Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 21:29:14 -0500 From: John Woodruff <jjw@woodruffs.net> To: Dave VanAuken <dave@hawk-systems.com>, Jan Knepper <jan@digitaldaemon.com> Cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: T1/DS1 Message-ID: <3A5FBD7A.3E8FA09F@woodruffs.net> References: <DBEIKNMKGOBGNDHAAKGNIEGCCNAA.dave@hawk-systems.com>
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Jan Knepper wrote: > I ordered a T1 quite a while ago and now Verizon seems to come around > the corner and finally install the connection, however... > > I need a 4 ft square panel on the wall so they can mount a couple of things: > - Fiber Cable Termination > - Soneplex Equip > - Smart Jack Shelf > - Rectifier Cabinet > - Battery Cabinet Brings back memories of my last ISP. In 1996, I think. After running the building out of copper cables - twice - Bell Awful finally brought in a SONET ring, filled one wall of our suite with Lightspan SLC's, and terminated 2000 POTS pairs for modems. PM3's were just coming out, so we never ordered another POTS line (!). They did have to add more T1 shelves a couple of times, though; and finally a T3. At least they're running a fiber for your first T1. In the old daze, you got two pair all the way to the CO, with repeaters every 2000ft. BTW, that T1 "smart jack" is a critical, if lo-tech, piece if hardware. Look carefully inside the female jack, and you'll notice contact fingers that can tell when you're plugged in. If not, they connect the transmit pair to the recieve pair, thus forming a hardware "loop back". This lets Bell test their entire circuit from the CO to the jack, without involving anything you provided (even the cable), before you plug in. If you call and report a trouble, they'll have you unplug your wire and see if they can hear themselves. If not, they fix it. Next T1 turnup trick: Often, the Bell gear goes in a building wiring closet; and they use the building 50-pair cables to get to your suite (not Jan's case, but a common one nonetheless). You plug in your new router/DSU, and it can't hear a T1 carrier. The smart jack test passes, so Bell sez "it works fer us, buddy; your stuff is baroque". Make a cable that reverses TX and RX pairs, and see if that works. You see, a common wiring error is to swap the TX/RX pairs, and the smart jack test can't detect it. If they simply point to one of eight holes on the side of a Westel shelf, you won't have to worry about this. OK, the DSU has carrier, but your data is *terrible* - so bad that PPP can't negotiate. Bell sends a tech with a T-Berd, who pronounces the line OK, and slams you with an NTF (No Trouble Found) bill to boot. Did you order the line yourself (instead of getting it from your friendly upstream ISP) and forget to specify "B8ZS, ESF"? There's lots of tricks like this. Welcome to the T1 level. You're now only somewhat faster than the DSL newbie with a Windoze98 box, at 10x the price. Tom Samplonius wrote: > Make sure you mount it to the wall studs too, and not just to the > drywall. Be *sure* to heed this man's advice. Dave VanAuken wrote: > This was commonly done with T3(DS3) installations, but with the DSL > craze, getting copper lines has become difficult, thus the move to > provision fibre and cut bell out of the loop. If you can get the > fibre in cheaply enough, having a customer pay for a copper DS1 with > local loop and pocketing all the cash to pay for your fibre > infrastructure instead of paying a bell is a good business model. Er, Verizon *is* Bell. No last-mile-shaving here. A single T1 won't pay for a fiber installation - that's called "investment", as in "we sure hope someone orders more circuits on this fiber"... -- John Woodruff, Sr. Consultant PGP KeyFP: 66 18 1A 4E 55 08 40 E2 C7 B1 F2 D1 81 12 6D BF To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-isp" in the body of the message
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