Troubleshooting

ADSL the little technology that could.

1876 - Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone.

1877 - Bell Telephone Company formed, with Alexander Graham Bell as "electrician" and Thomas Watson as "superintendent."

1885 - The Bell Telephone Company formed a new subsidiary, American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T).

1911 - Using loading coils properly spaced in the line, the transmission distance for telephone reaches from New York to Denver.

1996 - ANSI approved the standard for DMT (discrete multi tone) modulation for the new ADSL communication standard. No one expected ADSL would last more than ten years since many thought ADSL to be a transitional technology from dial-up or ISDN to fiber.

Here we are in the 21st century and ADSL is now re-inventing itself into VDSL2. Unlike Verizon's FIOS some telcos trying to compete with the cable company juggernaut are ignoring their customers' cry for fiber to their homes (FTTH/FTTP) are deploying VDSL2. According to AT&T VDSL2 will be the only option to roughly 90% of their customers by 2010. Only new and affluent subdivisions will be wired for FTTH/FTTP. As for July 2, 2006 Time Warner is slowly but steady penetrating AT&T's comercial services. Time Warner have offered us fiber connections for our office at very competitive rates. For the price of a T1 you can now order a TW's symetrical 5 Mbps fiber connection, other options range from 10 to 30Mbps!

POTS (plain old telephone service) the underlying technology on which ADSL/VDSL is built upon is the weakest link in the system. Century old twisted pair 24 AWG copper wires is in no way the foundation in which the communication services of the 21st should ride on. This is why we created this section to aid ADSL/VDSL subscribers troubleshoot their ADSL/VDSL lines.

Most of ADSL problems can be traced to POTS and the factors that influence POTS like atmospheric phenomena in the form of thunder or rain. Noisy household devices like electric motors, electric ranges, microwave ovens, dimmers or night lights can adversely affect the stability of a ADSL line.