Uverse and copper wire questions

[maroonandwhite]

I cancelled my Comcast service Saturday and am switching over to Uverse. I had installation set for this past Saturday but when the tech arrived he notified me that they would need to run new line from the pole to the house due to a lacking signal(old wires). The nearest little black box that you see periodically handing from the lines was about 75 yards from the house so this is where the run would come from. They were supposed to do that yesterday but did not run a new wire to the house. My neighbor did verify they came and did some work at the pole and ATT verifies they got an acceptable at my house afterwards. What could they have done at the pole to improve signal without running new wire? Some kind of amplifier?

 

I am familiar with the twisted pair wiring they are using now but the aerial line to my house is older and I'm sure just regular "flat"wire. They are coming back today to install and am hoping it's right! I don't have any doubt they can make it work but it sure is a pain in the butt!

[TNMTBik3r]

Good luck! Took AT&T 6 months to install service at my house, and that is after they verified they could install at my house in the first place.

Was a huge pain, they said yeah no problem will have service for you in 2 hours. Turned into will be back tomorrow, then back next week, and finally after 6 months they had new lines run and all setup.

Even more irritating, my neighbor had Uverse the entire time with no issues. AT&T was able to service his house, which is further from their box than my house. Was a mess.

[maroonandwhite]

Well luckily many in my neighborhood have it with no issues.

[maroonandwhite]

They also verified with their signal tester that I now had a sufficient signal. Which from what they told me was a very accurate test.

[Sam1]

Most companies are just going to an 8 wire utp cable now and only wiring it with whatever connector they need at the time and still retain upgradability in the future if they switch to a 2 or 4 pair setup

[maroonandwhite]

But what could they have done at the pole without running any new wiring? Maybe just a faulty piece of equipment and not getting any signal at all at the time of first testing?

[Omega]

But what could they have done at the pole without running any new wiring? Maybe just a faulty piece of equipment and not getting any signal at all at the time of first testing?

Only thing I can think of is that they put new ends on the connection or if the 8 wire setup they may of used another pair.  We have had CDE, Comcast and uverse and they all ran a pretty thick cable with the CDE one being fiber optic for sure but don't know what the others used.  But at my house the cable and phone guys kept cutting each others cables so in the end they both had to run new cables.  I no longer have a phone, but the lines in the house are all either coax or computer UTP cable for the uverse boxes.

[Dolomite_supafly]

Connections go bad so most times all they need to do it ensure the connections are not corroded to improve signal. The line itself rarely goes bad, it is the ends that have problems. If they are saying you are getting decent signal I would not hold them to replacing the lines.

 

We have had Uverse for a year now, and DSL for over 10, and we are quite happy with it. We did have a nagging disconnect issue at the beginning but it was found and resolved, since then no problems.

 

The U-verse is nothing more then two pair DSL run over two additional pairs. I had conversations with several techs and it is nothing more than high speed DSL over two separate lines.

[maroonandwhite]

Well the tech is at my house now doing the inside install including new wires from the drop box to the wall. He also has a lift truck coming out now to install a new wire from the pole to the house. Hopefully I have it done tonight haha. At least they are actually doing the inside stuff so I won't have to be there if they need to come back. 

 

I've read about the bonded pair and all that stuff but haven't studied into it much. You are probably right on the wire. I bet if I peeled the insulation back that copper wire would look good as new except for the ends. Either way I should have all new wire now. I'm curious to see which "tier" I get based on my distance from the VRAD. Hopefully I get full service and can record 4 shows at once or whatever the number is.

[maroonandwhite]

Well it's done and it works! I have what they call a 25mb profile which is supposedly good.

[Jonnin]

I agree, new ends.   Back when I had Comcast they would come out and cut off the ends and replace them about once every 2 years when we started to have problems.  It usually was all that we needed to get the signal again. 

[macville]

The U-verse is nothing more then two pair DSL run over two additional pairs. I had conversations with several techs and it is nothing more than high speed DSL over two separate lines.

 

Close, but not quite how I understand it. Yes, it's two pairs, but the other difference is that ATT runs Fiber to neighborhoods and then runs DSL out to the houses. Before, DSL always went all the way to the station which is why it was limited to 6mbps and 3mbps in most cases. DSL can only run so fast so far, so they've basically moved the "station" closer to houses via fiber.

 

We've had DSL for 10+ years here and now U-Verse for 1 and I believe because we live 1/2 mile down a lane we can only get 18mbps max. I don't mind the 12mpbs down, but it would be nice to have faster than 1.5mpbs up since I upload videos sometimes. That's totally a limit ATT sets, not that their network can't handle it.

[maroonandwhite]

Just to clarify my entire signal from the pole to the house is ran over one pair of twisted wires. There is an additional twisted pair of wires in the jacket that are unused. Four wires total. Good news for my neighbor! ( I live in a duplex and he is thinking of switching)

 

Also I am only paying for the 6 mbps plan but am getting abobut 7.3 down and 1.5 up. Good enough for what I do. He said I could go up two more levels though at least though.

[Sam1]

Close, but not quite how I understand it. Yes, it's two pairs, but the other difference is that ATT runs Fiber to neighborhoods and then runs DSL out to the houses. Before, DSL always went all the way to the station which is why it was limited to 6mbps and 3mbps in most cases. DSL can only run so fast so far, so they've basically moved the "station" closer to houses via fiber.

We've had DSL for 10+ years here and now U-Verse for 1 and I believe because we live 1/2 mile down a lane we can only get 18mbps max. I don't mind the 12mpbs down, but it would be nice to have faster than 1.5mpbs up since I upload videos sometimes. That's totally a limit ATT sets, not that their network can't handle it.

The multiple pairs is referred to as bonding; as for the speed limitations, that's more on the cabling than anything else. On a 2 or 4 strand wire, the crosstalk is really bad (generally) so the speed is impacted. This is why they are switching a lot to a full cat cable now, they have less interference and some of the modems will support 4 channel bonding.

Same thing a cable modem does except it has multiple signals on the same wire operating at different frequencies.

[Tobashadow]

I had Uverse tell me it was going to cost extra because I'm too far from the nearest service box. I said hold on, do you hear my door open? OK hold on about one minute, OK do you hear that banging noise? That's my foot tapping the uverse box that was installed two years ago.

[maroonandwhite]

I had Uverse tell me it was going to cost extra because I'm too far from the nearest service box. I said hold on, do you hear my door open? OK hold on about one minute, OK do you hear that banging noise? That's my foot tapping the uverse box that was installed two years ago.

Haha I believe that the folks in sales aren't really up to date with whats going on in your neighborhood. ATT advises that you don't cancel your current services before you get up and going with Uverse (I did). I think they know that they will probably run into some kind of issue unless it's a newer neighborhood with full fiber installed to each house. Luckily I didn't have too much trouble.

[Tobashadow]

[quote name="maroonandwhite" post="1184388" timestamp="1409319248"]Haha I believe that the folks in sales aren't really up to date with whats going on in your neighborhood. ATT advises that you don't cancel your current services before you get up and going with Uverse (I did). I think they know that they will probably run into some kind of issue unless it's a newer neighborhood with full fiber installed to each house. Luckily I didn't have too much trouble.[/quote] Charter told me years ago that my house wasn't in range for cable service, I asked what the cables on the pole that go to the side of the house to a grey box with Charter stamped on it was for.

[tbenedict]

VDSL