Who here has a truly "quiet" POTS line?

[bwanna]

GusHerb... The hum is probably inductive on the F1 pair. The bridge tap would have magnified the sound. Bridge tap will also wreck havoc with data signal. I am surprised the tech was able to pass the order when installed if testing bridge tap. Inductive hum is nearly impossible to get rid of being caused by outside interferers.
Always love to run into subscribers that like to 'talk shop'

[GusHerb]

GusHerb... The hum is probably inductive on the F1 pair. The bridge tap would have magnified the sound. Bridge tap will also wreck havoc with data signal. I am surprised the tech was able to pass the order when installed if testing bridge tap. Inductive hum is nearly impossible to get rid of being caused by outside interferers.
Always love to run into subscribers that like to 'talk shop'

I'm guessing it must be, except that it's the exact same kinda hum you'd hear if you deliberately shorted the line to ground, but faint and distant sounding, hell I could be picking up an imperfection in the switching equipment, I usually only hear it when dialing, but often during calls too.

The strange thing about all that bridge tapping is that the modem actually had a better max user rate on that pair then it does on the better one now. the Uverse modem was originally showing a max user rate of 37,xxx, now it's showing it at 33,796. I'm still scratching my head about that one, the tech seemed a little perplexed but left it at that since he must have gotten called to another job.

My brain is a little fried after some things today...explain "F1" to me as you referred to the line as "F1 pair"

I always love talking to the line techs cuz the local PSTN has always been quite a mystery to me, and compared to techs in some other fields they're often actually friendly hahaha.

[dsk]

At least they tried to help.

Some 30 years ago, the other end could not hear me, just like I had a shorted transmitter or something, so I called the tel-co from the neighbours, and told them, and I had tested with several phones. They claimed, nothings wrong!!!
If nothing's wrong, it could not be fixed--- OK Then we have to make it wrong.  230 V live on both ring and tip solved it  The day after everything worked like a charm

dsk

[twocvbloke]

230 V live on both ring and tip solved it  The day after everything worked like a charm

Oh the times I've been tempted to do that myself, only with 10v more, proper british electrickery y'know...

It's sad that in this day and age of consumerism, that customer care is basically thrown out the windows with big companies (telephone or otherwise), when I was working at a computer shop, if a customer had a problem with a computer, they called up and got through to one of the technicians (myself included) that built them, and faults were either remedied over the phone or they returned the computers and we fixed them, no "Oh it's not our fault, it must be something of yours that's doing it" nonesense, just real people, doing the job they're paid for, on the end of a Panasonic KXT-308 phone system (just to keep it on topic!!)....

[bwanna]

My brain is a little fried after some things today...explain "F1" to me as you referred to the line as "F1 pair"

I always love talking to the line techs cuz the local PSTN has always been quite a mystery to me, and compared to techs in some other fields they're often actually friendly hahaha.

Weeelll.. since you asked. F1 refers to the 1st Facility (cable pair) Asssignment. In other words the copper line from the Central Office to the x-connect box near your home. Could also be referred to as Feed Cable. At the x-box cross connect to the F2 (2nd facility assignment) or Distribution Cable. Of course in the case of UVerse line the pairs to/from the VRAD would be the 'F2' & the pair to the subscriber is the 'F3'. ......Sorry you asked yet?

Since you seem interested... a line would not be 'shorted to ground'. That would simply be a ground. Which sounds more like a buzzz than a hum. Shorted would be the two sides of the pair touching each other. Depending on how solid the trouble would either cause static (crackling) or no dial tone. An unbalance will give you a hum. Or like I mentioned before could be inductive.

I could go on & on ...but won't bore you. 

[cihensley@aol.com]

(I think I'm just becoming too picky with having the second line on VOIP, which is TRULY quiet)

With VOIP you are not "connected" to the line, so there is nothing to hear

Chuck

[GusHerb]

My brain is a little fried after some things today...explain "F1" to me as you referred to the line as "F1 pair"

I always love talking to the line techs cuz the local PSTN has always been quite a mystery to me, and compared to techs in some other fields they're often actually friendly hahaha.

Weeelll.. since you asked. F1 refers to the 1st Facility (cable pair) Asssignment. In other words the copper line from the Central Office to the x-connect box near your home. Could also be referred to as Feed Cable. At the x-box cross connect to the F2 (2nd facility assignment) or Distribution Cable. Of course in the case of UVerse line the pairs to/from the VRAD would be the 'F2' & the pair to the subscriber is the 'F3'. ......Sorry you asked yet?

