How can I find out my line loss?

Hi there,
Yes, I am one of the unfortunate people who cannot get BB because my job
forces me to live over 6Km from my local exchange (however, not by much, as
some people on my estate can get it!)

My question is -

You all seem to know a lot about your signal levels and attenuation levels
on your BT line - How do you find that out?

Has anyone got any figures quoted by BT that have to be met in order to
receive BB?

Is there any way of finding out the exact LINE LENGTH of my BT line?

Thanks for any help,



Pete W
A frustrated and impatient dialup user.

Pete Watkins wrote:
> Hi there,
> Yes, I am one of the unfortunate people who cannot get BB because
> my job forces me to live over 6Km from my local exchange (however,
> not by much, as some people on my estate can get it!)
>
> My question is -
>
> You all seem to know a lot about your signal levels and attenuation
> levels on your BT line - How do you find that out?
>
> Has anyone got any figures quoted by BT that have to be met in
> order to receive BB?
>
> Is there any way of finding out the exact LINE LENGTH of my BT line?
>
> Thanks for any help,
>
>
>
> Pete W
> A frustrated and impatient dialup user.

The line length only has a rough correlation to your line loss which is
affected by many things (construction of the cables making up your line, how
many joints & how they are made etc). The only way you can get a line loss
figure is by having an ADSL line & testing it or if you're one of the people
right on the edge where BT will send out an engineer to check it before they
make the decision about whether to let you have it or not. The officiall
max line loss, measured in the field (at the moment) is 60db, but you will
find people who have had self-installs who are over that & working ok...

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Pete Watkins <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Hi there,
> Yes, I am one of the unfortunate people who cannot get BB because my
> job forces me to live over 6Km from my local exchange (however, not
> by much, as some people on my estate can get it!)
>
> My question is -
>
> You all seem to know a lot about your signal levels and attenuation
> levels on your BT line - How do you find that out?
>
> Has anyone got any figures quoted by BT that have to be met in order
> to receive BB?
>
> Is there any way of finding out the exact LINE LENGTH of my BT line?
>
> Thanks for any help,
>
>
>
> Pete W
> A frustrated and impatient dialup user.

Line loss is one of those "chicken and egg" things! One you have ADSL
installed, your modem or router will measure it for you.

The usual advice to people whose line is being rejected by BT's automatic
check is to find an ISP who will place a manual order for you. BT then have
to measure it properly rather than making an arbitraty decision based on
distance - and you may find that it's ok.
--
Cheers,
Tim
______
Please reply to newsgroup. Reply address is invalid.

"Tiscali Tim" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Line loss is one of those "chicken and egg" things! One you have ADSL
> installed, your modem or router will measure it for you.

Am I misunderstanding something here? The signal reaching your modem or
router has already suffered the loss, so how can it measure the loss
without knowing what it was to start with? Or does it assume some
starting value?

--
Alec McKenzie
(E-Mail Removed)

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Alec McKenzie <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> "Tiscali Tim" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> Line loss is one of those "chicken and egg" things! One you have ADSL
>> installed, your modem or router will measure it for you.
>
> Am I misunderstanding something here? The signal reaching your modem
> or router has already suffered the loss, so how can it measure the
> loss without knowing what it was to start with? Or does it assume some
> starting value?


Dunno - but this is what my router says:

Operation Data Upstream Downstream
Noise Margin 26 dB 25.5 dB
Output Power 12 dBm 19 dBm
Attenuation 31.5 dB 55 dB

Make of that what you will!
--
Cheers,
Tim
______
Please reply to newsgroup. Reply address is invalid.

In article <mckenzie-(E-Mail Removed)>, Alec
McKenzie said......

> "Tiscali Tim" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> > Line loss is one of those "chicken and egg" things! One you have ADSL
> > installed, your modem or router will measure it for you.
>
> Am I misunderstanding something here? The signal reaching your modem or
> router has already suffered the loss, so how can it measure the loss
> without knowing what it was to start with? Or does it assume some
> starting value?
>
>
The DSLAM sends out a fixed known level. So it's easy enough to compare
rx'd signal with the known level that the DSLAM is sending to arrive at
a loss figure.
--
Mugwump

Reply to 'usenetmail{at}discworld{dot}org{dot}uk

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, Mugwump
said......

> The DSLAM sends out a fixed known level. So it's easy enough to compare
> rx'd signal with the known level that the DSLAM is sending to arrive at
> a loss figure.
>

The reference Tx power is -38dBm
--
Mugwump

Reply to 'usenetmail{at}discworld{dot}org{dot}uk