Here’s the scoop on the ADSL installation:

Intallation was scheduled for 9 a.m, with a window of arrival between 8 and 10 a.m. Even though I received no phone call, the installer, Jeff, showed up right on time, just before nine.

My first question was, “Are you a phone company guy, trained to do these installs, or are you with bellsouth.net?” His answer was, essentially, “Neither.” He informed me that he worked for a sub-contractor, doing these installs for bellsouth.net.

First order of business was to give Jeff the lay of the land. I thought I was smart in hooking up a dedicated pair of the CAT3 wiring running through my house in advance for the jack where the ADSL modem was to be connected. Two lengths of RGBY ran from my NID to each end of the CAT3 wiring loop in my house. By loop, I mean that the CAT3 cable starts in one phone jack, and is “looped” thru each successive jack in the house, until it reaches the last. Each length of RGBY, for redundancy’s sake, runs to each in-wall box containing the ends of the CAT3.

Jeff unboxed the modem, powered it up and plugged it in. Problem number one: the modem just wouldn’t lock onto the signal. To eliminate problems you start at the beginning. We took the modem outside to the NID and plugged it in there – perfect signal lock. The nightmare was about to begin.

Our next problem came from the fact that the new NID BellSouth installed as a requirement for the ADSL service contains a compartment that the ADSL subcontractors are forbidden to access. This compartment conceals fuses and the actual connection point where your house wiring meets the telco wiring coming from the pole. Since both runs of RGBY were connected together in this compartment, it was impossible to isolate them from one another – something necessary to install the external splitter AND not have to run a new phone jack for the ADSL modem.

After much chin scratching, talking of delaying the install (horrors!), and even considering opening the sacred inner compartment (which Jeff would not do himself), we settled on running a length of fresh CAT3 from the NID into the attic just far enough to cut and splice into the appropriate run of RGBY. You see, the splitter has to be the “initial”, the first device between the telco and the customer’s wiring. Of course, attic-crawling was also something Jeff was forbidden to do, due to liability issues.

So, up into the attic I went, armed with a flashlight, some long-reach tongs to grab the wire, Jeff’s channel-locks and some neat-o wiring connectors, all set to fish the wire and make the splice. Piece of cake? No such luck. The modem still would not lock on.

Out came the test-tone generator. We called my security system installer for advice. (Did I forget to mention the security system was also wired into the forbidden inner compartment, as it also wanted to be the “initial” device?) Jeff called his boss for advice. We couldn’t get a signal lock no matter what we tried. Test-tone signal showed up at every phone jack in the house – not good. Jeff’s next appointment was minutes away. Jeff started putting away his tools – a bad sign. “Hold on, Jeff!”

All my visions of this no-muss, no-fuss, super-clean ADSL install were disintegrating. The six-gang box of CAT5 RJ45 jacks I had installed days before was now useless junk. But I was determined to have my ADSL connection – reschedule was not in my vocabulary.

Luckily for me, Jeff’s 12 o’clock cancelled. I had a reprieve! Only one alternative left – run wire all the way from the NID, through the attic, down the wall of the computer room closet, into the room.

Back into the attic I went – more wire, more connectors, a cordless drill. The battery on my drill got halfway through the header and died… Could anything else go wrong today? Back to the stairs to get Jeff’s cordless. Back to the far end of the attic again.

Our efforts were worth it. Jeff said the modem synched-up very fast, indicating a primo signal. He installed the NIC, and got it configured, then phoned in to get me registered. I waited on hold for him so he could finish mounting the splitter outside.

After some initial glitches and a reboot of the computer and the modem, we were ready to rock. Jeff browsed into BellSouth’s ftp site and picked a nice 13 megabyte file. Down it came, starting off at 20KB/sec, and climbing by the second. It reached 80KB/sec before it finished. But, as Jeff explained, most files finish downloading before the stream gets up to top speed because they just aren’t that big.

Relieved, Jeff was on his way, vowing never again to brag about how well an installer’s day went (as he had done the day before). I, too, had to run – having foolishly assured my co-workers that I should probably be at my desk no later than eleven. No time to even test-drive my wonderful new toy.

That night, I experimented with some larger files and hit over 100KB/sec, and, at a test site, downloaded a 2 megabyte file in 15 seconds.

The errors about NIC conflicts that WIN98 reported in the beginning have apparently vanished. I have 2 NICs in the ADSL machine – one connected to the modem, the other connecting the machine to the rest of the LAN. They seem to have somehow learned to coexist after initial disharmony. I’m not asking any questions.

