Slingshot Telephone Landline Service experience

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alig

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Topic # 31661 25-Mar-2009 22:59

Made a switch from Telecom to Slingshot telephone service long time ago. Had an ongoing issue for more than a year with a quality of the phone/adsl connection. Re-soldered all internal house phone sockets, removed capacitors, but had no luck. Suspected the bad cable from my house to the exchange. Rung to the Slingshot Help Desk 4 times during the last year. Everytime was scared to death by $200 charge warning (if the fault is inside my house). Anyway agreed for a technician to check. Everytime they did something on their exchange to boost the connection, despite that I personally asked them to check the cables. Helped for a while but than again. Got sick of such service and went to the roof of the first townhouse in the row myself, found the fault just where cables were about to go to the wall (old rusty clip-like connection), cut it and soldered the cables. Problem was solved at last! Their contractors were not so keen to check the cables, at least visually. They always wanted to go inside the house or concentrated on the exchange.

BTW I like Slingshot in whole. Used to have 3 different broadband providers before them.

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Reply # 203376 26-Mar-2009 02:48

Good Skills, I get that $200 warning too, which is rather off putting.
Sounds like you did a better job that the techs :)

sbiddle

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Reply # 203383 26-Mar-2009 06:37

Just FYI soldering phone cables is not recommended and will almost certainly cause issues in the future.

You should only ever use scotchlok connectors for joining cables and inside phone suckets there is no soldering required anyway since you only need to use the krone punchdown terminals.

alig

56 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 203474 26-Mar-2009 12:19

sbiddle: Just FYI soldering phone cables is not recommended and will almost certainly cause issues in the future.
You should only ever use scotchlok connectors for joining cables and inside phone suckets there is no soldering required anyway since you only need to use the krone punchdown terminals.

Why? It's still copper. Galvanic pair? Don't think so. It's maybe not necessary for such low frequency/not very weak voltage/current but from my experience it lasts 10 times longer and much more reliable than connectors (especially in such damp conditions). Did plenty soldered and not soldered connections on commercial basis in my past (PCB, UHF/VHF cabling, networking). You just need to be sure its clean of oxidation, twisted first, right flux used and the connection is well isolated after ... and if the cable under some pressure it's tightened up in the right direction.

nzschooltech

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Reply # 203800 27-Mar-2009 21:40

It's pretty stoopid that Chorus are spending all this money on cabinets and fibre to the kerb and yet can't be bothered with fixing line faults from the cabinet to the house. I had 3 or 4 repairs and numerous outages in between on my old Telecom line before I got sick of it and switched to Telstra cable.

nzschooltech

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Reply # 203801 27-Mar-2009 21:41

And when I say "fix" I mean they should have replaced the whole drop between me and the street - well it is underground, but it must be full of water.

sbiddle

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Reply # 203833 28-Mar-2009 06:57

alig:
sbiddle: Just FYI soldering phone cables is not recommended and will almost certainly cause issues in the future.
You should only ever use scotchlok connectors for joining cables and inside phone suckets there is no soldering required anyway since you only need to use the krone punchdown terminals.

Why? It's still copper. Galvanic pair? Don't think so. It's maybe not necessary for such low frequency/not very weak voltage/current but from my experience it lasts 10 times longer and much more reliable than connectors (especially in such damp conditions).

No there is no galvanic pair.

It's more to the point that there is no need to actually solder phone lines anywhere.

Regardless of whether you use RJ45 or BT sockets they are all IDC punchdowns. No soldering is required or needed. As for joining cable if you're running your phone jacks in series then no joining is required except where the incoming cable enters the demarc. If wiring is in parallel then you should be using a proper junction box for this which again is IDC punchdowns and no soldering is required.

As for the demarc point Scotchlok connectors are far more water resistant than soldering a wire and trying to seal the connection.

To have reliable ADSL joins in cabling should be at an absolute minimum and if you are some distance from an exchange then you should not be running ADSL off an in series setup if it's past the 2nd jackpoint as you'll have the potential to be reducing your sync speed lower than need be.

nzschooltech

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Reply # 203838 28-Mar-2009 08:40

To have reliable ADSL joins in cabling should be at an absolute minimum and if you are some distance from an exchange then you should not be running ADSL off an in series setup if it's past the 2nd jackpoint as you'll have the potential to be reducing your sync speed lower than need be.

Interesting point, most people have several joins as the drop is connected at the terminals then comes in to the demarc and may be joined in between. For example at my old address they replaced part of the drop from the street terminals to a telephone pole on our land where the cable goes underground so there was a join there.

In my current address the cables which are for myself and neighbours in a complex, come off the street to a pillar where they are joined, then to another pillar and another join, then to the outside of my house where they are joined again and from there to the first socket. Since I started on Jetstream broadband those joints have been repaired at least 3 times.

alig

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Reply # 203839 28-Mar-2009 08:59

sbiddle:
It's more to the point that there is no need to actually solder phone lines anywhere.

To have reliable ADSL joins in cabling should be at an absolute minimum and if you are some distance from an exchange then you should not be running ADSL off an in series setup if it's past the 2nd jackpoint as you'll have the potential to be reducing your sync speed lower than need be.

