbank would do it.
On 16/09/2023 16:40, Don Y wrote:
On 9/16/2023 8:17 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
The right sort of dedicated battery for the fibre modem and router.
Does it not have provisions, internally? Many cable modems,
here, have dedicated internal (rechargeable) batteries to
keep the VoIP service "up" during outages.
Sadly no. It requires two different bespoke external supplies - one for the optical modem and one for the router. Different voltages and connectors required on each one. No reason I can see why that has to be so. The official ones are rather poor too a whole ~1 hours operation...
https://www.businessdirect.bt.com/products/cyberpower-back-up-for-bt-digital-voice-service--fttp--097284-FV55.html
And for it to work you must have exactly the right version hardware!
The last big power cut in bad weather lasted 2 days...
If only they had made them USB C so that any old powerbank would do it.
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 04:29:00 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen ><langwadt@fonz.dk> wrote:
lørdag den 16. september 2023 kl. 13.19.58 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:51:56 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 15/09/2023 16:39, Don Y wrote:I collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our phone >>> >>> lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as >>> >>> in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.
Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)?
Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the
subscriber's premises?
Modern build is usually the latter but where I am the cables travel
underground from the exchange to the village and then up onto poles
inside the village. We are a bit unusual in that our lines are archaic
"Exchange Only" lines with no cabinet between us and the exchange.
Electricity also comes in overhead on the same set of poles which makes >>> >it difficult for the telco - they have to bring in a cherry picker to
work on their signal level cables at height because of the live wires!
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+ pair >>> >> that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) rain >>> >> can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the lineman >>> >> can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
That is pretty much the situation here except that it is a lot wetter
and the groundwater is mildly alkaline and so corrosive. In addition
tree branches can strip the insulation off the overhead cable runs which >>> >makes it very noisy and can break conductors.
Connections to the premises wiring are done above ground in a
"telephone network interface" box: the utility's feed is
terminated in a pair (typically) of RJ11 jacks. The premises
wiring presents as one or more RJ11 plugs. So, a subscriber can
"unplug" their wiring from the network to allow the utility
to check THEIR wiring without the subscriber's impacting the test.
That is how modern installs are done with a so called master socket so
you can isolate the house wiring and plug into the test socket. You are >>> >supposed to do this before reporting a fault. My master POTS socket is
"conveniently" located at the far end of the loft where the old copper
cable enters the house. The new fibre install comes from a different
pole and has a splice box at ground level with a fibre up to my office. >>> >
Prehistoric ones were little more than a 4 way terminal block with a
Bakelite soap bar shaped cover over the top.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem to
last 5 or 10 years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how they >>> >>> protect wet wires from corrosion though. There are places near me with >>> >>> hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectifies >>> >>> ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer microwave >>> >>> has been claiming these dead zones for some time - farmers need it.
Our problem is with the hundreds of feet of 100(?) pair cable
that feeds the neighborhood from the main junction box at the entrance to
the subdivision. Lots of places for a partial short or line imbalance >>> >> to present.
It is almost invariably the wet corroded joints that cause trouble or
rodents chewing off the insulation. Ours are incredibly fragile now and >>> >any disturbance from working on a fault tends to break something else.
It got so bad at one point that they had to ship in additional POTS
engineers from outside the county to get on top of pending repairs.
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configuration
(it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet isn't >>> >too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lot of >>> >multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telephone_cabinet/
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems toVarious "burrowing creatures" are more of a problem with the
guide their choice of exactly what to nibble. We solved our problems >>> >>> on radio telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitrogen. >>> >>
AC mains (which are also below grade). Part of the service
procedure for each of the ground-mounted transformers is to
fill the exposed earth *inside* the enclosure with mortar
and wet it to form a bit of a crust to discourage the critters
from gaining entry to the high voltage wiring (fried critters!).
Packrats tend to enjoy feasting on the wire in automobiles,
accessing that from the underside.
Apparently pine martens are keen on BMW brake hose and wiring insulation >>> >(and they are now moving into my area of the UK).
https://www.englishforum.ch/daily-life/261913-pine-martens-brake-pipes.html
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
looks like artwork made by craftsmen compared to the stuff you see from India
San Francico has stunning views that are usually ruined by hideous
wiring. It's being undergrounded, which should be mostly done in a
couple of hundred years.
On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Sep 2023 08:04:49 -0700) it happened John Larkin <jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in
<crgbgilsv8kptrpig...@4ax.com>:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 04:29:00 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen ><lang...@fonz.dk> wrote:
lørdag den 16. september 2023 kl. 13.19.58 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:51:56 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 15/09/2023 16:39, Don Y wrote:I collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our phone >>> >>> lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as >>> >>> in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.
Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)?
Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the >>> >> subscriber's premises?
Modern build is usually the latter but where I am the cables travel
underground from the exchange to the village and then up onto poles
inside the village. We are a bit unusual in that our lines are archaic >>> >"Exchange Only" lines with no cabinet between us and the exchange.
Electricity also comes in overhead on the same set of poles which makes >>> >it difficult for the telco - they have to bring in a cherry picker to >>> >work on their signal level cables at height because of the live wires! >>> >>
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+ pair
that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) rain >>> >> can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the lineman
can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
That is pretty much the situation here except that it is a lot wetter >>> >and the groundwater is mildly alkaline and so corrosive. In addition >>> >tree branches can strip the insulation off the overhead cable runs which
makes it very noisy and can break conductors.
Connections to the premises wiring are done above ground in aThat is how modern installs are done with a so called master socket so >>> >you can isolate the house wiring and plug into the test socket. You are >>> >supposed to do this before reporting a fault. My master POTS socket is >>> >"conveniently" located at the far end of the loft where the old copper >>> >cable enters the house. The new fibre install comes from a different >>> >pole and has a splice box at ground level with a fibre up to my office. >>> >
"telephone network interface" box: the utility's feed is
terminated in a pair (typically) of RJ11 jacks. The premises
wiring presents as one or more RJ11 plugs. So, a subscriber can
"unplug" their wiring from the network to allow the utility
to check THEIR wiring without the subscriber's impacting the test. >>> >
Prehistoric ones were little more than a 4 way terminal block with a >>> >Bakelite soap bar shaped cover over the top.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem to >>> >>> last 5 or 10 years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how theyOur problem is with the hundreds of feet of 100(?) pair cable
protect wet wires from corrosion though. There are places near me with
hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectifies >>> >>> ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer microwave
has been claiming these dead zones for some time - farmers need it. >>> >>
that feeds the neighborhood from the main junction box at the entrance to
the subdivision. Lots of places for a partial short or line imbalance >>> >> to present.
It is almost invariably the wet corroded joints that cause trouble or >>> >rodents chewing off the insulation. Ours are incredibly fragile now and >>> >any disturbance from working on a fault tends to break something else. >>> >
It got so bad at one point that they had to ship in additional POTS
engineers from outside the county to get on top of pending repairs.
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configuration >>> >(it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet isn't
too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lot of
multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole. >>> >
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telephone_cabinet/
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems to >>> >>> guide their choice of exactly what to nibble. We solved our problems >>> >>> on radio telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitrogen.
Various "burrowing creatures" are more of a problem with the
AC mains (which are also below grade). Part of the service
procedure for each of the ground-mounted transformers is to
fill the exposed earth *inside* the enclosure with mortar
and wet it to form a bit of a crust to discourage the critters
from gaining entry to the high voltage wiring (fried critters!).
Packrats tend to enjoy feasting on the wire in automobiles,
accessing that from the underside.
Apparently pine martens are keen on BMW brake hose and wiring insulation
(and they are now moving into my area of the UK).
https://www.englishforum.ch/daily-life/261913-pine-martens-brake-pipes.html
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
looks like artwork made by craftsmen compared to the stuff you see from India
San Francico has stunning views that are usually ruined by hideousSF likely will not exist in a couple of years...
wiring. It's being undergrounded, which should be mostly done in a
couple of hundred years.
I was just reading that California is going to sue five big oil and gas companies for heating up earth:
ExxonMobil,BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell.
They should be grateful to those companies ...
On Saturday, September 16, 2023 at 10:05:07 PM UTC-7, Jan Panteltje=
wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Sep 2023 08:04:49 -0700) it happened John Larkin=
<jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in:
<crgbgilsv8kptrpig...@4ax.com>:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 04:29:00 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen
<lang...@fonz.dk> wrote:
lørdag den 16. september 2023 kl. 13.19.58 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin=
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:51:56 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 15/09/2023 16:39, Don Y wrote:
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our ph= >one
lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet = >(as
in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.=
Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)?=
Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the=
subscriber's premises?
Modern build is usually the latter but where I am the cables travel=
underground from the exchange to the village and then up onto poles=
inside the village. We are a bit unusual in that our lines are archa= >ic
"Exchange Only" lines with no cabinet between us and the exchange.=
pair
Electricity also comes in overhead on the same set of poles which ma= >kes
it difficult for the telco - they have to bring in a cherry picker t= >o
work on their signal level cables at height because of the live wire= >s!
