Telephone wire colours?

[ShaggyMonk]

Hi All, first post so go easy.

After two months since first applying for ADSL on telkom.co.za I have been notified that I am go for self-installation.

I am pretty confident that I connected the splitter and modem correctly (Netgear), but I am not getting any signal light at all.

I see that in the RJ-11 cable provided that connects the splitter to the modem, all four wires are present, Red/Green, Black/Yellow. This caused me to open up my primary phone box at the wall, to see that only two wires are connected, with two floating free. Added to this, they are different colours, Blue/White/Brown/Light Green!

My questions are:

1) Do I need two 'lines' connected to run ADSL? ie, all four wires connected?

2) What are the conversions from the seemingly ancient colouring standard to the more recent BRGY format?

3) If I don't need to change the wiring, ie my current setup with only the White and Blue wires connected to the outer two pins in the wall plug are okay, what could be my problem? I get a dial tone from the phone connected out of the splitter, but no light at all from the modem.

Thanks guys,
Please help out, don't want to cough up R404 for a techie....

 

[mikef]

You only need 1 line (2 wires) for ADSL. The colours of the wires should make no difference so long as the correct pins are connected. AFAIK telkom uses the centre two pins for both ADSL and the phoneline.

 

[mancombseepgood]

1) Do I need two 'lines' connected to run ADSL? ie, all four wires connected?

Two wires - or one pair - is all that is required

2) What are the conversions from the seemingly ancient colouring standard to the more recent BRGY format?

No particular conversion - the thing to remember is that you should always use a twisted pair. If you look at the wires in the sheath, there are a number of twisted pairs - provided you use a pair, you will have no prob. Pairs are twisted to lower resistance and improve signal over longer distances.

3) If I don't need to change the wiring, ie my current setup with only the White and Blue wires connected to the outer two pins in the wall plug are okay, what could be my problem? I get a dial tone from the phone connected out of the splitter, but no light at all from the modem.

Methinks that Telkom have not connected you on the other side... or... outer two pins? AFAIK the inner pins are used with a normal telephone setup.

One note - use the telkom ADSL filters - the ones that come with Netgear modems for instance do work, but have to be fiddled with to get working.