What is the farthest you can run a DSL line from the network server?
How about wireless-outdoors? How far could you be from the transmitter?
Any help or experience would be appreciated,
Thanks,
BP

I'd guess you are trying to find out if you are in range of a DSL provider.
The thing to do is to contact all of the providers you can find and check with them.
For wireless, look at a map of their coverage area and see if you are in it. It will probably depend more  on line of sight and horizon than actual distance and may be affected by vegetation growth, trees weather etc.
I'm on the west coast and the way things are out here is:

The current wireline distance is set at 16,500 feet although it can sometimes work to almost 20,000 feet. In fringe areas the service can be degraded and generate complaints which will sometimes result in the service being pulled because its not worth the headaches. If fiber has been extended into remote areas, the "Remote Terminal" is the starting pont for the copper footage. There are several different manufacturers of equipment and there may be different  capabilities for each.
One reason I say to check with every provider you can is that some providers merely resell your local telco's dsl service and will give you the same answer regarding service because they are checking the same database. Some however have a presence in the local "central office" and rent the only the wires, or "dry pair" and hook it up to their own equipment. In that case the standard they are likely to apply is simply whether the service can be made to work. You will probably have to switch to their telephone service to get their data service.  Because of the hard time the telecom industry went through and the expense of the co co-locates, many of these providers have folded. Another side effect of that has been a reduction in competition (i.e. incentive) and couple that with regulators demanding that the big boys let their competitors get a free ride and you have a a real slowdown is capacity buildout. The is a bill in the senate that could open the floodgates, I can't remeber it's designation but it's one to watch.

One provider I'd check for in your area is Covad. They were recently in trouble but made a 50 million dollar deal with SBC that will probably get them through. If there are business in your area, see if you can chat with their office admin or IT people and find out how they get data. T1=big bucks.  xDSL, there may be hope.

I troubleshoot DSL lines all day everyday with COVAD.  The answer to your question is:  It's a crapshoot!

But Seriously, right now Covad is doing pro installs (month of April) in conjunction with my company (Earthlink).

Lemme know if I can help.

[email protected]

The magic number is 12,000 feet.  From what I have been reading, most Telco's are trying to shorten their non-loaded loops to 12kft.  The reason is, load coils.  Digital equipment such as ADSL, HDSL and T-1  don't like them and regular POTS lines don't like to run on more than  about 12kft of non-loaded wire.   I don't know much about wireless but I believe Axel is right about the wireless part of the question.  I would think it would be just about limitless as long as it's a clear line of sight.



The 12kft is not set in concrete.  It's just a guide.  I believe 18kft. is the outer limit for a DSL line but check with your local telco to get the distance they will establish a connection.

I can understand shortening the optimum distance for a dsl install. Tthe shorter it is, the faster and more reliable it is. This probably applies to planned buildout scenarios for placing the RT's. As far as the crapshoot, that is true. Sometimes the customer premises is well within the measured distance but the cable travels roundabout and exceeds the distance before it gets there. Or, the cable makeup is such the loss is too great. Bridgetap is a killer. As far as load coils go, I believe they are engineered to industry standards and do not vary according to whims of planners. Often the same SAI will have both loaded and unloaded counts working, and a pair can always be deloaded, although this is usually only done where the service justifies it. (i.e. not dsl) The standard I am familiar is if the loop length is greater than 19,800, then loads are used. Next time I see an engineer, I'll ask. And this can also vary by company and region of course, so ymmv.