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+=
that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) ra= >in
can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the l= >ineman
can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
That is pretty much the situation here except that it is a lot wette= >r
and the groundwater is mildly alkaline and so corrosive. In addition=
tree branches can strip the insulation off the overhead cable runs w= >hich
makes it very noisy and can break conductors.
Connections to the premises wiring are done above ground in a
"telephone network interface" box: the utility's feed is
terminated in a pair (typically) of RJ11 jacks. The premises
wiring presents as one or more RJ11 plugs. So, a subscriber can
"unplug" their wiring from the network to allow the utility
to check THEIR wiring without the subscriber's impacting the test.=
That is how modern installs are done with a so called master socket = >so
you can isolate the house wiring and plug into the test socket. You = >are
supposed to do this before reporting a fault. My master POTS socket = >is
"conveniently" located at the far end of the loft where the old copp= >er
cable enters the house. The new fibre install comes from a different=
pole and has a splice box at ground level with a fibre up to my offi= >ce.
Prehistoric ones were little more than a 4 way terminal block with a=
theyBakelite soap bar shaped cover over the top.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem t= >o
last 5 or 10 years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how=
withprotect wet wires from corrosion though. There are places near me=
hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectif= >ies
ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer micro= >wave
has been claiming these dead zones for some time - farmers need i= >t.
Our problem is with the hundreds of feet of 100(?) pair cable
that feeds the neighborhood from the main junction box at the entr= >ance to
the subdivision. Lots of places for a partial short or line imbala= >nce
to present.
It is almost invariably the wet corroded joints that cause trouble o= >r
rodents chewing off the insulation. Ours are incredibly fragile now = >and
any disturbance from working on a fault tends to break something els= >e.
It got so bad at one point that they had to ship in additional POTS=
engineers from outside the county to get on top of pending repairs.=
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configurati= >on
(it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet i= >sn't
too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lo= >t of
multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole.=
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telep= >hone_cabinet/
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems t= >o
guide their choice of exactly what to nibble. We solved our probl= >ems
on radio telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitr= >ogen.
Various "burrowing creatures" are more of a problem with the
AC mains (which are also below grade). Part of the service
procedure for each of the ground-mounted transformers is to
fill the exposed earth *inside* the enclosure with mortar
and wet it to form a bit of a crust to discourage the critters
from gaining entry to the high voltage wiring (fried critters!).=
IndiaI collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
Packrats tend to enjoy feasting on the wire in automobiles,
accessing that from the underside.
Apparently pine martens are keen on BMW brake hose and wiring insula= >tion
(and they are now moving into my area of the UK).
https://www.englishforum.ch/daily-life/261913-pine-martens-brake-pip= >es.html
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22= >nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
looks like artwork made by craftsmen compared to the stuff you see from=
SF likely will not exist in a couple of years...
San Francico has stunning views that are usually ruined by hideous
wiring. It's being undergrounded, which should be mostly done in a
couple of hundred years.
I was just reading that California is going to sue five big oil and gas companies for heating up earth:
ExxonMobil,BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell.
They should be grateful to those companies ...
Gratitude for products, but not for byproducts. The purpose of suing is to get a court to
consider the issue of those byproducts having a large-scale pollution cost, that SHOULD
be accounted for in economic decisions, and paid for by the customers of
'big oil and gas companies'. If those bit companies add the cost of >pollution to their products' costs, the suits will have satisfied California, >and reward the oil-and-gas folk a bit of repayment for their collection of the new tax...
The money losers, will be Jan Panteltje and associates. We're all his associates on
this forum, of course.
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:51:56 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configuration
(it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet isn't
too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lot of
multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telephone_cabinet/
I collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
On 9/16/2023 3:51 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
On 15/09/2023 16:39, Don Y wrote:
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our phone
lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as
in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.
Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)?
Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the
subscriber's premises?
Modern build is usually the latter but where I am the cables travel
underground from the exchange to the village and then up onto poles
inside the village. We
.. *to* the village? Are there so few subscribers there that the CO
isn't located *in* the village? ("village" has different connotations, depending on where it is used, here; some villages are the size of towns; some towns the size of villages)
Most COs (in the places I've lived) have lines coming into a
room in the basement, then up to a "wiring room" where all of
the pairs are laid out (on punchdown blocks?).
When/if they ever surface, I've never directly observed. And, nowadays,
you don't know if they haven't run fiber out to a remote concentrator...
are a bit unusual in that our lines are archaic "Exchange Only" lines
with no cabinet between us and the exchange.
So, any line repair/reconfiguration is done AT the CO?
There's a large (20 sq ft) wiring cabinet at the entrance to our
subdivisions that terminates all of the pairs from the CO *to*
the pairs feeding the subscribers. There is ALWAYS a telco
service vehicle parked nearby "fixing" something (I'm guessing
200 homes in the subdivision?)
Electricity also comes in overhead on the same set of poles which
makes it difficult for the telco - they have to bring in a cherry
picker to work on their signal level cables at height because of the
live wires!
Hmmm... the places I've lived with overhead wiring have usually
had the high tension wires at the top of the poles (imagine a T)
with cable and phone down much lower -- like halfway. They transit
to the home over separate paths so even if you had to access the
cable at the house, there would be sufficient clearance from the
mains feed.
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+ pair
that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) rain
can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the lineman >>> can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
That is pretty much the situation here except that it is a lot wetter
and the groundwater is mildly alkaline and so corrosive.
Ours is classified as "slightly to very strong alkaline" with a pervasive layer of calcium carbonate some 6-12 inches below the surface. The soil temperature is relatively high (70-80F) tracking our average air
temperature (~75F)
The advent of cell phone technology took a lot of pressure off of
POTS; folks could just discard their pairs, making them available
for the next house up or down the street.
You are supposed to do this before reporting a fault.
Yes, and because a RJ11 *jack* is presented, you can
carry a station set out to the TNI and connect to the
network directly to convince yourself that the
problem lies with the provider (or in the home).
Here, the crimp connections would happen on punchdown (66/110) blocks.
The pedestal wiring is less disciplined; I have no idea how they
keep track of which pairs they split off of the main cable at
each pedestal! (and wonder if there is ANY documentation of this??)
On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Sep 2023 08:04:49 -0700) it happened John Larkin ><jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in ><crgbgilsv8kptrpigj9h5pnotddsq6liha@4ax.com>:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 04:29:00 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen >><langwadt@fonz.dk> wrote:
lørdag den 16. september 2023 kl. 13.19.58 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:51:56 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 15/09/2023 16:39, Don Y wrote:I collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our phone >>>> >>> lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as >>>> >>> in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.
Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)?
Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the
subscriber's premises?
Modern build is usually the latter but where I am the cables travel
underground from the exchange to the village and then up onto poles
inside the village. We are a bit unusual in that our lines are archaic >>>> >"Exchange Only" lines with no cabinet between us and the exchange.
Electricity also comes in overhead on the same set of poles which makes >>>> >it difficult for the telco - they have to bring in a cherry picker to >>>> >work on their signal level cables at height because of the live wires! >>>> >>
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+ pair >>>> >> that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) rain >>>> >> can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the lineman
can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
That is pretty much the situation here except that it is a lot wetter >>>> >and the groundwater is mildly alkaline and so corrosive. In addition
tree branches can strip the insulation off the overhead cable runs which >>>> >makes it very noisy and can break conductors.
Connections to the premises wiring are done above ground in a
"telephone network interface" box: the utility's feed is
terminated in a pair (typically) of RJ11 jacks. The premises
wiring presents as one or more RJ11 plugs. So, a subscriber can
"unplug" their wiring from the network to allow the utility
to check THEIR wiring without the subscriber's impacting the test.
That is how modern installs are done with a so called master socket so >>>> >you can isolate the house wiring and plug into the test socket. You are >>>> >supposed to do this before reporting a fault. My master POTS socket is >>>> >"conveniently" located at the far end of the loft where the old copper >>>> >cable enters the house. The new fibre install comes from a different
pole and has a splice box at ground level with a fibre up to my office. >>>> >
Prehistoric ones were little more than a 4 way terminal block with a
Bakelite soap bar shaped cover over the top.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem to >>>> >>> last 5 or 10 years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how they >>>> >>> protect wet wires from corrosion though. There are places near me with >>>> >>> hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectifies >>>> >>> ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer microwave >>>> >>> has been claiming these dead zones for some time - farmers need it. >>>> >>Our problem is with the hundreds of feet of 100(?) pair cable
that feeds the neighborhood from the main junction box at the entrance to
the subdivision. Lots of places for a partial short or line imbalance >>>> >> to present.
It is almost invariably the wet corroded joints that cause trouble or >>>> >rodents chewing off the insulation. Ours are incredibly fragile now and >>>> >any disturbance from working on a fault tends to break something else. >>>> >
It got so bad at one point that they had to ship in additional POTS
engineers from outside the county to get on top of pending repairs.
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configuration >>>> >(it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet isn't >>>> >too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lot of >>>> >multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telephone_cabinet/
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems to >>>> >>> guide their choice of exactly what to nibble. We solved our problems >>>> >>> on radio telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitrogen. >>>> >>Various "burrowing creatures" are more of a problem with the
AC mains (which are also below grade). Part of the service
procedure for each of the ground-mounted transformers is to
fill the exposed earth *inside* the enclosure with mortar
and wet it to form a bit of a crust to discourage the critters
from gaining entry to the high voltage wiring (fried critters!).
