At 04:18 PM 12/16/00 -0500, Bruce Appelbaum (replying to Mickey Trageser)
wrote:
Aging copper wires? That's a new one. I thought the only limitation on DSL
service was distance to the central office -- 15,000 feet or less. In any
event, Verizon is a lousy phone company. I'm a customer and not too happy
with their service. Their telemarketers call me every day to switch to
their long distance, but they can't keep the DSL service going for 24 hours
straight without some kind of interruption.
BTW, my DSL service is through a local ISP, but over Verizon lines.
*Ahem.*
Well, as one of the guys who originally helped build the TELUS PLAnet ISP
service in Alberta, I s'pose I should respond.
It *is* possible that "aging copper wires" are causing problems, mostly due
to corrosion, weird cross-talk and so forth. However, what's more likely
is that, in order to maintain acceptable voice quality, the local telco had
to slap some additional equipment on to the lines which, years later (and
much to their chagrin) they discovered makes delivering ADSL over the same
lines almost impossible.
That very thing happened in some neighbourhoods in Edmonton where
"concentrator coils" were placed on the lines. Seems you *cannot* run ADSL
over these same lines, 'cause the coils effectively dampen many of the
high-frequency harmonics which ADSL uses to pack all that info across
ordinary copper. One of my partners in Reflective Systems Group lives in
such a neighbourhood, and found himself in the embarrassing situation of
being a partner in a leading/bleeding-edge tech company that specializes in
Internet and Intranet technologies, yet couldn't get high-speed service to
his home office! (He's since been able to get cable modem service, but
ADSL is out of the question for the foreseeable future.)
Interestingly enough, TELUS (in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada)
merged with Verizon in the 'States a while back, and is now trying to share
some of the technologies (and pricing regimes) we built here in
Alberta. We'll see how it works out. ;-)
Garth
"Q: What's long and hard on a Canadian?
A: Winter."
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