BroadBand Technicals

Odd question I appreciate

Does ADSL/Broadband have some technical reason why a telephone line is required to provide it?

IE why do you have to have a landline service and broadband if you ONLY want the broadband?

Is it down to the providers BT/TalkTalk etc, or down to Ofcom, or someone else?

Am just curious to know

ADSL is delivered along twisted pair wires. Given that a phone line is twisted pair and conveniently goes between the home and a central point (an exchange) it seems to be a good candidate.

You need to pay line rental (for repairs/maintenance of the twisted pair wires).

I suspect the reasons are practical rather than purely technical... you need a wire between you and the point where all the kit is installed (let's call it an "exchange") and that wire needs a number associated with it so the user can be identified.

Why re-invent the wheel?

There's no technical problem with "naked" broadband, but the cost of installing and maintaining the wire still needs to come from somewhere, so the same comment applies. You have to have a line and the contract to pay those costs, but it's not compulsory to make any phone calls over it. Or even to connect a phone to it!

In reply to a post by john2007:

You need to pay line rental (for repairs/maintenance of the twisted pair wires).

What repairs or maintenance!

The pole being demolished, cable cut, branch bringing down the line, water ingress, business rates for poles, cabinets and buildings floor space in the exchange for the cable termination racks and more ...

In reply to a post by NilSatisOptimum:

What repairs or maintenance!

You'd prefer to pay the full cost of callout, investigation, tracing and repair next time your line goes crackly?

billford,

so "naked" broadband is possible, but "more" expensive?

I mean if we look at it this way right now my parents pay BT £9.99 per month upfront, to cover the line rental

we then have BT Broadband at about another £10.00 per month.

What would anyone estimate is the "true" cost of this rather then the current "deal" cost of the same services?

I'd say naked DSL would be slightly cheaper maybe £1 if you're lucky

but no ISP that i no off does that service.

Perfectly possible.

In Canada, Bell will give you just an ADSL connection. You can't make calls - in fact there isn't even a plug on the sockets for your phone to connect to.

In reply to a post by CJT:

What would anyone estimate is the "true" cost of this rather then the current "deal" cost of the same services?

That's a question for BT, they work in their own mysterious ways

In reply to a post by orly:

Perfectly possible.

In Canada, Bell will give you just an ADSL connection. You can't make calls - in fact there isn't even a plug on the sockets for your phone to connect to.

But it is still supplied over a "telephone line" !

True

My interpretation of the question was whether there was a need for the phone service component. See the 3rd line of the original post beginning "IE..."

I'm pretty sure the original poster is aware a physical cable is required unless you want ADSL via thin air.

Edited by orly (Wed 13-Jul-11 18:10:59)

Orly

Indeed, that was me basic point.. I am sorry if didn't make that fully clear

In reply to a post by billford:

I suspect the reasons are practical rather than purely technical... you need a wire between you and the point where all the kit is installed (let's call it an "exchange") and that wire needs a number associated with it so the user can be identified.

I have an idea. We can do without the wire, and send signals bouncing off satellites which could orbit the planet. Lets call it...wireless!!

I reckon I may be onto something. In fact, we could do the same with phones. Or even...electricity...that would make electric cars viable (actually that's not a bad idea).

Effectively, "Wireless Broadband" is what one gets when using a Dongle, so in part this demonstrates what the original quetioner asked.

The dongles use the Mobile/Cell Phone system, with its attendant masts, wiring, power supplies, centralised exchanges, running costs, maintenance costs etc - and compare the charges for using dongles compared to the generally existing telephone wires.

I have not enquired recently; but back in 1978, fixed phone wiring reached 65% of households in the UK, our estate then 10 years old had at least 85% connected lines as the former PO Telephones described it, with 100% cabling in position.

That tends to be the pattern for all newer estates.

So the phone wiring is a very convenient method of getting Broadband to most households in the UK - the main problem being for households at some distance from the exchanges.