Packrats tend to enjoy feasting on the wire in automobiles,
accessing that from the underside.
Apparently pine martens are keen on BMW brake hose and wiring insulation >>>> >(and they are now moving into my area of the UK).
https://www.englishforum.ch/daily-life/261913-pine-martens-brake-pipes.html
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
looks like artwork made by craftsmen compared to the stuff you see from India
San Francico has stunning views that are usually ruined by hideous
wiring. It's being undergrounded, which should be mostly done in a
couple of hundred years.
SF likely will not exist in a couple of years...
I was just reading that California is going to sue five big oil and gas companies for heating up earth:
ExxonMobil,BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell.
They should be grateful to those companies that made California liveable and the industry and jobs they created,
The complete insane climate idiots that infected politics using CO2 witch hunts means the end of civilization.
On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Sep 2023 22:38:41 -0700 (PDT)) it happened whit3rd ><whit3rd@gmail.com> wrote in ><08d599b3-ab2b-4526-958a-e65cc96a540bn@googlegroups.com>:
On Saturday, September 16, 2023 at 10:05:07 PM UTC-7, Jan Panteltje=
wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Sep 2023 08:04:49 -0700) it happened John Larkin= >>:
<jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in
<crgbgilsv8kptrpig...@4ax.com>:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 04:29:00 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen
<lang...@fonz.dk> wrote:
lørdag den 16. september 2023 kl. 13.19.58 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin=
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:51:56 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 15/09/2023 16:39, Don Y wrote:
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our ph= >>one
lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet = >>(as
in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.=
Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)?= >>
Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the= >>
subscriber's premises?
Modern build is usually the latter but where I am the cables travel= >>
underground from the exchange to the village and then up onto poles= >>
inside the village. We are a bit unusual in that our lines are archa= >>ic
"Exchange Only" lines with no cabinet between us and the exchange.=
Electricity also comes in overhead on the same set of poles which ma= >>kes
it difficult for the telco - they have to bring in a cherry picker t= >>o
work on their signal level cables at height because of the live wire= >>s!
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+= >> pair
that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) ra= >>in
can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the l= >>ineman
can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
That is pretty much the situation here except that it is a lot wette= >>r
and the groundwater is mildly alkaline and so corrosive. In addition= >>
tree branches can strip the insulation off the overhead cable runs w= >>hich
makes it very noisy and can break conductors.
Connections to the premises wiring are done above ground in a
"telephone network interface" box: the utility's feed is
terminated in a pair (typically) of RJ11 jacks. The premises
wiring presents as one or more RJ11 plugs. So, a subscriber can
"unplug" their wiring from the network to allow the utility
to check THEIR wiring without the subscriber's impacting the test.= >>
That is how modern installs are done with a so called master socket = >>so
you can isolate the house wiring and plug into the test socket. You = >>are
supposed to do this before reporting a fault. My master POTS socket = >>is
"conveniently" located at the far end of the loft where the old copp= >>er
cable enters the house. The new fibre install comes from a different= >>
pole and has a splice box at ground level with a fibre up to my offi= >>ce.
Prehistoric ones were little more than a 4 way terminal block with a= >>
Bakelite soap bar shaped cover over the top.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem t= >>o
last 5 or 10 years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how= >> they
protect wet wires from corrosion though. There are places near me= >> with
hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectif= >>ies
ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer micro= >>wave
has been claiming these dead zones for some time - farmers need i= >>t.
Our problem is with the hundreds of feet of 100(?) pair cable
that feeds the neighborhood from the main junction box at the entr= >>ance to
the subdivision. Lots of places for a partial short or line imbala= >>nce
to present.
It is almost invariably the wet corroded joints that cause trouble o= >>r
rodents chewing off the insulation. Ours are incredibly fragile now = >>and
any disturbance from working on a fault tends to break something els= >>e.
It got so bad at one point that they had to ship in additional POTS= >>
engineers from outside the county to get on top of pending repairs.= >>
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configurati= >>on
(it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet i= >>sn't
too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lo= >>t of
multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole.= >>
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telep= >>hone_cabinet/
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems t= >>o
guide their choice of exactly what to nibble. We solved our probl= >>ems
on radio telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitr= >>ogen.
Various "burrowing creatures" are more of a problem with the
AC mains (which are also below grade). Part of the service
procedure for each of the ground-mounted transformers is to
fill the exposed earth *inside* the enclosure with mortar
and wet it to form a bit of a crust to discourage the critters
from gaining entry to the high voltage wiring (fried critters!).=
SF likely will not exist in a couple of years...I collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
Packrats tend to enjoy feasting on the wire in automobiles,
accessing that from the underside.
Apparently pine martens are keen on BMW brake hose and wiring insula= >>tion
(and they are now moving into my area of the UK).
https://www.englishforum.ch/daily-life/261913-pine-martens-brake-pip= >>es.html
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22= >>nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
looks like artwork made by craftsmen compared to the stuff you see from= >> India
San Francico has stunning views that are usually ruined by hideous
wiring. It's being undergrounded, which should be mostly done in a
couple of hundred years.
I was just reading that California is going to sue five big oil and gas companies for heating up earth:
ExxonMobil,BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell.
They should be grateful to those companies ...
Gratitude for products, but not for byproducts. The purpose of suing is to get a court to
consider the issue of those byproducts having a large-scale pollution cost, that SHOULD
be accounted for in economic decisions, and paid for by the customers of >>'big oil and gas companies'. If those bit companies add the cost of >>pollution to their products' costs, the suits will have satisfied California, >>and reward the oil-and-gas folk a bit of repayment for their collection of the new tax...
The money losers, will be Jan Panteltje and associates. We're all his associates on
this forum, of course.
Well, from the POV from reality,
let's just all those companies as from now stop supplying California
with oil, gas and ALL byproducts from oil, such as plastic, energy, >everything.
The lynching of those political insane CO2 clowns would be a hit on TV if >they still HAD the electricity to watch it, or even the components to make those.
No cars, no equipment to work the land, no food, no heating, no aircos >NOTHING.
There are too many lawyers in the US anyways, pestering people, they even have a go at presidents,
like the great leader Trump who stopped the war in Afghanistan.
The real war criminals like Bush for example still run free.
Telling Saddam to attack Saudi Arabia and then making war on Saddam and selling weapons to Saudi Arabia all that for profit.
No word of the environmental impact of the wars US makes!!!!
And now the fuck you 'merricans think you can pollute EUROPE WITH YOUR GODDAMED DEPLETED AMMO?
Time for that silly empire of ever lower IQ war mongers to perish.
amen
As to speed and cables, all power lines apart from HV lines are underground here.
And I have a Huawei 4G USB stick here plugged into a Raspberry Pi 4 for internet and am posting this with the Usenet reader I wrote myself.
That USB stick works just as well and id automatically detected in my laptop running Ubuntu when I am elsewhere.
Teefee comes via satellite, all free to air, and EVERYTHING will work if there is no power as I have solar cells
and a 250 Ah battery backup with a 2000 W converter to 230 V 50 Hz.
What a joke you 'merricans have become.
On Sun, 17 Sep 2023 05:04:57 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Sep 2023 08:04:49 -0700) it happened John Larkin >><jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in >><crgbgilsv8kptrpigj9h5pnotddsq6liha@4ax.com>:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 04:29:00 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen >>><langwadt@fonz.dk> wrote:
lørdag den 16. september 2023 kl. 13.19.58 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:51:56 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 15/09/2023 16:39, Don Y wrote:I collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our phone >>>>> >>> lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as >>>>> >>> in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.
Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)? >>>>> >> Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the >>>>> >> subscriber's premises?
Modern build is usually the latter but where I am the cables travel >>>>> >underground from the exchange to the village and then up onto poles >>>>> >inside the village. We are a bit unusual in that our lines are archaic >>>>> >"Exchange Only" lines with no cabinet between us and the exchange.
Electricity also comes in overhead on the same set of poles which makes >>>>> >it difficult for the telco - they have to bring in a cherry picker to >>>>> >work on their signal level cables at height because of the live wires! >>>>> >>
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+ pair
that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) rain >>>>> >> can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the lineman
can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
That is pretty much the situation here except that it is a lot wetter >>>>> >and the groundwater is mildly alkaline and so corrosive. In addition >>>>> >tree branches can strip the insulation off the overhead cable runs which >>>>> >makes it very noisy and can break conductors.
