Bare wire overhead lead-in

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Skolink

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Topic # 101720 7-May-2012 15:08
Does anyone have experience on whether bare wire overhead lead-in wires have much affect on ADSL speeds? I am intending to help my brother install a DSL filter and sort out his telephone / network cabling. However I noticed that the telephone lead-in to his house is overhead individual parallel bare wires separated by 0.6m, with ceramic insulators at each end. I thought it was probably redundant, but the overhead telecphone cables are clearly joined to these wires, and there are no pedestals on the footpath, and no conduit on the power poles. Will Chorus replace this lead-in for free if requested, or would it need to be faulty before they will do anything to it? Next time I am there I'll plug the modem directly to the first/master jack with the other lines disconnected to see what improvements in sync speed can be acheived with the existing lead-in.

Bung

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Reply # 621057 7-May-2012 16:08
Where is this? Are you sure that you're not confusing the electric mains? What other leads drop off the pole?

SCM

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Reply # 621065 7-May-2012 16:22
My sync rate doubled when I had the old uninsulated lead in pair replaced with some nice new insulated cable. Chorus did replace it for free too...

chevrolux

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Reply # 621360 8-May-2012 00:19
I had a fault recently where the customer was in a rural area and the house was feed by about 1km of open aerial (assuming thats what he has - it is two separate wires that some from the pole to the house?). They were at the end of the network so speed wasnt going to be great but it wouldnt sync at all. Replaced the open aerial with new 2-pair and was good as gold. Thing is though I don't really know if it was the fact it was open aerial or the fact it probably had a few joints along the way, I didn't check that thoroughly to be honest. DSL gets effected by AM radio but I think it is mainly VDSL that gets affected and that ADSL is far far more resilient so I don't think that is a true issue. If it were me I would put the splitter in first and see if the sync speed goes up at all. If not then yea maybe look at getting the lead in replaced. But there is no point just replacing the piece from the house to the pole if the terminal isnt on the last pole to the house. You want the new lead to be a new continuous piece from the house to the terminal box, which could be 3-4 spans away. Whether chorus will replace for free I don't know. But I do know they will replace faulty cables, as in my customers case.

cyril7

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Reply # 621387 8-May-2012 07:23
Hi DSL is based around a 100ohm transmission line system which all modern phone cabling is (or some close enough at 120ohms), so an old open wire overhead feed is wayyyyy above that, therefore very very likely to stop the DSL from extending much above 100k-200kHz depending on the length of the line to the open feeder and the open feeder length. Ask for it to be replaced, should have been pulled long ago but there is still plenty of open wire drops in the boonies, so as DSL gets further out guess more and more of its will be replaced. Cyril

stuzzo

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Reply # 621400 8-May-2012 08:13
On a related note, my pole connection to the house (and others on the road) have a box inside the house with a spiral type fuse on each line which I assume is a cross shorting protection with power lines etc. when I put in a splitter I bypassed this for the ADSL, not realizing the box existed. Are these still required/ needed on pole connections?

Skolink

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Reply # 621426 8-May-2012 09:19
Thank you for the responses. The house is on Hillingdon Street, NorthEast Valley, Dunedin. According to the Chorus SAT it is well within the cabinet VDSL2 footprint. Pretty funny considering most houses on the street have the ancient bare-wire lead-ins. I'll get my brother to phone Chorus to get the lead-in replaced. And I'll install a filter too of course.

Bung

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Reply # 621482 8-May-2012 10:17
Skolink: Pretty funny considering most houses on the street have the ancient bare-wire lead-ins. I've streetviewed a sample and see modern Chorus aerial going to houses with individual mains rather than neutral screen. If you want to keep your house anon suggest one down the street that looks like yours.

Skolink

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Reply # 621497 8-May-2012 10:35
Bung: Skolink: Pretty funny considering most houses on the street have the ancient bare-wire lead-ins. I've streetviewed a sample and see modern Chorus aerial going to houses with individual mains rather than neutral screen. If you want to keep your house anon suggest one down the street that looks like yours. Look at the houses down the dead-end south end of the street. In street view the wires are not visible (too thin), only the power cables. You can see the row of ceramic insulators on the pole (marked Z3 Y23). It does look like one of the neighbours has a modern lead-in from that pole though.

Bung

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Reply # 621509 8-May-2012 10:52
Yes it does look like the vans don't get down that end of the street very often :). It looks like there is a terminal box on that pole and 268 across the street has the current style of aerial.

chevrolux

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Reply # 621578 8-May-2012 12:37
stuzzo: On a related note, my pole connection to the house (and others on the road) have a box inside the house with a spiral type fuse on each line which I assume is a cross shorting protection with power lines etc. when I put in a splitter I bypassed this for the ADSL, not realizing the box existed. Are these still required/ needed on pole connections? That is a lightning arrestor. Not a huge issue if you bypass it, but some times not ideal. You see the odd story where there has been power contact on to the line and the phones in the house have caught fire. Likelihood of happening, not that high.

raytaylor

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Reply # 621657 8-May-2012 14:20
Also by having the unshielded wires running in parallel over a long distance will cause the line to pick up more interference from AM radio signals. You will see powerlines in rural areas will have a crossover where the wires are crossed on every 4th pole or something like that. This is to help stop crosstalk between the AC power lines and nearby telephone lines. By using twisted pair wires, you get less crosstalk and will pick up less interference. Ray Taylor Napier, NZ www.taylorcommunications.co.nz

stuzzo

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Reply # 621749 8-May-2012 16:18
chevrolux: stuzzo: On a related note, my pole connection to the house (and others on the road) have a box inside the house with a spiral type fuse on each line which I assume is a cross shorting protection with power lines etc. when I put in a splitter I bypassed this for the ADSL, not realizing the box existed. Are these still required/ needed on pole connections? That is a lightning arrestor. Not a huge issue if you bypass it, but some times not ideal. You see the odd story where there has been power contact on to the line and the phones in the house have caught fire. Likelihood of happening, not that high. Thanks for that, since the splitter I've been syncing at over 7 for 3.5 km, and solid as a rock, so those lines in the ground are certainly having two lives.

Skolink

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Reply # 717971 15-Nov-2012 21:39
Just in case anyone was wondering, which I'm sure you weren't: My brother phoned Chorus to arrange a replacement of the lead-in and they said he would have to raise a fault with his ISP. Since then he has set up a 3.8km wireless link to a family members house, cancelled his landline/internet services, and switched to VoIP.