For example I am only 1.25 Km from our exchange; but the maximum speed by the TBB Test is 6.4 Mbps, compared with the advertised "Up to 8 Mbps" .

In reply to a post by MHC:

The pole being demolished, cable cut, branch bringing down the line, water ingress, business rates for poles, cabinets and buildings floor space in the exchange for the cable termination racks and more ...

I'll concede the bold highlighted, however the others you mention I have to disregard as I see absolute no evidence of this!

The OP asked about ADSL which stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Note the word LINE which implies wires not wireless and Sunscriber Line means a telephone line.

Edited by MHC (Thu 14-Jul-11 09:39:36)

In reply to a post by NilSatisOptimum:

In reply to a post by MHC:

The pole being demolished, cable cut, branch bringing down the line, water ingress, business rates for poles, cabinets and buildings floor space in the exchange for the cable termination racks and more ...

I'll concede the bold highlighted, however the others you mention I have to disregard as I see absolute no evidence of this!

Why? They are a fact. BT pays business rates for all street furniture and has a team managing that area to ensure they only pay for what they have. Even optical fibre has a rateable value ... As for no evidence of teh buildings - where do you think the line actually goes to?

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by NilSatisOptimum:

What repairs or maintenance!

You'd prefer to pay the full cost of callout, investigation, tracing and repair next time your line goes crackly?

I would very much appreciate a 13 month old fix to a fault. Which has been established from the exchange 1 month in. Thats what i would prefer!

Nice one .

In reply to a post by NilSatisOptimum:

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by NilSatisOptimum:

What repairs or maintenance!

You'd prefer to pay the full cost of callout, investigation, tracing and repair next time your line goes crackly?

I would very much appreciate a 13 month old fix to a fault. Which has been established from the exchange 1 month in. Thats what i would prefer!

Let the buyer beware as rubbish defeats the brain.

Even radio and television could work that way.

That would free up a lot of frequencies for errrrr?. I'm not sure.

Oh, but! If you did radio and television that way, then an awful lot less internet bandwidth capacity would be needed. Now that could save a lot of money.

As an incidental, does anyone know how to get an accurate time-signal these days? The only way I know is from analogue radios. Some domestic weather stations and some watches and clocks I believe can also pick up the signal from Rugby. This is important when deciding if a bus lane can legally be used.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The only way I know is from analogue radios. Some domestic weather stations and some watches and clocks I believe can also pick up the signal from Rugby. This is important when deciding if a bus lane can legally be used.

I would not trust any Rugby signals - they are now very, very, very inaccurate and if you receive one now it will be around 135.85 Ms out.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

and some watches and clocks I believe can also pick up the signal from Rugby.

No longer at Rugby. The new contract was awarded to VT Group and the transmitting site is now in Cumbria.

And of course income which allows BT to pay for and roll-out fibre, replace worn out cables, poles, cabinets, exchange equipment etc.
New FTTC cabinets, power cabling, running tens of thousands of miles of fibre are not provided by the 'free telecom pixies'!

If you have a gps device it will get very accurate time from the satellites. My old Palms will allow you to set the time from that time source.

In reply to a post by john2007:

If you have a gps device it will get very accurate time from the satellites.

So accurate they're used in broadcast transmitters (e.g. DAB) for time synchronisation purposes.

In reply to a post by NilSatisOptimum:

In reply to a post by MHC:

The pole being demolished, cable cut, branch bringing down the line, water ingress, business rates for poles, cabinets and buildings floor space in the exchange for the cable termination racks and more ...

I'll concede the bold highlighted, however the others you mention I have to disregard as I see absolute no evidence of this!

I have twice suffered from water entering the junction box outside my property. Considering that it's a concrete box embedded a metre or two below the ground that's hardly surprising. All the recent builds at Brackley (probably over two thirds of the properties or perhaps 3,000 houses) have these and Brackley is a fairly normal town I'd suggest that it's a common fault that Openreach will have to budget for.