Connections to the premises wiring are done above ground in aThat is how modern installs are done with a so called master socket so >>>>> >you can isolate the house wiring and plug into the test socket. You are >>>>> >supposed to do this before reporting a fault. My master POTS socket is >>>>> >"conveniently" located at the far end of the loft where the old copper >>>>> >cable enters the house. The new fibre install comes from a different >>>>> >pole and has a splice box at ground level with a fibre up to my office. >>>>> >
"telephone network interface" box: the utility's feed is
terminated in a pair (typically) of RJ11 jacks. The premises
wiring presents as one or more RJ11 plugs. So, a subscriber can
"unplug" their wiring from the network to allow the utility
to check THEIR wiring without the subscriber's impacting the test. >>>>> >
Prehistoric ones were little more than a 4 way terminal block with a >>>>> >Bakelite soap bar shaped cover over the top.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem to >>>>> >>> last 5 or 10 years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how theyOur problem is with the hundreds of feet of 100(?) pair cable
protect wet wires from corrosion though. There are places near me with
hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectifies >>>>> >>> ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer microwave >>>>> >>> has been claiming these dead zones for some time - farmers need it. >>>>> >>
that feeds the neighborhood from the main junction box at the entrance to
the subdivision. Lots of places for a partial short or line imbalance >>>>> >> to present.
It is almost invariably the wet corroded joints that cause trouble or >>>>> >rodents chewing off the insulation. Ours are incredibly fragile now and >>>>> >any disturbance from working on a fault tends to break something else. >>>>> >
It got so bad at one point that they had to ship in additional POTS >>>>> >engineers from outside the county to get on top of pending repairs. >>>>> >
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configuration >>>>> >(it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet isn't >>>>> >too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lot of >>>>> >multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole. >>>>> >
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telephone_cabinet/
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems to >>>>> >>> guide their choice of exactly what to nibble. We solved our problems >>>>> >>> on radio telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitrogen.
Various "burrowing creatures" are more of a problem with the
AC mains (which are also below grade). Part of the service
procedure for each of the ground-mounted transformers is to
fill the exposed earth *inside* the enclosure with mortar
and wet it to form a bit of a crust to discourage the critters
from gaining entry to the high voltage wiring (fried critters!).
Packrats tend to enjoy feasting on the wire in automobiles,
accessing that from the underside.
Apparently pine martens are keen on BMW brake hose and wiring insulation >>>>> >(and they are now moving into my area of the UK).
https://www.englishforum.ch/daily-life/261913-pine-martens-brake-pipes.html
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
looks like artwork made by craftsmen compared to the stuff you see from India
San Francico has stunning views that are usually ruined by hideous >>>wiring. It's being undergrounded, which should be mostly done in a
couple of hundred years.
SF likely will not exist in a couple of years...
I was just reading that California is going to sue five big oil and gas companies for heating up earth:
ExxonMobil,BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell.
They should be grateful to those companies that made California liveable and the industry and jobs they created,
The complete insane climate idiots that infected politics using CO2 witch hunts means the end of civilization.
Electing greenie morons will change, as people sit hungry in the cold
and dark in their dead Teslas.
SF will exist for a long time. Lots of people will always want to live
here.
On 16/09/2023 12:19, John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:51:56 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configuration
(it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet isn't >>> too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lot of >>> multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telephone_cabinet/
That example is a textbook layout neat one. Ours looks like that one
after you have put a fork into it and and turned it over a few times!
I collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
It seems to me a miracle that telecoms stuff actually works!
On 16/09/2023 16:24, Don Y wrote:
On 9/16/2023 3:51 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
On 15/09/2023 16:39, Don Y wrote:
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our phone >>>>> lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as >>>>> in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.
Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)?
Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the
subscriber's premises?
Modern build is usually the latter but where I am the cables travel
underground from the exchange to the village and then up onto poles
inside the village. We
.. *to* the village? Are there so few subscribers there that the CO
isn't located *in* the village? ("village" has different connotations,
depending on where it is used, here; some villages are the size of towns;
some towns the size of villages)
On Sun, 17 Sep 2023 10:32:32 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Sep 2023 22:38:41 -0700 (PDT)) it happened whit3rd >><whit3rd@gmail.com> wrote in >><08d599b3-ab2b-4526-958a-e65cc96a540bn@googlegroups.com>:
On Saturday, September 16, 2023 at 10:05:07 PM UTC-7, Jan Panteltje=
wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Sep 2023 08:04:49 -0700) it happened John Larkin= >>>
<jjla...@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in
<crgbgilsv8kptrpig...@4ax.com>:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 04:29:00 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt ChristensenSF likely will not exist in a couple of years...
<lang...@fonz.dk> wrote:
lørdag den 16. september 2023 kl. 13.19.58 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin= >>>:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:51:56 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 15/09/2023 16:39, Don Y wrote:I collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our ph= >>>one
lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet = >>>(as
in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help.= >>>
Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)?= >>>
Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the= >>>
subscriber's premises?
Modern build is usually the latter but where I am the cables travel= >>>
underground from the exchange to the village and then up onto poles= >>>
inside the village. We are a bit unusual in that our lines are archa= >>>ic
"Exchange Only" lines with no cabinet between us and the exchange.= >>>
Electricity also comes in overhead on the same set of poles which ma= >>>kes
it difficult for the telco - they have to bring in a cherry picker t= >>>o
work on their signal level cables at height because of the live wire= >>>s!
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+= >>> pair
that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) ra= >>>in
can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the l= >>>ineman
can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
That is pretty much the situation here except that it is a lot wette= >>>r
and the groundwater is mildly alkaline and so corrosive. In addition= >>>
tree branches can strip the insulation off the overhead cable runs w= >>>hich
makes it very noisy and can break conductors.
Connections to the premises wiring are done above ground in a
"telephone network interface" box: the utility's feed is
terminated in a pair (typically) of RJ11 jacks. The premises
wiring presents as one or more RJ11 plugs. So, a subscriber can >>>> >>> >> "unplug" their wiring from the network to allow the utility
to check THEIR wiring without the subscriber's impacting the test.= >>>
That is how modern installs are done with a so called master socket = >>>so
you can isolate the house wiring and plug into the test socket. You = >>>are
supposed to do this before reporting a fault. My master POTS socket = >>>is
"conveniently" located at the far end of the loft where the old copp= >>>er
cable enters the house. The new fibre install comes from a different= >>>
pole and has a splice box at ground level with a fibre up to my offi= >>>ce.
Prehistoric ones were little more than a 4 way terminal block with a= >>>
Bakelite soap bar shaped cover over the top.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem t= >>>o
last 5 or 10 years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how= >>> they
protect wet wires from corrosion though. There are places near me= >>> with
hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectif= >>>ies
ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer micro= >>>wave
has been claiming these dead zones for some time - farmers need i= >>>t.
Our problem is with the hundreds of feet of 100(?) pair cable
that feeds the neighborhood from the main junction box at the entr= >>>ance to
the subdivision. Lots of places for a partial short or line imbala= >>>nce
to present.
It is almost invariably the wet corroded joints that cause trouble o= >>>r
rodents chewing off the insulation. Ours are incredibly fragile now = >>>and
any disturbance from working on a fault tends to break something els= >>>e.
It got so bad at one point that they had to ship in additional POTS= >>>
engineers from outside the county to get on top of pending repairs.= >>>
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configurati= >>>on
(it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet i= >>>sn't
too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lo= >>>t of
multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole.= >>>
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telep= >>>hone_cabinet/
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems t= >>>o
guide their choice of exactly what to nibble. We solved our probl= >>>ems
on radio telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitr= >>>ogen.
Various "burrowing creatures" are more of a problem with the
AC mains (which are also below grade). Part of the service
procedure for each of the ground-mounted transformers is to
fill the exposed earth *inside* the enclosure with mortar
and wet it to form a bit of a crust to discourage the critters
from gaining entry to the high voltage wiring (fried critters!).= >>>
Packrats tend to enjoy feasting on the wire in automobiles,
accessing that from the underside.
Apparently pine martens are keen on BMW brake hose and wiring insula= >>>tion
(and they are now moving into my area of the UK).
https://www.englishforum.ch/daily-life/261913-pine-martens-brake-pip= >>>es.html
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22= >>>nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
looks like artwork made by craftsmen compared to the stuff you see from= >>> India
San Francico has stunning views that are usually ruined by hideous
wiring. It's being undergrounded, which should be mostly done in a
couple of hundred years.
I was just reading that California is going to sue five big oil and gas companies for heating up earth:
ExxonMobil,BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell.
They should be grateful to those companies ...
Gratitude for products, but not for byproducts. The purpose of suing is to get a court to
consider the issue of those byproducts having a large-scale pollution cost, that SHOULD
be accounted for in economic decisions, and paid for by the customers of >>>'big oil and gas companies'. If those bit companies add the cost of >>>pollution to their products' costs, the suits will have satisfied California,
and reward the oil-and-gas folk a bit of repayment for their collection of the new tax...
The money losers, will be Jan Panteltje and associates. We're all his associates on
this forum, of course.
Well, from the POV from reality,
let's just all those companies as from now stop supplying California
with oil, gas and ALL byproducts from oil, such as plastic, energy, >>everything.
The lynching of those political insane CO2 clowns would be a hit on TV if >>they still HAD the electricity to watch it, or even the components to make those.
No cars, no equipment to work the land, no food, no heating, no aircos >>NOTHING.
There are too many lawyers in the US anyways, pestering people, they even have a go at presidents,
like the great leader Trump who stopped the war in Afghanistan.
The real war criminals like Bush for example still run free.
Telling Saddam to attack Saudi Arabia and then making war on Saddam and selling weapons to Saudi Arabia all that for profit.