The problem with the house wiring was that what appeared to be CAT3 either wasn’t up to spec, or permitted unacceptable cross-talk because it wasn’t jacketed or its twists were not maintained. If there’s a lesson in this story, it’s this: Unless your house is already wired with CAT5, have a dedicated line run from the NID to your computer, and eliminate the headaches and uncertainties your house wiring might possibly pose. And you’ll get the best possible signal strength, too.

ADSL – Asymmetric Digital Subcriber Line: A technology for transmitting digital information at high speeds on existing copper phone lines.

ANT – ADSL Network Termination: The ADSL “modem”.

Cable Modem – A device that enables you to hook up your PC to a local cable TV line and receive data at about 1.5 Mbps.

CAT3 – Category 3: A communication cable specification denoting mainly the number of twists per foot per pair. More twists mean less signal degradation. CAT5 is better, and currently the standard for computer network cabling.

CLEC – Competitive Local Exchange Carrier: A company that competes with the already established local telephone business by providing its own network and switching.

CPE – Customer Premise Equipment: The parts of the connection to the telephone network on the customer side of the demarcation point. Basically, the inside wiring and telephone sets.

CO – Central Office: An office in a locality to which subscriber home and business lines are connected on what is called a local loop.
Demarcation Point – or “Demarc”: The boundary at which responsibility for maintenance and repairs of a telephone service move from the telco to the customer (and vice-versa). Usually at the box on the side of the house, or, at a business, a wire termination device called an RJ21X.

DHCP – Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol: a protocol that lets network administrators manage centrally and automate the assignment of IP addresses in a network.

DSLAM – Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer: a network device, usually at a telephone company central office, that receives signals from multiple customer Digital Subscriber Line connections and puts the signals on a high-speed backbone line using multiplexing techniques.

GWAN – Global Wide Area Network: The Internet, or the Internet Service Provider to which your ISP is connected.

ISDN – Integrated Services Digital Network: The integration of both analog or voice data together with digital data over the same network.

ISP – Internet Service Provider.

NIC – Network Interface Card. Your computer’s interface to the network.

NID – Network Interface Device: Fancy name for the box on the side of your house where the phone lines are hooked up to your house wiring.

RBOC – Regional Bell Operating Company: Like BellSouth, PacBell, etc.

RGBY – Red/Green/Black/Yellow: The four colors used in standard household telephone wire.

VoD – Video On Demand: Technology wherein video is supplied on a client/server basis.

I feel the need…. fer speed!

ADSL is coming to town. The Asymmetric Digital Subcriber Line is the latest high- speed data offering from BellSouth and other RBOCs and CLECs. At up to 1.5Mbps (Megabits per sec.), it’s almost like getting web pages right off your own hard drive.

ADSL rivals cable-modem service for the next-wave cool Internet hook-up. Unlike cable-modem, though, you don’t share the bandwidth with the rest of your neighborhood. Your high-speed connection travels right to the phone company CO, where it is run through the DSLAM and ramped right onto the GWAN.

In the [hopefully] never-ending quest to bring higher and higher speed Internet access [for a price] to mortals like you and me, somebody figured out that– if your house is 18,000 feet or less from the CO and there are no load coils, amplifiers, or other phone company gizmos in the path (like fiber-optics, oddly enough)– data can be carried on your telephone line at what are basically AM radio band frequencies, at up to 8Mbps (downstream, under ideal conditions). So, 1.5Mbps should be a piece of cake. And the best part is that it’s super-imposed right onto your regular line, so you can talk on the phone while you surf! And it’s always on– no dialing or waiting to connect!

BTW, ADSL was initially conceived for VoD, which only requires 4Mbps. This could be so cool…

I submitted the online qualification form in mid- October, and received an e-mail confirmation that my line qualified about ten days later. Whew! (Not only does your service area have to pass the test, so does your individual phone line.)

Being understandably anxious, I rang up the ADSL folks at BellSouth to see what the time frame might be. I got the expected reply, essentially “We have your order. We’ll call you…” I even called twice, just to check the consistency of their answers. Both asked when had I received the online confirmation. One said expect 6-8 weeks. The other said 3-4 weeks. Bummer…

The other bummer will be paying an early- cancellation fee on the ISDN line. Last October, they had a special and waived the $200 installation fee (for which an engineer was required only to tie a tag with the ISDN numbers to the end of the wire pair at my house) in exchange for a 2-year commitment.

But, hey! Switching to ADSL, I’ll recoup the penalty and the cost of the ADSL modem and installation in only 6 months! And I won’t have to fork over an additional $1K a year for a second phone line! And I’ll be slurping down web pages and files at over 25 times the speed I am now! Baaahaha!

The initial roll-out for BellSouth ADSL is limited to Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, Fort Lauderdale/South Florida, Jacksonville, New Orleans, and Raleigh. If you’re not in one of those BS markets, you’ll have to wait a while longer.