"shared line"

A

ADRAM3L3CH

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So I applied for adsl from mweb on the 1st of may, up till today barely any feedback regarding the account so I decided to post on hello peter. Finally I get a response and apparently I can't have adsl because I have a shared line(why couldn't they have told me this earlier at least), I have no idea what they mean because it's a residential line just for my house, I don't share it with my neighbours or something! Anybody have an idea what they mean?
 
They probably meant that there are no ports left on the DSLAM to give you ADSL access. I've never heard of the "shared line" thing yet.
 
@Pada: Agreed, never heard of "shared line" - Adram3l3ch: either they're talking nonsense and you should persist for your ADSL, or they're confused about the terms and it's probably a full DSLAM ?
 
Have you all been living under a rock!

A shared line is where they take a single line and then share it amongst two users. It uses the similar concept of ADSL where the line is broken into wavelength chunks. Like a POTS filter, they install two filters on this single line, thus allowing two people to share without interfering with the other line.

Since the two lines use up most of the available wavelengths, you cannot add in ADSL anymore.

Often shared lines are installed where its too expensive to install more cable (like on farms) or in suburbs where it will take too long, or too expensive to install a separate line. Often they do this on the same property.

Most likely you have a shared line with one of your neighbours. You need to find out who got the line first, though your line might be the 2nd one placed on the existing line.

(We had a shared line 17yrs ago. Originally we had a line installed on a farm cottage we where renting then our neighbour wanted a line too. The then waiting list was like 6-12mths but my Dad jumped the queue due to his health. So we gave our neighbour permission to share our line. Voice quality dropped but never bothered us)
 
cbrunsdonza said:
Have you all been living under a rock!

A shared line is where they take a single line and then share it amongst two users. It uses the similar concept of ADSL where the line is broken into wavelength chunks. Like a POTS filter, they install two filters on this single line, thus allowing two people to share without interfering with the other line.

Since the two lines use up most of the available wavelengths, you cannot add in ADSL anymore.

Often shared lines are installed where its too expensive to install more cable (like on farms) or in suburbs where it will take too long, or too expensive to install a separate line. Often they do this on the same property.

Most likely you have a shared line with one of your neighbours. You need to find out who got the line first, though your line might be the 2nd one placed on the existing line.

(We had a shared line 17yrs ago. Originally we had a line installed on a farm cottage we where renting then our neighbour wanted a line too. The then waiting list was like 6-12mths but my Dad jumped the queue due to his health. So we gave our neighbour permission to share our line. Voice quality dropped but never bothered us)
Click to expand...
Ah, makes sense... well if that's the case and the line is shared with one person only (ie neighbour) it might be a good idea to contact them and come to some kind of agreement - ie let them keep their voice line and you sacrifice your landline for ADSL and run a cat5 to their premesis? You could then go VOX and do number portability and keep your existing phone number and go VOIP which is the future anyway. Would work in theory, and it's a viable last resort... how practical it would be in reality to arrange that is another story ;/
 
I somehow think that shared lines are a legacy thing what with Telkom pushing DSL. Best is too speak to your local Telkom store in person first to find out how you can be moved off the shared line.
 
If you do it properly, you could share the telephone line and run 1x ADSL over a single telephone line. Unfortunately you won't be able to run 2 ADSL modems on a shared line though, but 2 voice channels is definitely possible.
If you don't want noise on your voice calls, then you would need a better low pass filter than the cheap Telkom ones AND a decent band pass for the 2nd voice channel.
For a single voice channel you require 4kHz, where as ADSL utilizes 25kHz-4MHz, so you should be able to fit at least another voice channel inbetween it if you have higher order filters.

I'm not sure why Telkom won't allow you to install ADSL, unless the other person (who you're sharing the line with) already has ADSL? Or Telkom screwd up and now they're running the 2nd voice channel close to the 25kHz frequency range.
 
Thanks for the replies guys, there are free ports at my exchange so that isn't a problem I think mweb is just making excuses about the shared line thing!
cbrunsdonza said:
Have you all been living under a rock!

A shared line is where they take a single line and then share it amongst two users. It uses the similar concept of ADSL where the line is broken into wavelength chunks. Like a POTS filter, they install two filters on this single line, thus allowing two people to share without interfering with the other line.
)
Click to expand...
this was the explanation I was looking for , never knew telkom did this , would make sense though cos it is an old line. Will pop by my local telkom store today and check what they can do . As for moving to vox and stuff, I wouldn't wanna change my number since I've had it for so long .
 
cbrunsdonza said:
A shared line is where they take a single line and then share it amongst two users. It uses the similar concept of ADSL where the line is broken into wavelength chunks. Like a POTS filter, they install two filters on this single line, thus allowing two people to share without interfering with the other line.
Click to expand...

Many years ago when the norm was one phone line per house, and there was only one house per property, the Telkom wiring only allowed for one line per property. Then people built garden cottages, and sub-divided their land, and decided to get an extra line for the fax machine (and often an extra line for dial-up internet access), and Telkom didn't have enough physical lines to accommodate all of these, so they shared the lines with four phones on one line, which was cheaper and quicker than re-wiring whole suburbs at a time. And now, years later, they still haven't bothered to get enough lines into many areas, and many people are still using those shared lines. I'd make friends with a Telkom tech, and see if he can't move you to an unshared line, and move one of your neighbours who doesn't have ADSL onto the shared line. It might cost a bottle or two though, as I suspect that it would have to be done 'informally'.
 
Colin62 said:
Then people built garden cottages, and sub-divided their land, and decided to get an extra line for the fax machine (and often an extra line for dial-up internet access), and Telkom didn't have enough physical lines to accommodate all of these, so they shared the lines with four phones on one line...
Click to expand...

Commonly known as 4+1 inside Telkom if I'm not mistaken.
 
Gave telkom a call today, they can give me a line but without the self install option cos they have to sort out something at my place. Now I have to pay around R500 extra!!
 
I'd take it at that price. It's a pain, but it could be a whole lot worse, and if your alternative is using 3G, you'll save that R500 back in no time at all with the huge price difference between 3G and ADSL data.
 
you had 1 physical subscriber & the other one was the carrier subscriber.
Operates very much like the rural susbscriber SOR18 system, one physical pair
of wires and 18 subscribers sharing the line spaced approx 100Khz apart (trying to
remember 20 years ago)

SOR18 built by STC in Boksburg
 
Ok a bit of an update here, applied for my line to be converted to a single line apparently at no charge, the consultant assured me of this . Line was converted for adsl about 3 weeks ago, really been enjoying it :) but today I get my telkom bill, R1800!!! R900 JUST FOR GENERAL ADJUSTMENTS! WTF . Going back to that telkom store to sort this out, I'm not paying the extra R900.
 
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