No word of the environmental impact of the wars US makes!!!!
And now the fuck you 'merricans think you can pollute EUROPE WITH YOUR GODDAMED DEPLETED AMMO?
Time for that silly empire of ever lower IQ war mongers to perish.
amen
As to speed and cables, all power lines apart from HV lines are underground here.
It's hilly and rocky here. Digging is expensive. We use a microwave
link for our internet at work because it would have cost about $100K
to dig up the street and run fiber.
All streets should have a utility tunnel. Too late here.
And I have a Huawei 4G USB stick here plugged into a Raspberry Pi 4 for internet and am posting this with the Usenet reader I
wrote myself.
That USB stick works just as well and id automatically detected in my laptop running Ubuntu when I am elsewhere.
Teefee comes via satellite, all free to air, and EVERYTHING will work if there is no power as I have solar cells
and a 250 Ah battery backup with a 2000 W converter to 230 V 50 Hz.
What a joke you 'merricans have become.
Life is great here, if you turn off your phone and avoid reading the
gloomy part of the news, which is about 90%.
People are not trekking a couple thousand miles to get into Russia or
Cuba or Somalia.
On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Sep 2023 07:58:15 -0700) it happened John Larkin ><jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in ><4p4egilh7pg6fufr6sadpeerkprckvn32s@4ax.com>:
On Sun, 17 Sep 2023 05:04:57 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid> >>wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Sep 2023 08:04:49 -0700) it happened John Larkin >>><jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in >>><crgbgilsv8kptrpigj9h5pnotddsq6liha@4ax.com>:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 04:29:00 -0700 (PDT), Lasse Langwadt Christensen >>>><langwadt@fonz.dk> wrote:
lørdag den 16. september 2023 kl. 13.19.58 UTC+2 skrev John Larkin:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:51:56 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 15/09/2023 16:39, Don Y wrote:I collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
On 9/15/2023 3:21 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
We must surely have a lot more rain than in the US and yet our phone >>>>>> >>> lines generally do hold up for ADSL unless it gets very very wet (as >>>>>> >>> in flooding). Being on the wrong side of the beck doesn't help. >>>>>> >>Are your lines fed from above (e.g., flying off telephone poles)? >>>>>> >> Or, do they travel below grade, surfacing just before entering the >>>>>> >> subscriber's premises?
Modern build is usually the latter but where I am the cables travel >>>>>> >underground from the exchange to the village and then up onto poles >>>>>> >inside the village. We are a bit unusual in that our lines are archaic >>>>>> >"Exchange Only" lines with no cabinet between us and the exchange. >>>>>> >
Electricity also comes in overhead on the same set of poles which makes >>>>>> >it difficult for the telco - they have to bring in a cherry picker to >>>>>> >work on their signal level cables at height because of the live wires! >>>>>> >>
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+ pair
that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) rain >>>>>> >> can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the lineman
can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
That is pretty much the situation here except that it is a lot wetter >>>>>> >and the groundwater is mildly alkaline and so corrosive. In addition >>>>>> >tree branches can strip the insulation off the overhead cable runs which
makes it very noisy and can break conductors.
Connections to the premises wiring are done above ground in aThat is how modern installs are done with a so called master socket so >>>>>> >you can isolate the house wiring and plug into the test socket. You are >>>>>> >supposed to do this before reporting a fault. My master POTS socket is >>>>>> >"conveniently" located at the far end of the loft where the old copper >>>>>> >cable enters the house. The new fibre install comes from a different >>>>>> >pole and has a splice box at ground level with a fibre up to my office. >>>>>> >
"telephone network interface" box: the utility's feed is
terminated in a pair (typically) of RJ11 jacks. The premises
wiring presents as one or more RJ11 plugs. So, a subscriber can >>>>>> >> "unplug" their wiring from the network to allow the utility
to check THEIR wiring without the subscriber's impacting the test. >>>>>> >
Prehistoric ones were little more than a 4 way terminal block with a >>>>>> >Bakelite soap bar shaped cover over the top.
They connector housings do fail from time to time but they seem to >>>>>> >>> last 5 or 10 years before they fail badly again. I'm not sure how theyOur problem is with the hundreds of feet of 100(?) pair cable
protect wet wires from corrosion though. There are places near me with
hybrid copper meets aluminium phone wiring which partially rectifies >>>>>> >>> ADSL. So bad that some don't even get 256kbps. Peer to peer microwave
has been claiming these dead zones for some time - farmers need it. >>>>>> >>
that feeds the neighborhood from the main junction box at the entrance to
the subdivision. Lots of places for a partial short or line imbalance
to present.
It is almost invariably the wet corroded joints that cause trouble or >>>>>> >rodents chewing off the insulation. Ours are incredibly fragile now and >>>>>> >any disturbance from working on a fault tends to break something else. >>>>>> >
It got so bad at one point that they had to ship in additional POTS >>>>>> >engineers from outside the county to get on top of pending repairs. >>>>>> >
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configuration >>>>>> >(it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet isn't
too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lot of
multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole. >>>>>> >
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telephone_cabinet/
There may be a slight difference in texture which is what seems to >>>>>> >>> guide their choice of exactly what to nibble. We solved our problems >>>>>> >>> on radio telescope cable runs by flooding the ducts with dry nitrogen.
Various "burrowing creatures" are more of a problem with the
AC mains (which are also below grade). Part of the service
procedure for each of the ground-mounted transformers is to
fill the exposed earth *inside* the enclosure with mortar
and wet it to form a bit of a crust to discourage the critters
from gaining entry to the high voltage wiring (fried critters!). >>>>>> >>
Packrats tend to enjoy feasting on the wire in automobiles,
accessing that from the underside.
Apparently pine martens are keen on BMW brake hose and wiring insulation
(and they are now moving into my area of the UK).
https://www.englishforum.ch/daily-life/261913-pine-martens-brake-pipes.html
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
looks like artwork made by craftsmen compared to the stuff you see from India
San Francico has stunning views that are usually ruined by hideous >>>>wiring. It's being undergrounded, which should be mostly done in a >>>>couple of hundred years.
SF likely will not exist in a couple of years...
I was just reading that California is going to sue five big oil and gas companies for heating up earth:
ExxonMobil,BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell.
They should be grateful to those companies that made California liveable and the industry and jobs they created,
The complete insane climate idiots that infected politics using CO2 witch hunts means the end of civilization.
Electing greenie morons will change, as people sit hungry in the cold
and dark in their dead Teslas.
SF will exist for a long time. Lots of people will always want to live >>here.
Sure Su[p]perman will come to the rescue when the Andreas fault is triggered?
On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Sep 2023 22:38:41 -0700 (PDT)) it happened whit3rd <whi...@gmail.com> wrote in
<08d599b3-ab2b-4526...@googlegroups.com>:
On Saturday, September 16, 2023 at 10:05:07 PM UTC-7, Jan Panteltje=
wrote:
SF likely will not exist in a couple of years...
I was just reading that California is going to sue five big oil and gas companies for heating up earth:
ExxonMobil,BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell.
They should be grateful to those companies ...
Gratitude for products, but not for byproducts. The purpose of suing is to get a court to
consider the issue of those byproducts having a large-scale pollution cost, that SHOULD
be accounted for in economic decisions, and paid for by the customers of >'big oil and gas companies'. If those bit companies add the cost of >pollution to their products' costs, the suits will have satisfied California,
and reward the oil-and-gas folk a bit of repayment for their collection of the new tax...
The money losers, will be Jan Panteltje and associates. We're all his associates on
this forum, of course.
Well, from the POV from reality,
let's just all those companies as from now stop supplying California
with oil, gas and ALL byproducts from oil, such as plastic, energy, everything.
The lynching of those political insane CO2 clowns would be...
There are too many lawyers in the US ...
If so that is what is unusual about our provision - there is no cabinet the >> lines go all the way back to the exchange. That is unusual here...
It would be unusual here, in newer developments. My home, growing up,
was like that -- wire off telephone pole into home, other end at
the "closest" CO (which, back then, was a step-by-step office...
"Valerie 8")
.. *to* the village? Are there so few subscribers there that the CO
isn't located *in* the village? ("village" has different connotations,
depending on where it is used, here; some villages are the size of towns;
some towns the size of villages)
UK "village" has some ambiguity too. Modern ones can be legally up to 5k which
means there are a lot of new builds with populations 4,999.
Mine is a former medieval village in the old sense (arguably now a hamlet) with
about 250 people in ~5 square miles. Mostly in a linear development along the main street apart from the farms.
It was a fair bit 2-3x bigger before the black death struck it...
Most COs (in the places I've lived) have lines coming into a
room in the basement, then up to a "wiring room" where all of
the pairs are laid out (on punchdown blocks?).
Is a CO what we would call a cabinet? Where the main trunk line back to the exchange is terminated and the local consumer circuits start?
If so that is what is unusual about our provision - there is no cabinet the lines go all the way back to the exchange. That is unusual here...
When/if they ever surface, I've never directly observed. And, nowadays,
you don't know if they haven't run fiber out to a remote concentrator...
