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Thread ID: 120909	2011-10-02 06:13:00	Broadband issue - do I need to call a Tech?	Disco_Dan (16576)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1235015	2011-10-02 06:13:00	I have been a long time user of Woosh until last month when I signed up for DSL wired broadband . However my speeds are shocking and almost as slow as the Woosh connection 100-200kbps ! I contacted the help desk of my ISP - they agreed the speed was slow and should be close to 10mbps in my location . Is there a way for me to test my line? Some sort of test meter? My ISP told me to 'wait' while they looked into it, but I'm impatient and eager to get my hands dirty . One thing that is troubling me is that I live in a block of ten flats - I had a look inside the box outside, there are ten sets of wires connected to a distribution block for the main incoming lines . All have two wires connecting to the raised pole connectors - except for mine, which has four wires - two going to the raised poles (to the incoming line) and two that attach to another units poles (where there is already wires attached) . I did a bit of research online and found that the other two wires are used for a 'second' phone line - which is strange since there is only one jack point in the flat . Who can I call (apart from the Ghostbusters!) to take a look? Telecom website indicates $86 call out then $16 per 15 minutes! What I am worried about though is that due to space I had to position a very large and heavy aquarium in front of the jack point . . . . I can 'just' reach it from one end to plug in the DSL line but if the tech wants to look inside the jack point box . . . well that would mean draining the tank and years of hard work and future aquarium comps will be off the table . That and it would take the whole weekend to do it . Can I snip the extra wires in the box?? Or should I leave well alone and call a tech and just hope he/she does not need to get inside the jack box inside .	Disco_Dan (16576)
1235016	2011-10-02 06:38:00	It's very hard to figure out from your description whats going on. You can log onto your router and find out what the connection speed is, that would be a good place to start. The IP address of your router is the default gateway address, you can find it by typing ipconfig at the command prompt. User name and password are probably admin admin, otherwise you might have to ask your isp or consult the manual. With a bit of luck it will show you the connection speed and signal to noise ratio etc. Post them here and we'll have a better Idea of what the story is. Are you not able to move the aquarium at all without draining it? And are you certain you know what wires belong to what flat in the box? and that there is only one jackpoint in the flat? If so you really should only have a single pair of wires coming in. The exception would be if an external splitter was fitted in which case one pair would be for phone and one for DSL, but you would see the splitter if that was the case and would need a double jackpoint. Also if a previous resident has ever had a second line the wiring would be left intact, they don't visit the premises to disconnect them, just turn it off at the exchange. Phone wiring to multiple residences can get a little complicated so it's tough to say yes just go ahead and cut the wires. If you pay the wiring maintenance fee on your phone bill you may not have to pay the call out fees, especially if it's reported as a fault. I'd be a little concerned some cheeky resident is piggy backing of the phone line or something myself. If you're with Telecom maybe you should discuss it with them and see, they may actually be able to sort it without charging you. It does sound like your ISP acknowledges the issue though, so maybe you should give them a chance :)	dugimodo (138)
1235017	2011-10-02 07:04:00	Thank you for the quick reply - I posted the issue plus all the detailed diagnostic screenshots and photographs of the piggyback wiring on the Slingshot forum. However it has gone 'dry' and I am pretty impatient! I'm paying for 'upto' 10mb connection and getting close to dialup speeds. Link to the forum is here: forums.slingshot.co.nz I guess I am hoping someone says "snip the wires! your speeds will be fantastic and it will solve all your problems!" - so I can 'do something' instead of all this waiting around!	Disco_Dan (16576)
1235018	2011-10-02 08:45:00	If you start mucking around with the wiring you could find yourself facing a very hefty bill. The wiring does not belong to you, you are only renting a service on it, your ISP should investigate your connection from their end and if necessary call out a tech. Your problems could be a number of things. The best thing you can do is make sure your connection is optimised through your computer as this IS legal. Start off by seeing if you can get the information dugimodo suggests, that would be a good start.	PPp (9511)
1235019	2011-10-02 11:13:00	I guess I am hoping someone says "snip the wires! your speeds will be fantastic and it will solve all your problems!" - so I can 'do something' instead of all this waiting around! I hope no one in their right mind would ever suggest you do that and unless you're looking for a day in court for tampering with Telecom property, I suggest you dont even consider it. Just make sure you have the job ref number handy, and if they havent sorted it by mid week, follow it up to see whats going on. You never had a fast connection before, so whats a few more days.	Iantech (16386)
