60+ year old thread.

Good morning all! Bit chilly on my ride to work this morning. Was 30 when I left my house but on the road work is on temp dropped 6 degrees to 24 within the first mile. Supposed to be in the 40's this afternoon so that'll make it worthwhile.

 

32 degrees at 7am this morning. Warm up is coming.

 

Morning 60+

 

17 degrees here

 

Somewhere on the side of the house or perhaps in the basement you will find the Network Interface Device (NID), it will look similar to below. There should be a hinged cover or two, a screwdriver or small socket will open it.



Inside you will find a messy snarl of small wires and probably some insect nests too, like below. Take a photo before you touch anything. There is no shock hazard here, the voltage is very low.



See that modular (phone) jack with the flat gray wire on the left? That is where your house wiring plugs into the box, if you still have a land line home phone there may be two jacks and two flat wires. Although they look the same you can't swap them BTW.

Take your modem/router/DSL widget outside with an extension cord for power, unplug the DSL side wire for the house and plug the modem directly into the NID, if it now works properly the problem is in the house wiring.

If the issue still remains the problem is the phone company line, the NID or possibly the modem.
Usually the modem works or it doesn't, try shutting it off and blowing it out with some canned air.

If the issue still remains you might call and tell them what you did, sometimes they can reset their side of your connection remotely.


Where I live the phone wires are decades old. When I had a land line it would get noisy every year or two and for whatever reason (pride perhaps) the phone company always seems to assume the problem is in your house until proven otherwise.

After the first time or two I just took a phone out to the NID and called them saying "I'm plugged directly into the NID with a different phone, you can hear the noise, the problem isn't my house or my phone".
I even kept a record of the dates they had fixed the same problem to quote to them, finally they upgraded something over the hill and the issue went away.

 

Good Morning Porch Pals & Sue! Going to touch the 70*s the rest of the week, so . Enough of that cold snap, I say. One errand, and more football. I'm up in points over the youngster, , and we are both finally in the plus side!

 

Good late morning all. 65 degrees and nary a cloud in the sky. The yard is cleaned up from last week’s storm and the new shifter bushings are done in the Taco. What a difference, now there’s zero lateral play in the shifter. I never realized how sloppy it had gotten over time. I think I’ve earned lunch and a nap.

 

I had encountered the similar situation, they sent the servicemen to my home a couple of times that found no problems they said, which I know the guys they sent didn't even open the connection box (I marked by taped the box door); I had to cut a phone cord to add two alligator clips on one end to make a testing wire, and connect that to the phone while talking to them on my cell phone to prove that my wiring in the house is innocent.

 

Got rid of all that junk when I had fiber installed earlier this year.
Eliminated much of the inside wires as well. I do have VOIP with my old copper phone number running on the fiber.
It was easy for me since I ran all the inside stuff when I bought my house and had installed a punch down block with bridging clips to isolate troubles.
Had to backfeed the copper back to my ONT/Router area in my basement to make it work.

 

No fiber out where I live, Mark either.

I'm thankful to have the DSL line, it works well enough for our high tech house -- 2 Chromebooks.

 

We have DSL here too. Its performance is highly dependent on the distance between your DSL modem and the collector gizmo at the other end. In our case it means that, even though Windstream would *love* for me to sign up for their 1Gb service, there is no point in doing so.

Back when I worked for a living I needed reliable internet connectivity to effectively perform my job duties. So even after the cable came through, and we started using it for internet, I kept the DSL as a backup. It has proven to be useful many times, the most recent being last week when the power was out for 23 hours. The cable system headend has battery backup for power outages, but it only goes for 2 to 4 hours. After that we are left to rely on good old Ma Bell's POTS lines and their self-powered 90-volt electricity. I want to say that was a government mandate from back when they were a monopoly but I'm not certain. A history lesson nevertheless.

 

So sorry Mark. Hope you got everything taken care of with no issues.

Speak english for us non geek type folks.

Happy belated Merry Christmas!! Hope everyone had a great day.

Evening all

 

Good morning fellow Porchatonians!!

Thanks for all the phone info - we're on a DSL that is 3.2 miles from the switch - no cable or fiber option down our dirt road so speeds are always relatively slow. The company knows it's an external issue - just have so few techs that it takes weeks to get any service. Connectivity is generally OK early morning when their is lees demand on the line - then it drops in and out during the rest of the day.

STay warm and safe!

 

Well now, guess who used to do installation and repair for Bell of Pennsylvania back in the day. Your POTS line works on -48v DC when on-hook. 90v AC is the ring voltage applied to your local loop that would make a mechanical bell ring. That technology hasn’t changed in 120 years.

The concept of universal service stemmed from the recovery efforts from the Great Depression. That’s when the FCC was created in part to force all of the local exchange carriers to interconnect. The consent decree that broke up AT&T into the local operating companies happened in the early 80’s.

I know this crap because my grandfather worked 44 years for Ma Bell and his son, my uncle worked for Ma Bell from the time he was a teenager until divestiture when he became part of AT&T. He also had a 40+ year career. So I guess I was genetically predisposed to work for the phone company. After about a year of I & R I was offered a promotion to work in downtown Philadelphia as a special service circuit designer. I still remember talking to my field manager about the opportunity and he said “I would rather have a sister work in a whorehouse than a brother that works inside”. I was like 25 at the time and told him I had to follow the money because even at that age I could see climbing poles in NE Philadelphia in the heat of summer and cold of winter was not going to cut it for me long term. After about 5 years of working downtown and seeing the guys who were on their 40’s and 50’s work 50 weeks a year so they could spend 2 weeks at the Jersey shore I thought I had to make a change, I was 30 years old and I had to fish or cut bait, if I stayed much longer I might never leave and I don’t want be like these guys. So I found a company in Florida that was doing fascinating leading edge work with Interactive Voice Response. I flew down for an interview and they hired as a field engineer and payed to move me down here in ‘91. That’s how I wound up in Florida. I’ve changed jobs 4 times since then but have been with my present company for 24 years through all sorts or mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. It’s been a hell of a ride from climbing poles to where I am now, considering retirement if I could afford healthcare for my wife and me.

 

Morning 60+

 

Good morning porch folks. Headed for a high of 48° today. Think I'll hit the car wash today.

 

Good morning fellows, yesterday it hit 31° and it felt amazing compared to highs of -10° and -30° windchills for 7 straight days here. Got my garage door fixed after a spring broke. Watched the guy do it and learned a few points when I get my rotator cuff fixed and my arm working again. Some days it's hard to pay for something one can usually do themselves , but when injured not much else can be done.
How many think the Vikings have a chance to make it to the superbowl. I'm hoping for the best but with too many close games, I just expect a let down..

 

I’m thinking Eagles and Bills in the Super Bowl. You want to talk about a letdown, this whole year as been a letdown for us Buc fans. I can’t believe they could win the NFC South with a 8-9 record if they beat Carolina Sunday and lose next week. I doubt they’ll beat Carolina though, they’re two teams going different directions.

 

Good morning from chilly (56°F) San Diego County.... brrrrr!