That in the UK would be FTTC (VDSL fibre to the cabinet) with copper circuits to the consumers. Putting these onto Digital Voice VOIP makes them incredibly useless since even if the consumer end has a UPS the powered cabinet needed for
FTTC does not have any back supply.
That service is Digital in Name Only or "DINO" it combines all the worst characteristics of VOIP (fails without power) without eliminating the pesky final mile of ageing copper that carries the VDSL signals.
POTS generally continues to work even when DSL is down (except if there is a fine break small enough for RF to jump the gap capacitively). Most importantly
it still works when the mains has failed (and for a decent length of time too -
exchanges have largish battery backup systems).
are a bit unusual in that our lines are archaic "Exchange Only" lines with >>> no cabinet between us and the exchange.
So, any line repair/reconfiguration is done AT the CO?
There is no CO the lines run right back to the exchange.
That is the meaning of an exchange only line. They are a nightmare for VDSL operation because of the crosstalk they induce inside the exchange. The standard fix is that they install a new powered FTTC cabinet nearby and run anyone nearby taking the VDSL service to that.
There's a large (20 sq ft) wiring cabinet at the entrance to our
subdivisions that terminates all of the pairs from the CO *to*
the pairs feeding the subscribers. There is ALWAYS a telco
service vehicle parked nearby "fixing" something (I'm guessing
200 homes in the subdivision?)
That is about the size of our entire local exchange including its battery room.
My fibre service doesn't go to that exchange at all but to a much larger exchange ~12 miles away in the county town.
Electricity also comes in overhead on the same set of poles which makes it >>> difficult for the telco - they have to bring in a cherry picker to work on >>> their signal level cables at height because of the live wires!
Hmmm... the places I've lived with overhead wiring have usually
had the high tension wires at the top of the poles (imagine a T)
with cable and phone down much lower -- like halfway. They transit
to the home over separate paths so even if you had to access the
cable at the house, there would be sufficient clearance from the
mains feed.
The convention in the UK is horizontal mounted wires implies medium high tension 33kV or thereabouts and vertical mounted wires are consumer 240v distribution. I reckon the lowest now uninsulated hot cable is only about 2' above the telecoms line. Poles are also marked "do not climb" for other reasons
of age and decrepitude.
Water frequently infiltrates our buried cables (including the 100+ pair >>>> that runs the length of the street, below grade). So, a (rare!) rain >>>> can leave you with a noisey line that resolves itself BEFORE the lineman >>>> can get around to actually checking the line, in person.
That is pretty much the situation here except that it is a lot wetter and >>> the groundwater is mildly alkaline and so corrosive.
Ours is classified as "slightly to very strong alkaline" with a pervasive
layer of calcium carbonate some 6-12 inches below the surface. The soil
temperature is relatively high (70-80F) tracking our average air
temperature (~75F)
It is a lot colder than that here so penetrating ground frosts also play a part
in prizing wet crimp joints apart.
The advent of cell phone technology took a lot of pressure off of
POTS; folks could just discard their pairs, making them available
for the next house up or down the street.
That is happening here too. In fact apart from going with BT you automatically
lose your landline number if you take full fibre internet.
The naming convention is pretty silly too - they first sold FTTC as "fibre" so
they now have to call true fibre services "full fibre".
You are supposed to do this before reporting a fault.
Yes, and because a RJ11 *jack* is presented, you can
carry a station set out to the TNI and connect to the
network directly to convince yourself that the
problem lies with the provider (or in the home).
UK has its own peculiar BT connector - not RJ11 although adapters are available
(thought nothing like as peculiar as Belgacom's connectors).
Here, the crimp connections would happen on punchdown (66/110) blocks.
The pedestal wiring is less disciplined; I have no idea how they
keep track of which pairs they split off of the main cable at
each pedestal! (and wonder if there is ANY documentation of this??)
I have wondered about that too. They do seem to know which line pair is which without having to put a trace signal on most of the time.
I signed up with Comcast for, I think, 30 megabit cable internet. I
had a service problem a while back so they upgraded "for free" to 50.
I just ran a speed test and it's 920+38 Mbits. This is with a CAT5
cable right from their modem.
At work, we have a MonkeyBrains dish. We pay for 50+50 and get
500+500.
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for,
same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
On 12/09/2023 15:18, John Larkin wrote:
I signed up with Comcast for, I think, 30 megabit cable internet. IMaybe you signed up for megabytes and you're measuring megabits ? 8 data
had a service problem a while back so they upgraded "for free" to 50.
I just ran a speed test and it's 920+38 Mbits. This is with a CAT5
cable right from their modem.
At work, we have a MonkeyBrains dish. We pay for 50+50 and get
500+500.
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for,
same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
1 start 1 stop ?
On Sunday, September 17, 2023 at 3:32:41 AM UTC-7, Jan Panteltje wr=
ote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Sep 2023 22:38:41 -0700 (PDT)) it happened whit3r= >dtje=
<whi...@gmail.com> wrote in
<08d599b3-ab2b-4526...@googlegroups.com>:
On Saturday, September 16, 2023 at 10:05:07 PM UTC-7, Jan Pantel=
wrote:
SF likely will not exist in a couple of years...
I was just reading that California is going to sue five big oil and ga= >s companies for heating up earth:
ExxonMobil,BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell.
They should be grateful to those companies ...
Gratitude for products, but not for byproducts. The purpose of suing is = >to get a court to
consider the issue of those byproducts having a large-scale pollution co= >st, that SHOULD
be accounted for in economic decisions, and paid for by the customers of=
'big oil and gas companies'. If those bit companies add the cost of
pollution to their products' costs, the suits will have satisfied Califo= >rnia,
and reward the oil-and-gas folk a bit of repayment for their collection = >of the new tax...
The money losers, will be Jan Panteltje and associates. We're all his as= >sociates on
this forum, of course.
Well, from the POV from reality,
Oh, that's bad wording; reality is large, offers many points of view, not j= >ust one.
A lawsuit means there's at least two to be considered here.
let's just all those companies as from now stop supplying California
with oil, gas and ALL byproducts from oil, such as plastic, energy,
everything.
... which will not terminate the suit, since damage is present and unremedi= >ed, not just
potential for the future
The lynching of those political insane CO2 clowns would be...
a hate crime?
San Francico has stunning views that are usually ruined by hideous >>>>>wiring. It's being undergrounded, which should be mostly done in a >>>>>couple of hundred years.
SF likely will not exist in a couple of years...
I was just reading that California is going to sue five big oil and gas companies for heating up earth:
ExxonMobil,BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell.
They should be grateful to those companies that made California liveable and the industry and jobs they created,
The complete insane climate idiots that infected politics using CO2 witch hunts means the end of civilization.
Electing greenie morons will change, as people sit hungry in the cold
and dark in their dead Teslas.
SF will exist for a long time. Lots of people will always want to live >>>here.
Sure Su[p]perman will come to the rescue when the Andreas fault is triggered?
Sure, we'll have another big one eventually. Climate Change doesn't
cause earthquakes, although some idiots have claimed it does.
Since the 1989 quake, building codes here have impoved, both for new >construction and for older structures. Wood frame houses are required
to be reinforced against ground-floor-garage "soft-story" failure and
bricks must be reinforced. Our house was built in 1992, and it has a
steel frame concreted into bedrock, with plywood shear walls. Our real >concern would be a giant fire.
We spent a goodly part of a megbuck to harden our company building.
Current geology speculation suggests the big dangers are earthquake in >southern California and a massive tsunami in Washington and Oregon.
A big quake in mid/eastern USA, like the one in 1811, would be
ghastly. Too many unreinforced brick and stone structures.
England has lots of stone structures but doesn't get serious quakes,
but many places in europe do both.
On Sun, 17 Sep 2023 15:32:28 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 16/09/2023 12:19, John Larkin wrote:
I collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
It seems to me a miracle that telecoms stuff actually works!
Our utilities, including cable/internet, are actually quite reliable.
I can't explain that.
Our cable modem hangs up once in a while, but that's just the usual
software bugs. A hard power cycle fixes that.
On 17/09/2023 16:15, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 17 Sep 2023 15:32:28 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 16/09/2023 12:19, John Larkin wrote:
I collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
It seems to me a miracle that telecoms stuff actually works!
Our utilities, including cable/internet, are actually quite reliable.
I can't explain that.
Our cable modem hangs up once in a while, but that's just the usual
software bugs. A hard power cycle fixes that.
When I had a cable modem in Belgium it was so reliable that I never had
to look at it until it was time to move out. The PSU brick for it ran so
hot that the label on the outside of it was slightly scorched! Scary!!!
My fibre modem hasn't been rebooted since installation apart from when
it was unplugged for rearranging my office furniture. It is very stable.
ADSL links used to die at least every couple of months with router
firmware either going unresponsive or claiming perfect signal synch but
no data transfer so incrementing hard unrecoverable error seconds in >realtime. I always got a few of those per day in normal operation.
On Mon, 18 Sep 2023 10:36:03 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
My fibre modem hasn't been rebooted since installation apart from when
it was unplugged for rearranging my office furniture. It is very stable.