Since you seem interested... a line would not be 'shorted to ground'. That would simply be a ground. Which sounds more like a buzzz than a hum. Shorted would be the two sides of the pair touching each other. Depending on how solid the trouble would either cause static (crackling) or no dial tone. An unbalance will give you a hum. Or like I mentioned before could be inductive.

I could go on & on ...but won't bore you. 

There's no way you could bore me, my favorite thing is to pick other peoples brains about these things!
For us the F1 pair is the longest run, then if I understand correctly the F2 pair is between the crossbox and the pedestal (for people with underground phone wiring), and F3 is between the pedestal and the NID on the house?

Just considering the fact that the hum or buzz hasn't gone away at all, I'm lead to guess that the issue is on the F1 pair as you suggested before, why it would have just happened within a month beats me though. The tech did run some load tests on his computer before he fled the scene (he really did take off in a hurry!) and everything according to him showed up perfectly within spec, so I suppose it must be inductive which leads me to the almost unbearable curiosity of somehow getting them to swap F1 pairs and see if that fixes it.

And with our Uverse internet, that is bugging me too, as when he swapped our F2/F3 pair out to the second one in the NID which was determined to be a much cleaner line, it has now caused the modem to show a lower max user rate and a lower noise margin (signal to noise ratio), that one has me even more puzzled then the buzz on the line.

I was at my grandma's house today, where everything is much older then our neighborhood and the F2/F3 runs are above ground, I was straining terribly to hear any kind of a hum or buzz, eventually after concentrating for awhile I could hear what sounded like a 60hz hum which is perfectly understandable considering the lines are up on the poles with power and cable. I was surprised at how quiet the line was overall, the stuff on the poles has to be 40 years old at least, judging by the connectors (equivalent to the pedestals in the yards where the F3's branch off? what is it called when it's up on the pole?) with Western Electric clearly stamped on them and looking pretty old. the drop to the house is just single pair solid copper (that looks like lamp cord) so no twists in that whatsoever.


Have I started to bore you yet? if not please keep talking... 

[McHeath]

Our POTS line is dead silent, currently.  At times we get hum, and once in a while you can even hear people talking, but I call that in and the techs come out and fix us up.  Last time the guy spent several hours in the hole in the neighbors yard splicing us a cleaner line to the CO.  He said that most of the wires down there are no longer used, so he's able to work about until he finds us a good one.  Last time, this past summer, he even let e look at his various diagnostic screens giving all sorts of info that only bwanna understands!

It was pretty cool.

He also told me that I'm all copper all the way to the CO, which is about 2400 feet.  And that they are planning to go fiber optic for U-verse in the future.  His opinion of U-verse was interesting, he was not sold on it even though he had it at home.  He also had an iPhone but was rather unimpressed with it also.  As I have neither what do I know?  We still use an aerial on the roof for getting our TV.

But as of right now the line is super quiet and clean.  The tech called it "conditioning", which he said they don't do unless the customer complains about the line.

[GusHerb]

Our POTS line is dead silent, currently.  At times we get hum, and once in a while you can even hear people talking, but I call that in and the techs come out and fix us up.  Last time the guy spent several hours in the hole in the neighbors yard splicing us a cleaner line to the CO.  He said that most of the wires down there are no longer used, so he's able to work about until he finds us a good one.  Last time, this past summer, he even let e look at his various diagnostic screens giving all sorts of info that only bwanna understands!

It was pretty cool.

He also told me that I'm all copper all the way to the CO, which is about 2400 feet.  And that they are planning to go fiber optic for U-verse in the future.  His opinion of U-verse was interesting, he was not sold on it even though he had it at home.  He also had an iPhone but was rather unimpressed with it also.  As I have neither what do I know?  We still use an aerial on the roof for getting our TV.

But as of right now the line is super quiet and clean.  The tech called it "conditioning", which he said they don't do unless the customer complains about the line.