Yes, as I said before it is just not necessary to solder the telephone cables in most cases. It's is a question of the costs/speed of installation and securing the future jobs :)
Anyway, if the signal is weak, to have a reliable joints in cabling you must change the whole cable or ...solder it instead of connectors. In this case you don't need to worry about how many joints you have. Solder it right (keep it straight where joined) and you'd have a whole cable again. Insulation is not difficult. Silicone + plastic wrap + rubber electric tape. If that rule applies to the coaxial UHF/VHF cabling that rule definitely applies to more insensitive (in terms of parameters of the signal) telephone lines.... I'm not talking about commercial installations again...just for yourself, for your family..and maybe for some friends :)

sbiddle

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Reply # 203840 28-Mar-2009 09:05

What I fail to understand is where you are soldering the cables. No soldering is required with *any* phone sockets as they are all IDC punchdown. If you are joining wires you shouldn't be - you should be using full runs of cable. Joining any cables, particularly with solder is IMHO just asking for trouble. If it works for you fine - but it's certainly not something anybody who installs cabling would ever consider doing and is certainly not best practice.

Probably 90% of people's phone and ADSL problems are caused by dodgy domestic wiring..

sbiddle

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Reply # 203841 28-Mar-2009 09:09

nzschooltech:

To have reliable ADSL joins in cabling should be at an absolute minimum and if you are some distance from an exchange then you should not be running ADSL off an in series setup if it's past the 2nd jackpoint as you'll have the potential to be reducing your sync speed lower than need be.

Interesting point, most people have several joins as the drop is connected at the terminals then comes in to the demarc and may be joined in between. For example at my old address they replaced part of the drop from the street terminals to a telephone pole on our land where the cable goes underground so there was a join there.

In my current address the cables which are for myself and neighbours in a complex, come off the street to a pillar where they are joined, then to another pillar and another join, then to the outside of my house where they are joined again and from there to the first socket. Since I started on Jetstream broadband those joints have been repaired at least 3 times.

And that's my point exactly - because you don't know how many joiners your cabling has been through running ADSL modems through more joiners (or looped BT jackpoints) simply adds to the signal loss.

Ideally every household should have a master ADSL filter installed for ADSL. It pretty much guarantees you the best possible connection inside your house and bypasses legacy wiring issues that may exist inside your premises and avoids the need to have filters on every phone in the house.

alig

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Reply # 203845 28-Mar-2009 09:20

sbiddle: If you are joining wires you shouldn't be - you should be using full runs of cable. Joining any cables, particularly with solder is IMHO just asking for trouble. If it works for you fine - but it's certainly not something anybody who installs cabling would ever consider doing and is certainly not best practice.
Probably 90% of people's phone and ADSL problems are caused by dodgy domestic wiring..

Explain the trouble in the soldered joints from the technical point of view please .
BTW I do not recommend anyone without experience to join the cables (especially soldering them). Yes, that might definitely cause a lot of troubles.

alig

56 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 203849 28-Mar-2009 09:44

nzschooltech:
In my current address the cables which are for myself and neighbours in a complex, come off the street to a pillar where they are joined, then to another pillar and another join, then to the outside of my house where they are joined again and from there to the first socket. Since I started on Jetstream broadband those joints have been repaired at least 3 times.

Ask them to solder those joints and you'll see the difference. Though, it's quite difficult to find a phone tech with good soldering skills...Bloody best practice :) Besides who on earth would kill his job himself, especially nowadays? :) At least, you might ask them to change the whole cable to get rid of those joints.

sbiddle

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Reply # 203851 28-Mar-2009 10:05

alig:
sbiddle: If you are joining wires you shouldn't be - you should be using full runs of cable. Joining any cables, particularly with solder is IMHO just asking for trouble. If it works for you fine - but it's certainly not something anybody who installs cabling would ever consider doing and is certainly not best practice.
Probably 90% of people's phone and ADSL problems are caused by dodgy domestic wiring..

Explain the trouble in the soldered joints from the technical point of view please .

I have already explained this above. Soldered joints do not prevent moisture.

Sure you can try and seal this connector but the work required is simply wasted when Scotchlok connectors will seal the joint in gel, prevent unnecessary exposed copper and they take seconds to apply. This is why they are the recommended option and what 99% of people use.

If soldering works for you then fine - it's just that you won't find anybody else doing it.

alig

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Reply # 203911 28-Mar-2009 20:22

You're right, difficult to find in NZ, but the rest of the world is still a bit orthodox:
http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,2949081
http://nzhondas.com/forum/tech-help/86576-soldering-vs-crimping-vs-twisting-3.html
http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/diy-mobile-audio/49600-scotchlok-connectors-vs-soldering.html

P.S. I have nothing against using Scotchloks in commercial applications where money are needed to be made quickly and often but for myself I'd rather solder critical joints or tin the copper and use a water-resistant gel before any attachment to any socket

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Reply # 204061 29-Mar-2009 21:07

not satisfied at all with slingshot homeline.....changed homeline from telecom couple of weeks bak...got on to Next big thing so got home line with slingshot now....happy with internet which i have been using it for more thn 3years but phone line is not up2 standard yet.....Call waiting function doesnt work.....which is one of the most important feature we need....now my dad wants me change to Orcon or prob go bak 2 telecom...i hav been telling him to wait for sum time they might fix it but havnt heard nythn about it....i call them up nd thy tell me they are not sure whn it wil b fixed!!! lukily i m not tied up with slingshot as there was no contract signed!!! does one knw if its going to be fixed soon?? or i wil prob hav 2 change to a differnt provider....

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