ADSL links used to die at least every couple of months with router
firmware either going unresponsive or claiming perfect signal synch but
no data transfer so incrementing hard unrecoverable error seconds in
realtime. I always got a few of those per day in normal operation.
Our Comcast box downloads its software from the mother ship, every
time it powers up. That takes about 15 minutes. I asssme they are in
the usual constant-upgrade bug manufacturing mode, as downloaded
software usually is.
If it's easy to fix, it's easy to break.
Ouch! That is a royal PITA. Mine has to have its firmware updated every now and
then if a vulnerability is found and/or exploited but it boots in under a minute from whatever internal SSD/memory stick it has.
It issues dire warnings about not switching it off during an update.
On 9/18/2023 9:06 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
Ouch! That is a royal PITA. Mine has to have its firmware updated every now and
then if a vulnerability is found and/or exploited but it boots in under a minute from whatever internal SSD/memory stick it has.
It issues dire warnings about not switching it off during an update.I wouldn't design any new application to run out of FLASH.
If the flash was fast enough for XIP, then you'd worry about
read wear (how do you recover if your media is "suspect"?)
And, RAM tends to be faster so you're going to WANT to transfer
your code into RAM, regardless...
On 9/18/2023 12:07 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
mandag den 18. september 2023 kl. 20.51.22 UTC+2 skrev Don Y:
On 9/18/2023 9:06 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
Ouch! That is a royal PITA. Mine has to have its firmware updated every now andI wouldn't design any new application to run out of FLASH.
then if a vulnerability is found and/or exploited but it boots in under a >>> minute from whatever internal SSD/memory stick it has.
It issues dire warnings about not switching it off during an update.
If the flash was fast enough for XIP, then you'd worry about
read wear (how do you recover if your media is "suspect"?)
read wear? you have a single example of a flash with a limit on reads?It's not a LIMIT but, rather, a corruption of adjacent cells
caused by read activity (technically, "read interference" but
it's effects can be persistent, negating the inherent value of
a "read only" memory)
And, RAM tends to be faster so you're going to WANT to transfer
your code into RAM, regardless...
RAM is also more power hungry and expensive ....And more versatile. The initialization code only needs to
run once and then the memory used for *it* can be used
as general purpose RAM. The FLASH in which it resides
*must* always be set aside for that code cuz you've no
other place from which to get it!
mandag den 18. september 2023 kl. 20.51.22 UTC+2 skrev Don Y:
On 9/18/2023 9:06 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
Ouch! That is a royal PITA. Mine has to have its firmware updated every now andI wouldn't design any new application to run out of FLASH.
then if a vulnerability is found and/or exploited but it boots in under a >>> minute from whatever internal SSD/memory stick it has.
It issues dire warnings about not switching it off during an update.
If the flash was fast enough for XIP, then you'd worry about
read wear (how do you recover if your media is "suspect"?)
read wear? you have a single example of a flash with a limit on reads?
And, RAM tends to be faster so you're going to WANT to transfer
your code into RAM, regardless...
RAM is also more power hungry and expensive ....
mandag den 18. september 2023 kl. 21.20.10 UTC+2 skrev Don Y:
On 9/18/2023 12:07 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
mandag den 18. september 2023 kl. 20.51.22 UTC+2 skrev Don Y:It's not a LIMIT but, rather, a corruption of adjacent cells
On 9/18/2023 9:06 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
Ouch! That is a royal PITA. Mine has to have its firmware updated every now andI wouldn't design any new application to run out of FLASH.
then if a vulnerability is found and/or exploited but it boots in under a >>>>> minute from whatever internal SSD/memory stick it has.
It issues dire warnings about not switching it off during an update.
If the flash was fast enough for XIP, then you'd worry about
read wear (how do you recover if your media is "suspect"?)
read wear? you have a single example of a flash with a limit on reads?
caused by read activity (technically, "read interference" but
it's effects can be persistent, negating the inherent value of
a "read only" memory)
only a potential issue when there is a mix of reads and writes
And more versatile. The initialization code only needs toAnd, RAM tends to be faster so you're going to WANT to transfer
your code into RAM, regardless...
RAM is also more power hungry and expensive ....
run once and then the memory used for *it* can be used
as general purpose RAM. The FLASH in which it resides
*must* always be set aside for that code cuz you've no
other place from which to get it!
so if the flash is fast enough the RAM is just added cost and power consumption for no benefit
On 9/17/2023 7:37 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
Most COs (in the places I've lived) have lines coming into a
room in the basement, then up to a "wiring room" where all of
the pairs are laid out (on punchdown blocks?).
Is a CO what we would call a cabinet? Where the main trunk line back
to the exchange is terminated and the local consumer circuits start?
Sorry. "Central Office". It's close to what you would call an "exchange" but an "exchange" has also historically meant the first three digits of
a (3+4) digit phone number. Nowadays, large numbers of (copper)
circuits are handled in a CO which may span multiple "phone number
prefixes".
Ah! Well that's a shortsight! I wonder how CATV and cell towers
address power issues? The towers seem to have tiny "support buildings"
(if at all) barely larger than a clothes closet!
That service is Digital in Name Only or "DINO" it combines all the
worst characteristics of VOIP (fails without power) without
eliminating the pesky final mile of ageing copper that carries the
VDSL signals.
Earlier versions (here) also had problems with acoustic modems.
POTS generally continues to work even when DSL is down (except if
there is a fine break small enough for RF to jump the gap
capacitively). Most importantly it still works when the mains has
failed (and for a decent length of time too - exchanges have largish
battery backup systems).
.. as long as the PHYSICAL line quality hasn't degraded.
Here, the CO is actually battery powered with the batteries
continuously being charged (in the event mains power fails, a
small, jet-powered genset picks up the load; in ages past,
the billing computer might not be thusly backed up so
"free long-distance"Â :> )
A cell phone subscriber could hedge his bet by picking two
different carriers and HOPING they didn't share towers.
A CATV subscriber would be entirely at the mercy of the provider
as only a single provider is allowed to operate in most
areas (e.g., towns)
are a bit unusual in that our lines are archaic "Exchange Only"
lines with no cabinet between us and the exchange.
So, any line repair/reconfiguration is done AT the CO?
There is no CO the lines run right back to the exchange.
my CO = your exchange so, yes, any reconfiguration would be
done back at the exchange/CO.
Seeing a wiring cabinet *in* a neighborhood is a new
thing, for me. Previously, I'd only seen them in businesses
(PBX).
That is the meaning of an exchange only line. They are a nightmare for
VDSL operation because of the crosstalk they induce inside the
exchange. The standard fix is that they install a new powered FTTC
cabinet nearby and run anyone nearby taking the VDSL service to that.
I've not been *in* a CO/exchange for decades so can't speak to
their current practices.
But, given TPC's tendency to roll out different solutions to
problems, over time, I can only imagine it is a hodge-podge of
kludges (that all "made sense", at some time)
There's a large (20 sq ft) wiring cabinet at the entrance to our
subdivisions that terminates all of the pairs from the CO *to*
the pairs feeding the subscribers. There is ALWAYS a telco
service vehicle parked nearby "fixing" something (I'm guessing
200 homes in the subdivision?)
That is about the size of our entire local exchange including its
battery room.
By 20 sq ft, I meant the panel is 4x5 ft (by about a foot deep?)
On 17/09/2023 20:56, Don Y wrote:
On 9/17/2023 7:37 AM, Martin Brown wrote:
Ah! Well that's a shortsight! I wonder how CATV and cell towers
address power issues? The towers seem to have tiny "support buildings"
(if at all) barely larger than a clothes closet!
Nearby cell towers lasted about 20 hours and then stone dead. This quickly killed the remaining mobile phones that were not switched to airplane mode as they tried to contact more remote base stations.
That service is Digital in Name Only or "DINO" it combines all the worst >>> characteristics of VOIP (fails without power) without eliminating the pesky >>> final mile of ageing copper that carries the VDSL signals.
Earlier versions (here) also had problems with acoustic modems.
Apart from Fax which is still used a lot in the NHS I don't think there are much if any acoustic modems in use today.
A cell phone subscriber could hedge his bet by picking two
different carriers and HOPING they didn't share towers.
My wife and I are on different mobile networks precisely because where we live
you don't always have good coverage from just one.
A CATV subscriber would be entirely at the mercy of the provider
as only a single provider is allowed to operate in most
areas (e.g., towns)
In Belgium we found the CATV and internet was more reliable than the local mains. You just needed a UPS to keep on working.
are a bit unusual in that our lines are archaic "Exchange Only" lines with
no cabinet between us and the exchange.
So, any line repair/reconfiguration is done AT the CO?
There is no CO the lines run right back to the exchange.
my CO = your exchange so, yes, any reconfiguration would be
done back at the exchange/CO.
Seeing a wiring cabinet *in* a neighborhood is a new
thing, for me. Previously, I'd only seen them in businesses
(PBX).
They are everywhere in the UK. Typically one per 100 or 200 houses.
That is the meaning of an exchange only line. They are a nightmare for VDSL >>> operation because of the crosstalk they induce inside the exchange. The
standard fix is that they install a new powered FTTC cabinet nearby and run >>> anyone nearby taking the VDSL service to that.