axel--I can't swear how every telco operates, but the industry standard, at least the last I heard, is going to a 12kft loop.  This will eliminate the need for load coils.  Sure, there will be senarios where the loaded loop will still be needed, ie loops longet than 18kft, but as far as DSL is concerned, the pair has to be unloaded. This is because a digital signal is too high in frequency to pass through a load coil.  DSL is a digital signal.  It will work out to about 18kft on a non-loaded cable pair but much past that and the signal degrades very rapidly.  You're right about the bridgetap, they need to be removed.  DSL will not tolerate  bridgetap.  The DSL will work with some bridgetap, but not well.  We've just gotten into the habit of removing them, if they exist, when we test for a DSL service install.  As far as the customer being within the measured distance but the cable taking a rounabout path, that can be true.  I will take an electrical measurement at the customer premise.  If they fall within the 18kft limit then I will test their line for analog service, then do a wideband test.  If they pass the wideband, they get hooked up for DSL, if not, the cable pair gets analyzed to determine the problem and repaired.  If the analog test is good, the wideband test will "usually" pass.  You sound like a phone guy and probably have seen Outside Plant magazine.  Don mcCarty has some very interesting articles about digital, as well as analog, communications in this magazine.  If you don't have access to the magazine, they are online and he shares his knowledge rather freely.  www.ospmag.com.  He has a monthly column in the magazine.  

www.dslreports.com

say upto 18,000feet from the CO(local phone company building to you)

max ethernet cable length...that would be from say your hub(at modem) to your comptuer no more than 100meters for 10/100baseT

wireless depends on placement and how much you wanna pay indoors 60-150m outdoors they have systems that can go to 2km that i have found but that is line of sight

dslreports.com is a great place for all your broadband questions though!

This is a good site.  alot of good information.  Thanks for posting it Freeride.

The 18kft limit includes up to 2500' of bridge tap.  If this loop gets longer than 12kft., with no more than 2500' of bridge tap,  you start losing  bandwidth.  After 18 kft, it starts dropping off very rapidly.  

I'm not trying to disagree about the standards. I guess the best way to explain it is to say that DSL can work out to xxx feet, (i've seen that standard change a few times) but when engineers are planning the placement of RT's, the design standard is to have you within 12 kfeet.
The bridge tap issue is tricky because the closer it is to the end of the loop, the more it degrades the signal. The footage alone isn't a reliable guide. If you are allowed to mess with the plant, trimming it is a given. Cable makeup could screw you too. Wire gauge changes can do interesting things. I hear the best setup is small gauge out of the CO and increasing in size toward the prem. Common sense would tell me the opposite but that is what I heard from the guys installing and troubleshooting it. They would sometimes have a good signal at the SAI but in the last, sometimes short leg to the customers house, the loss was too much.

I used to do I&R but went to construction. Now I work on the project that was building the DSL out. It sounds fancy but being underground all day in waders and muddy coveralls in front of a 710 will unfancy anything pretty quick. Fiber was cool, when we had it to do.

I read one of McCarty's articles once and was impressed with his expertise. But I don't work in an area where I can apply it right now. (Other than build it right!)

I really enjoyed being the third or ninth tech out to a customer and being the first one who could isolate and correct problems like radio noise, crosstalk, phantom ringing etc. Have you ever tried to troubleshoot static and realize you were hearing it in both ears, not just the one listening to the butt set? That one turned out to be a loose lead to a power transformer generating intense radio noise that was picked up in the telephone line.
Most of this stuff can only be learned by experience and I tried to make the most of it. On the other hand, nobody cares unless it doesn't work and then the repair tech is the most important guy in their week. I tried to help people by signing up as an "Expert" at About.com and only got general BS questions about telecomunications that sounded like they wanted some help with homework. Not one single question ever from the kind of person I ran into all the time on the job-somebody trying to make sense of their phone line or its problems. I finally quit. That's also why I got so carried away when someone asked a question a few weeks ago about a modem problem. After years of waiting, I'M HELPING!!!! [8D]

Yea, the design standard of 12kft exists only in the perfect world.  Do you know where that is?  But I guess we do what we have to do to keep dial tone, not to mention DSL service, working as best we can.  It is true that a small gauge out of the CO and larger gauge at the sub is the best scenario.  "Loop resistance" is the key words there.  the larger the gauge, the less the resistance, the farther you can push a signal.  They're deploying more stuff all the time that is changing the telecom industry every day.  I barely recognize it as it was when I started.