I did follow the guy down to the crossbox, he was pointing out the difference in the wire twists, showing me the cat5 twists in the jumpers over to the VRAD, then the cat3 twists in the F2 pairs, I got to watch him test out our pairs. Blue jumpers were people with only POTS, and bright green (I think it was) for Uverse, needless to say most of the connections in there were Uverse. Then he opened up the VRAD and let me have a look in there, hardly anything in there but it was awesome to see what was providing our internet and for others TV as well.
Our copper run to the CO is somewhere around 20,000 feet, hence why we didn't get DSL til 2004 when they ran fiber and installed a remote terminal DSLAM. I'm seriously thinking about getting someone out here again about that hum, whether they will track it down and fix it, or think I'm crazy cuz they can't hear it themself in the loud outdoor environment who knows.

[rp2813]

Fairly quiet on our DSL line here.  I just hear a quiet hissing between digits.  The F2 is a fairly short run.  The box is across the street and one house over.  The F1 is maybe a mile and a half as the crow flies, probably more like two miles strung along utility poles, and I presume it's 100% copper.   Mine is one of the oldest neighborhoods in town -- with facilities to match and an overabundance of squirrels constantly gnawing through them -- and service comes from the big "Main" switching office downtown.

U-Verse availability stops just a couple of blocks short of here and there's no ETA on when we'll get it.  Neighbors to one side and behind our house are served from a different CO, and the same is true for homes a couple of blocks further down my street.  There isn't a lot of territory left to cover in this section of my CO's reach so it seems odd to me that AT&T would have stopped upgrades for U-Verse with only a small portion left to build out. 

Honestly though, I'm not so sure I'll jump all over U-Verse if it ever does become available.

As far as the future of POTS over copper pairs (or even fiber as the case may be) is concerned, I think it's going to become a high priced service that will no longer be affordable to the masses.  We're going to be forced to settle for wireless service, which sucks in a big way and sets modern day voice communication quality back 100 years.  Youngsters will see an old Sprint ad with a pin dropping and say, "you've got to be kidding."   Old timers like us will confirm that it really used to be that way, comparatively speaking, and it wasn't like we were all talking to somebody on the moon, as is the case with wireless.

[GusHerb]

Had another tech out today, he switched our F1 pair out..to one on a completely different cable, he did notice a little bit of noise in the one we were on before.  Everything checked out absolutely perfect, in fact he went on to say that our line was one of the cleanest lines he's ever seen (gee I wonder if he said that just to shut me up..hahahaha).
There is still just a teeny faint buzz there, pretty much negligible at this point, and with them completely changing our pairs out the past couple days I don't think there is much else I can do, so I think I'm gonna call it good.

I learned something else new today, anyone in the neighborhood with ADSL service is served by Digital Pair Gain (out of the remote terminal), so I was right that they do use it in our neighborhood, just not on our own POTS line (yay!)....When we had ADSL we had it on a second phone line, that means that line was DPG, which now explains to me why the dial tone sounded different and the line seemed a little louder then our main line.   .....Finding out small things like that can really explain alot to a mystery, and I think my mystery is solved!

[bwanna]

jonathan...'cleanest line' he's ever seen...ya that's just somethin we say.   re: the snr/speed issue with the u-verse...did that get solved? should have put the circuit back on the original pair.
the line from the ped to the house is a service drop. F3 is from the x-box to the ped.

hi mc heath & ralph 

[GusHerb]

jonathan...'cleanest line' he's ever seen...ya that's just somethin we say.  re: the snr/speed issue with the u-verse...did that get solved? should have put the circuit back on the original pair.
the line from the ped to the house is a service drop. F3 is from the x-box to the ped.

hi mc heath & ralph  

SNR and max user rate is the same, no disconnects yet though. Gonna sit on that one til the modem throws it's next "hissy fit". Our ADSL service was just like this too, it would be fine for awhile then throw "hissy fits" just often enough to have it always be on my radar.
I'm beginning to wonder if those G3 handset receivers are very sensitive to buzz on the line, my WE 302 with F1 I can't hear a single thing unlike all the G3's

[DarrenWGaransi]

My POTS line was dead silent after much complaining to Verizon a few years ago.  They changed everything on the street.  I now have FIOS though, and the FIOS technician promptly ripped out all of the less than two years old copper.

[Willytx]

After more than 13 years with atrocious phone service, I fixed my bad phone line by moving six miles. There was more to it than that but I now have an almost perfect line. No more service being out for days, week or even more.

The only issue is when I answer the phone, there are a series of clicks like tapping on the switchhook before anyone can begin speaking. Once that stops everything is normal. I can live with that compared to the hum, buzz, roar, dual dial tones, crackle and occasional dead silence I had on the line at my old house.