I've not been *in* a CO/exchange for decades so can't speak to
their current practices.
But, given TPC's tendency to roll out different solutions to
problems, over time, I can only imagine it is a hodge-podge of
kludges (that all "made sense", at some time)
It is a bit of an issue in rural locations. Back when non-ferrous metal prices
were high there were people ripping out telco lines and railway signalling lines for their scrap metal value. Basically tie it to a land rover winch snip
it some way away and go.
On 9/12/2023 10:18 AM, John Larkin wrote:
I signed up with Comcast for, I think, 30 megabit cable internet. I
had a service problem a while back so they upgraded "for free" to 50.
I just ran a speed test and it's 920+38 Mbits. This is with a CAT5
cable right from their modem.
At work, we have a MonkeyBrains dish. We pay for 50+50 and get
500+500.
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for,
same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
A lot of those multi-hundred megabit connections will go to a wireless
router where all user devices are connected to it via 802.11n or
802.11ac in a super-cluttered RF environment, and topping out at 50 or
100 megabits throughput on a good day
On 12/09/2023 17:57, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 12 Sep 2023 15:33:31 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 12/09/2023 15:18, John Larkin wrote:
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for,
same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
I'm surprised that they upgrade you 10x for free. In the UK they
invariably try to extract extra money out of you for such speed upgrades >>> which means a lot of people are still on rather slow legacy speeds.
Likewise with phone contracts they try to extract constant or ever
increasing amounts of money from you by increasing mobile data.
It seems like suppliers here are upgrading for free to keep up with
competition. We could use cable, a microwave dish, or a couple sources
for Gbit fiber.
That seems very socialist. It surely makes more sense for them to
extract at least some additional income for increasing your speed. UK
telcos are considerably more mercenary about upgrading their customers.
We had an AT&T internet connection over the traditional phone twisted
pairs, but it was slow and expensive and died when it rained. Comcast
threw in POTS telephone service for free when we got their internet
service. I unplugged the phones because all the calls were spam.
I presume the POTS phone service is actually a POTS connector on an all digital VOIP service offered over their backhaul.
This is causing a lot
of trouble in the UK with BT rolling out "Digital Voice" over an
unwilling population of mostly elderly people who depend on features of copper based POTS for living independently. Notably that POTS phones
still work if the mains fails and various alarms and care on call
services will only work correctly with a true copper physical line.
ADSL in its various forms shouldn't be that unstable unless there is something fundamentally wrong with the local wiring (as there is in my village - no-one past me gets more than 2Mbps ADSL on copper).
However since I now have a fibre connection I don't care. The failing junction box (think black plastic policeman's helmet with multicoloured
wire knitting and joints inside) is buried in the verge in front of my
house. If the water table rises it floods and shorts out circuits. When
the guys come to sort it out it sounds like maracas when they shake it!
In theory I think it is supposed to be water tight but in practice
rodents do for the catches or seals and after a few years it isn't.
On 16/09/2023 12:19, John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:51:56 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
I haven't been able to find a picture of our underground configuration
(it is quite rare now) but this one of a normal passive BT cabinet isn't >>> too dissimilar if you image no supporting structure and the whole lot of >>> multicoloured knitting stuffed randomly into a double width manhole.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cablegore/comments/333ek9/inside_a_bt_telephone_cabinet/
That example is a textbook layout neat one. Ours looks like that one
after you have put a fork into it and and turned it over a few times!
I collect pictures of disgusting wiring.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rdbz4ayuw0w60ch1f4dot/h?rlkey=k14c22nkj1leclay7itlpk28z&dl=0
It seems to me a miracle that telecoms stuff actually works!
On Sun, 17 Sep 2023 23:14:00 +0100, TTman <kraken.sankey@gmail.com>
wrote:
On 12/09/2023 15:18, John Larkin wrote:
I signed up with Comcast for, I think, 30 megabit cable internet. IMaybe you signed up for megabytes and you're measuring megabits ? 8 data
had a service problem a while back so they upgraded "for free" to 50.
I just ran a speed test and it's 920+38 Mbits. This is with a CAT5
cable right from their modem.
At work, we have a MonkeyBrains dish. We pay for 50+50 and get
500+500.
This seems to be a trend, much faster internet than we signed up for,
same price. The backbone fibers must be moving petabits.
1 start 1 stop ?
All megabits. And it's not an RS-232 interface.
I don't know how cable modems work. Some complex constellation
modulation I suppose. Maybe some 8b10b in there somewhere.
A lot of those multi-hundred megabit connections will go to a wireless router
where all user devices are connected to it via 802.11n or 802.11ac in a
super-cluttered RF environment, and topping out at 50 or 100 megabits
throughput on a good day
20 mbit is good enough for most things. I bought a cheap router last time, waiting for it to be inadequate and that day never came.
However since I now have a fibre connection I don't care. The failing
junction box (think black plastic policeman's helmet with multicoloured wire >> knitting and joints inside) is buried in the verge in front of my house. If >> the water table rises it floods and shorts out circuits. When the guys come >> to sort it out it sounds like maracas when they shake it!
In theory I think it is supposed to be water tight but in practice rodents do
for the catches or seals and after a few years it isn't.
Strange; we found containers ( not sheet metal, something thicker - called 'em
Bud boxes ) with O-ring seals and sealed connectors for a pretty reasonable price retail years ago. Like tens of dollars.
They seem rat-proof to me.
On Mon, 18 Sep 2023 17:06:14 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 18/09/2023 15:33, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 18 Sep 2023 10:36:03 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
My fibre modem hasn't been rebooted since installation apart from when >>>> it was unplugged for rearranging my office furniture. It is very stable. >>>>
ADSL links used to die at least every couple of months with router
firmware either going unresponsive or claiming perfect signal synch but >>>> no data transfer so incrementing hard unrecoverable error seconds in
realtime. I always got a few of those per day in normal operation.
Our Comcast box downloads its software from the mother ship, every
time it powers up. That takes about 15 minutes. I asssme they are in
the usual constant-upgrade bug manufacturing mode, as downloaded
software usually is.
Ouch! That is a royal PITA. Mine has to have its firmware updated every
now and then if a vulnerability is found and/or exploited but it boots
in under a minute from whatever internal SSD/memory stick it has.
It issues dire warnings about not switching it off during an update.
If it's easy to fix, it's easy to break.
Too true :(
Yes.
I also have Comcast Internet service, but I own the cable modem (an
Arris SURFboard SB6183, and so I don't get the 15-minute delays, or a
host of other fiddles.
I may upgrade the cable modem to get access to the free phone service
(and phone number that comes with that service.
Joe Gwinn
On 18/09/2023 15:33, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 18 Sep 2023 10:36:03 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
My fibre modem hasn't been rebooted since installation apart from when
it was unplugged for rearranging my office furniture. It is very stable. >>>
ADSL links used to die at least every couple of months with router
firmware either going unresponsive or claiming perfect signal synch but
no data transfer so incrementing hard unrecoverable error seconds in
realtime. I always got a few of those per day in normal operation.
Our Comcast box downloads its software from the mother ship, every
time it powers up. That takes about 15 minutes. I asssme they are in
the usual constant-upgrade bug manufacturing mode, as downloaded
software usually is.
Ouch! That is a royal PITA. Mine has to have its firmware updated every
now and then if a vulnerability is found and/or exploited but it boots
in under a minute from whatever internal SSD/memory stick it has.
It issues dire warnings about not switching it off during an update.
If it's easy to fix, it's easy to break.
Too true :(
On Wed, 27 Sep 2023 18:40:58 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
On Mon, 18 Sep 2023 17:06:14 +0100, Martin Brown >><'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 18/09/2023 15:33, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 18 Sep 2023 10:36:03 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
My fibre modem hasn't been rebooted since installation apart from when >>>>> it was unplugged for rearranging my office furniture. It is very stable. >>>>>
ADSL links used to die at least every couple of months with router
firmware either going unresponsive or claiming perfect signal synch but >>>>> no data transfer so incrementing hard unrecoverable error seconds in >>>>> realtime. I always got a few of those per day in normal operation.
Our Comcast box downloads its software from the mother ship, every
time it powers up. That takes about 15 minutes. I asssme they are in
the usual constant-upgrade bug manufacturing mode, as downloaded
software usually is.
Ouch! That is a royal PITA. Mine has to have its firmware updated every >>>now and then if a vulnerability is found and/or exploited but it boots
in under a minute from whatever internal SSD/memory stick it has.
It issues dire warnings about not switching it off during an update.
If it's easy to fix, it's easy to break.
Too true :(
Yes.
I also have Comcast Internet service, but I own the cable modem (an
Arris SURFboard SB6183, and so I don't get the 15-minute delays, or a
host of other fiddles.
I may upgrade the cable modem to get access to the free phone service
(and phone number that comes with that service.
Joe Gwinn
I have Comcast cable plus the "free" phone thing. Modem reboots are
fast. It's the fancy cable TV box that has the slow reboot.
I disconnected the phones because all the calls are spam.
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 300 |
| Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
| Uptime: | 80:50:20 |
| Calls: | 6,716 |
| Files: | 12,247 |
| Messages: | 5,358,014 |
