ADSL install possably too far and does good dialup imply good ADSL?

From my place to were I believe our exchange is, it is exactly 5km. I applied for ADSL. Lady at Telkom Office at first said that it is too far, it won't work. I convinced her to put the order through so they can test the line.

Guy came out to test the line and before he did anything told me that it won't work because I have old open copper wires running from my house to where the main lines run. This is I guess about between 50 and 100m, not more. He said that he is not even going to try and test it from my house. Instead he went and tested it from the pole.

After telling him that my dialup internet is much faster here than what it was in town. 45.2bps half of the time and above 40bps about 80% of the time, compared to 33.6 mostly in town with occasionally above 40 and I never had 45.2bps in town. He said that it is because the main cables here are thicker and the line I am on is directly connected to the exchange. My own opinion - Less lines entangeld with each other, compaired to the crows nests that you see in those little boxes on steet corners that the Telkom guys so much love to fiddel arround with all day.

Friday a techie phoned me and asked where I am and so on. I'm on a small holding just out side town. Again he said to me that ADSL won't work, it is too far. I told him that the guy who tested it {I phoned him after the test} said that it will work, but that the old open wire need to be replaced. He said that he will come and have a look next week.

Now I'm worried and got a few questions for you guys. What if they install ADSL and it does not work properly. Will I then be charged for the installation and un-install?

The fact that I'm getting good dialup speed, would that improve the chances of ADSL working well too? I know of people on this forum who indicated that they are 6km from the exchange.

Is the thicker cables a good thing for ADSL too? I would have thaught that thicker cables would give more resistance and thus poorer quality.

Thanks to all of you who are always ready and willing with good advice.

I live in a block of flats built sometime in the sixties i am guessing.

When the guys came to install my adsl, they commented that the wiring had not been upgraded since then and was in a shocking state!

We have terrible crossed lines here when making phonecalls from the landline, and dialup was unusable which is why i switched to dsl once the prices came down a bit...

Dont know how far i am from the exchange but i am guessing not far. I am just on the outskirts of the CBD...

AS far as dsl goes, i havent had one problem. Always on, full line-speed etc. Except isp-related issues but that is something different.

So , fingers crossed for your install then

ADSL signals degrade pretty quickly after about the 5km mark.. and good dialup does not necessarily guarantee good ADSL speeds.

Thing is if you go ahead and install ADSL your speeds will probably be a lot less than advertised.. I wouldn't imagine you getting full speed on a 1Mbps line. Try convincing them to install 192k and see what your speeds are.. upgrading is free but downgrading will cost you.

As for the thicker cables.. there are probably much less people saturating your exchange, unlike the one in town. Remember your distance to the exchange isn't a straight line either unless its on the same street, so your distance could be even more than 5km.

Worth a shot, but try and find a kind enough techie who would be willing to hook you up to see if it works - and disconnect you for free if it doesn't work..

MaD said:

Worth a shot, but try and find a kind enough techie who would be willing to hook you up to see if it works - and disconnect you for free if it doesn't work..

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Yeah, that is not a bad idea. The techies are generally nice ous. Not their fault that they work for telkom- they got families to provide for and so on...

Speed not all that important to me, just want browsing access during the day without having to pay R100's for dialup. Did apply for 192.

What about the open wire thing. From my house is two seperate copper wires, about a foot apart that are not insulated at all, besides white knobs on pole. Are there any of you who got working ADSL on such a line? Are there any of you who had such lines before and got it replaced to get ADSL?

willemvdm said:

After telling him that my dialup internet is much faster here than what it was in town. 45.2bps half of the time and above 40bps about 80% of the time, compared to 33.6 mostly in town with occasionally above 40 and I never had 45.2bps in town.

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I don't think that is very good. If I connect with my dailup modem, I always connect at 115200. That's only the speed that the modem talks to the pc anyway. The speed of the modem is 56k.

Don't know how this will affect your adsl.

I always connect at 115200

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That is not your actual speed unfortunately. Do a line speed test and you'll see your true speed