In reply to a post by MHC:

... and Sunscriber Line means a telephone line.

Is that provided by News International?

In reply to a post by MHC:

if you receive one now it will be around 135.85 Ms out.

That's over 4 years...

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by MHC:

if you receive one now it will be around 135.85 Ms out.

That's over 4 years...

Now it would be 135.86Ms out !

Does not the exact value depend on how far away you are from the Anthorn transmitter?

Whilst agreeing that the various sources do give relatively accurate times, which one IF ANY does the relevant Road/Policing Authority use, as that is what any (non-) Voilations would be based on.

Not in this case ... we are looking at the amount of error that would be seen if someone was to today receive a transmission that had originated from Rugby.

The Anthorn to London delay/error is about 1.6 ms and it does vary depending on how far away you are.

What really amuses, and gets to, me is that the 6 pips on the BBC were introduced to replace the previous 3, with the sixth being slightly lengthened compared to the other five and to be indicative of the actual point.

I assume this was meaning the point was within that pip, so accurate to a few ms. However, the exercise is now rather pointless given the multi-second delay on DAB radio.

As for Big Ben bongs on the television - bad enough on analogue, poor on digital, and ridiculous over the net. That's when the programme starts on the hour. When it doesn't, which seems normal, it is simply anachronistic heritage invocation. As much use as data transmission by smoke-signal.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

which one IF ANY does the relevant Road/Policing Authority use

Damned if I know... probably the copper's watch.

And you try to claim innocence on the basis of a few milliseconds, get a good lawyer first

Ok i see now, thats what its like in the in the ideal world of telecom.

Edited by NilSatisOptimum (Thu 14-Jul-11 23:26:06)

as a non standard service it could cost more as it has to be developed and requires different systems. If you don't connect the line to the exchange switch there's no diagnostic capability or easy way to test what "number" the line is connected to, for example, nor a dial tone to indicate "pair in use".

In theory your call setup costs and call charges should pay for the telephony element, the line rental for the err rental of the line ?

as a non standard service it could cost more as it has to be developed and requires different systems. If you don't connect the line to the exchange switch there's no diagnostic capability or easy way to test what "number" the line is connected to, for example, nor a dial tone to indicate "pair in use".

Not quite, you'd connect the line through TAMS like current MPF circuits are, this would allow testing from Openreach, and allow dummy dial tone, or remote tones to be easily put on the line. The issue is indicating that there is a service on the line, in which case you would just apply DC whetting as is currently done on SDSL circuits, which of course are basically doing 'naked DSL' already.

do you have problems working out what the pair is doing, when you can't ask the test service what the number is ?

Applying a remote tone identifies the circuit, and you can run the usual end to end pair quality test with a Hawk/JDSU/Exfo. No problems really, and since the have voltage on them, them don't get pinched (well not too often ! ).

I don't see much appetite for this from isps.

Line rental as pretty much a zero margin product. A no dial tone product would mean punters cannot check continuity and noise. It would also mean isps couldn't take the tried and tested route of referring you to your voice provider to sort out dsl faults.,

In reply to a post by CJT:

Odd question I appreciate

Does ADSL/Broadband have some technical reason why a telephone line is required to provide it?

IE why do you have to have a landline service and broadband if you ONLY want the broadband?

Is it down to the providers BT/TalkTalk etc, or down to Ofcom, or someone else?

Am just curious to know

Hi, you can have a dedicated broadband line if you have the cash.

What is Dedicated Line?
Any telecommunications line that is continuously available for the subscriber with little or no latency.
Dedicated lines are also referred to as �leased lines.�
Note: The other one is the Dial up line.

http://business.bt.com/broadband-and-internet/intern...

It is now up to 135.9 Ms ...


And I wonder what the signal strength might be? Maybe 1dBa or even -1000dBa or even -1000000dBa (dBa >>>> dB relative to 1 attowatt)