I know the feeling about the hip waders and muddy coveralls.  Guess you could say "I feel your pain Brother".  Cable cuts and damages are what we do, among other stuff.   I'm an OSP Maintenance Tech with this Telco I work for.  Got about 32 years under my belt now and have loved every minute of it.  Well almost every minute.  There are times I think I should just retire and give my truck and tools to some youngster for him, or her, to get started in the industry.    Started out working on the old lead and paper cables.  Seems like yesterday.  Fault locating and noise mitigation is my speciality.  It is kind of fun being the last resource to the subscribers though.  I don't have anyone to turn a problem over to, so it has to be right before I get to leave the premises.  You have to get creative at times.  

Never been around the 710 connectors, but hear they're a good way to go.   We do all 3M stuff here, but all in all, I guess they accomplish the same end result.  

We're putting more and more fiber in all the time.  I think most of our construction budget is fiber anymore.  We haven't deployed it to the side of the premises yet, but we do all of our trunking with fiber.  Our non-loaded loops have all but dissappeared now, but we still do have a few.  They're even discussing cutting the loop to 6000 ft in the next 5 years.   That puts a DLC in just about every subdivision with a fiber feed.  Not a bad plan if they will just do it.  The only wireless we have, besides cellular, are a few digital radio shots that are deployed where it is very difficult and expensive to plow or hang cables at this time.  They seem to work pretty well and have been for years.  

Have you ever had a chance to attend some of the SNC seminars in Oshkosh, WI?  I'm almost positive it's not like the BRC I keep reading about here.  But go to one if you can.  They're usually a pretty good time, even if you can't bring your AR with you.  All it costs your company is an airline ticket, room and tuition to the seminar.  Usually in September sometime.

             

Well for me it's manholes, maybe I made it sound worse that it is. Wet, muddy, dark but not like sitting in a trench overnight trying to restore service. I am not part of the core group so I haven't had to work failures, although the overtime could keep me from complaining. I'd like to end up in maintenance but right now my priority is getting a transfer commutable to my future home in Nevada.

Other than beans, I'm not familiar with the 3m system. The 710 seems to be a good system but you have to be concientous with it. First, use the CTC machine. I've seen the cheaper machines cause opens too many times. You have to be careful you didn't bend a pin and are lined up just right and no conductors are in the way plugging in. Overall it seems a good versatile system.

My fiber was all OJT, somebody badmouthed the school to the boss so he didn't send everyone. I haven't touched it in months. I transfered in here because I wanted new training, challenges and my crew also handles the litespan/umc turnups. The digital promises were empty for half the crew and now alot of them have or are leaving. I wish my company was as smart as yours. Sending me to a seminar?? Hahaha.....

Know what you mean.  I don't get to touch fiber much either.  We have 2 guys that do all the fiber splicing.  I have to say, they are top notch when it comes to fusing fiber.  I don't think there are any better splicers in the state.  I've only been to one fiber school and it was pretty good.  It's called Light Brigade, prolly heard of them,  3 days long, not nearly enough, but a good hands on.  

We've swapped everything out to UMC or are in the process.  We had a mishmash of everything for a while.  T324, SLC5, Infinitec, Star hubs.  You name it, it was in the plant somewhere.  Talk about a  selection of cards to maintain.  You almost need a helper just to keep track of the inventory on the truck.  I personally think that the AFC equipment is among the best we've ever had.  Easy to turn up, provision and maintain.  We have it fiber fed, copper spans and radio.  It works well with all feeds though.  Just went to a 2 day engineering class for the UMC.  Could have spent another week and not learned enough about it.  I'll take what I can get though.
 

Heck, we're puting in a mish mosh! Actually the new is is either litespan or umc. There is a black mercedes with a vanity plate in these parts: "UMC 1000."

I looked on the box this morning-3M710.
I'm glad you get to play with the good stuff (sniff).

The owner of the black mercedes must have a little  stock in AFC.  If it were the owner, the plates would have been on a Rolls Royce.  I know we've sent them plenty of money.

Probably has stock but I'm sure he was headed for AFC offices in Petaluma also.