1235020	2011-10-02 18:12:00	I have been a long time user of Woosh until last month when I signed up for DSL wired broadband. However my speeds are shocking and almost as slow as the Woosh connection 100-200kbps ! I contacted the help desk of my ISP - they agreed the speed was slow and should be close to 10mbps in my location. Slingshot told me to 'wait' while they looked into it, . Slingshot!!! OMG!!!	pctek (84)
1235021	2011-10-02 18:34:00	Ok skimmed through your slingshot post, a couple of comments: 1. it's your connection speed that's the issue, it shows as 1.3 meg on one post and 1.5 on another, speed test will always be lower than this, fiddling around with modem settings isn't going to help. Also it should not change this much between resets and should be fairly consistent. 2. The wiring in that terminal is a mess and almost all the cables running away from it are not suitable for ADSL, the white homelan cable at the bottom with the twisted blue and orange pairs is the only good one I can see in the photo. The black 049 cables with black, brown, white, and yellow wires are no good and neither are most of the others. If they run very far they will drop the speeds. Most of this wiring is pre-broadband standards. 3. There is not much you can do yourself, pay to get that tech out. If I was looking into it (something I used to do for a living) I would start by connecting a modem directly to that terminal and testing there and if that worked cleaning up the wiring into the unit. ADSL requires cables with a reasonable twist in them, the twist is for noise rejection and without it the cable pair will pick up and cause interference from nearby sources. Older phone cabling did not always have much twist, especially for short runs in dedicated cables such as from the terminal to the flat as it dodn't need it for normal phone service. Of course there is no way to be certain from here. If you know the distance from you to the exchange or cabinet you can figure out the approximate speed you should connect at, probably where slingshot came up with 10Mb from. 1.5 is shocking and below what telecom will accept for their customers (2Mb is their minimum for broadband these days).	dugimodo (138)
1235022	2011-10-02 18:38:00	Yes I was in a modernish house with 5 telephone jacks. My broadband was very poor. I got an electrician out and he found a couple of the plugs were badly wired. It made quite a difference. It worth paying for that if you are staying at the place fro a while. Also I don think Telecom charge if the problem is in their wiring	Digby (677)
1235023	2011-10-02 20:04:00	@digby, Yeah that's provided you're paying the 'wiring & maintenance' fee if the issue is between (or on) the demarc and your wall jack. If its further up, like the cable that runs to your house, then yeah thats always covered no matter what. Disco_Dan found me off-forums, got in touch, and I've worked out he's approx 1.4KM from the Exchange (Not going to ever be run off a cabinet) so should expect a solid 10mbps+ (Presuming that the cables dont go directly down the street, allowing for up to 2km of cable run). It's probably cool to carry the discussion on here, get others 2c worth. If your neighbours a few houses down are getting decent speeds, you can pretty much guarantee its your wiring. If they do a speedtest and it gets over say 3M/bit (Probably going to be closer to 10mbps, but just saying), then I'd suggest you get an electrician in to rewire it. If Telecom have said they can come out and rewire everything for $86, that's a steal, and I'd go with that. I believe that the $86 is more of a 'minimum' amount: www.telecom.co.nz Then its around $60 an hour. It'd probably take them 30 -> 60 minutes, depending on what needs to be done and how accessible everything is. Naked DSL doesn't include the wiring & maintenance as far as I'm aware. That basically covers from the demarcation point to the wall jack. See if the nearby residents want to 'split the cost' with you of getting a tech out, should probably be a whole lot cheaper if you dice that $86 'callout fee' 3 or 4 ways as opposed to bearing it all yourself.	Chilling_Silence (9)
1235024	2011-10-02 20:40:00	I should point out that the pairs in the terminal will not relate directly to the units, any one could connect to any flat. When cable pairs are allocated no consideration of the order they appear at the customer end is made. It's the birds nest of small cables that feed the flats in no particular order.What I'm not sure of is wether the cable terminal counts as the demarc in the case of a block of flats. Electricians are getting better at phone cabling, and some are excellent at it. But in general they are not regarded highly by the people who do phone cabling etc for a living as they often don't understand the finer points of it. Whoever ends up looking at this for you I would suggest temporarily bypassing the cable from the terminal to your flat with a length of homelan or cat 5 and testing with that, alternatively connect directly to the terminal and test there. My suspicion is the length of cable from the terminal to your unit is the source of the problem.	dugimodo (138)
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