# External phone wire



## Spawne32 (Mar 22, 2007)

A few years ago when we ran the phone wire from my room to our service box, we hadnt distinguished between external and internal phone wire, im pretty sure we used the standard thin internal house wire on the outside of the house, is it possible that my variations in speed is from the phone wire being degraded outside? And should i pick up a spool of 100 foot external phone wire and re run it?

Basically the issue is here, my speeds vary alot, dont know if its packet loss or noise in th eline or what because quite frankly i have no knowledge of that stuff. What i can tell you is that everything is configured properly and that when im in my games or somthing (where i can actually read ping) my ping will go like this 55...150...275...400...670....999 and then a minute later backk down... 999....600....340....120....45 and it will do this continuously at random intervals.

A few years back when i had some issues, we had a verizon guy come out to the house, and he split the phone wires so that the one running to our modem was strictly the 2 wires for the DSL, and eliminated the ability to use a regular phone on the line. And it had worked great for the years that we had it, if you read my other thread, i started having issues a month ago all of the sudden, and i started with replacing the router (which turned out to be a disaster and i wound up going through 4 routers, finally settling on this dlink which works great btw) and then i went and go a new modem, westell 6100 (upgrade from my westell 2100) and the problems with the disconnects seems to have gone away... but what still remains is the unstable speed.

Your thoughts?


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Purchase a DSL splitter and install it at the telco service entrance. Run a direct line from the DSL port on the splitter directly to the DSL modem. Connect all of the other phone instruments to the telephone output of the DSL splitter. All of the DSL analog side wiring should be CAT3 or better twisted pair from the telco service entrance to the DSL/ADSL modem. You can use one of the twisted pairs in CAT5 cable if you have that on hand.

This is as good as it gets for DSL installations, and will usually solve in-house wiring issues.ing issues.


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## Spawne32 (Mar 22, 2007)

i dont see how cat3 cable is going to work outside of my house, im talking about the phone wire running from the box outside to my wall jack, the wire running from the wall jack to the modem is the one provided by verizon...


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

The wire outside your house is usually supplied by the phone company. If you're running wire outside, I have to ask why?

FWIW, you can use exterior grade wire for outside wiring, but I can't imagine why you need outside wiring.


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## cwwozniak (Nov 29, 2005)

JohnWill said:


> but I can't imagine why you need outside wiring.


How about if the telephone network interface box is on an outside wall (like on my house) and the inside wiring comes out from the crawl space through a small hole in the wall about five feet below the box (like on my house)?


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## Spawne32 (Mar 22, 2007)

cwwozniak said:


> How about if the telephone network interface box is on an outside wall (like on my house) and the inside wiring comes out from the crawl space through a small hole in the wall about five feet below the box (like on my house)?


you are correct sir  verizon out here requires the home owner to run the telephone wire to the service box which is located at the back door, they charge an astronomical amount to have a tech come out and do it. If there is a problem with anything after the service box, going to the house, then they will not fix it free of charge. A few years back when we first got the DSL, me and my dad had to run the phone wire from my room to the service box.


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## cwwozniak (Nov 29, 2005)

Spawne32 said:


> they charge an astronomical amount to have a tech come out and do it. If there is a problem with anything after the service box, going to the house, then they will not fix it free of charge.


We have SBC/Ameritech/AT&T/Whatever-they call-themselves-this-month. Their line maintenance responsibility also ends at the pair of RJ11 jacks in the interface box They offer some kind of home wiring protection plan that for a certain slightly less astronomical monthly fee they will also repair house wiring for no additional charge.

I had to replace and add some phone wiring quite a few years ago and ended up running two new sets of 4 conductor cables from the interface box to a new terminal block in the full part of the basement. I found that Radio Shack sells an outdoor grade 4 wire phone cable on 100 foot spools. It does not have twisted pairs though as found in CAT cables but it seems to work OK for our phones and ADSL. I believe that CAT3 may be the new standard for home telephone wiring and you may want to follow John Will's suggestion of using CAT3. You could check your local big home improvement stores like Home Depot to see if they sell any outdoor grade CAT3 cable for your run from the interface box to the jack at the modem location. Outdoor CAT5 would work too.

Do you know for sure that the outside interface box includes a whole house DSL/Voice splitter?


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## Frank4d (Sep 10, 2006)

If you shop around and find CAT5E cable cheaper use that, it is better for higher frequency use. Sometimes the older spec wire is cheaper because nobody wants it anymore, and sometimes the newer spec wire is cheaper because it is more plentiful. Either will work with DSL though.


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## cwwozniak (Nov 29, 2005)

Frank4d said:


> If you shop around and find CAT5E cable cheaper use that,


Just be sure that it is specifically rated for outdoor use. Some types of plastic insulation for indoor use cables can become quite brittle in sub-zero temperatures or from long term exposure to the UV rays in direct sunlight.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Once again, there is cable rated for outdoor use, which is the correct stuff to use if you're running the cable outside. There is also burial cable for underground use.


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