Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[VXL V6]

I remember about 15 years ago.....before the days of adsl....i wanted two 56k dialup connections to my house....so paid BT somewhere about £115 to install a new line. BT blokey turned up and installed a 'gizmo' so the two lines would share the same copper wire. I went nuts at BT when i discovered if you tried to bring up 2 data connections at the same time, you got a very poor connection speed. Apparently it was ok for a voice call and data call at the same time but not two data calls.....BT were back a few days laters running another bit of copper to the telegraph pole 

Wasn't a box marked up 'Subscribers Unit WB900, Adapter No.1A' by any chance?

[TheBoy]

I remember about 15 years ago.....before the days of adsl....i wanted two 56k dialup connections to my house....so paid BT somewhere about £115 to install a new line. BT blokey turned up and installed a 'gizmo' so the two lines would share the same copper wire. I went nuts at BT when i discovered if you tried to bring up 2 data connections at the same time, you got a very poor connection speed. Apparently it was ok for a voice call and data call at the same time but not two data calls.....BT were back a few days laters running another bit of copper to the telegraph pole 

Wasn't a box marked up 'Subscribers Unit WB900, Adapter No.1A' by any chance?

Ah, the good old WB900.  Lightning strike in an area normally knocked them all out. I used to carry loads on the van, thus always got the jobs to change them.  Quite often used to change 10+ a day after a strike.

Got a job one day, a farm, all 3 of their lines were NDT/TOK (No Dial Tone, Line Test Passed), walked into their cupboard where the woman pointed me towards, all 3 lines were the carrier halves, poor cow

DACS was a vast improvement, but high speed modems were getting popular by this time, so wasn't the answer.

Obviously, with ADSL (and the demise of fax), most have dropped down to 1 line, meaning plenty of lines in the ground now

[TheBoy]

Actually, I have another story involving a DACS, a Mecury Smartbox, a mega, and the poor receptionist, but thats probably not for public consumption.  My best mate, who was there at the time, and I frequently have a chuckle about it

[aaronjb]

Actually, I have another story involving a DACS, a Mecury Smartbox, a mega, and the poor receptionist, but thats probably not for public consumption.  My best mate, who was there at the time, and I frequently have a chuckle about it

Oh go on...

[2woody]

wow - you're getting over 5Mb/s even now.

I've never measured mine at more than 1

[aaronjb]

wow - you're getting over 5Mb/s even now.

I've never measured mine at more than 1

There has to be a downside to living in a country pile, far from civilisation

[Kevin Wood]

Ours went to 2+ yesterday. Syncing at 18mbps down and 880kbps up. 

Has made quite a noticeable difference.

[Lazydocker]

wow - you're getting over 5Mb/s even now.

I've never measured mine at more than 1

I can rarely get mine over 1.2

But again, I live a fair way from the exchange

[Kevin Wood]

> adsl status
  --------------------------- ATU-R Info (annex A) ----------------------------
   Running Mode            :   ADSL2+       State                : SHOWTIME
   DS Actual Rate          : 15231400 bps   US Actual Rate       :   888800 bps
...

@rse! it's dropped overnight.

[Martian]

DACS was a vast improvement, but high speed modems were getting popular by this time, so wasn't the answer.

Obviously, with ADSL (and the demise of fax), most have dropped down to 1 line, meaning plenty of lines in the ground now

I still remember the "Manta Fish" Alcatel USB modem that was provided when ADSL was first made available to the masses, that truly was the most unstable POS I ever had the misfortune to encounter. It constantly tried to pull the full 500mA that most USB ports struggled to provide back then, and if you were unfortunate enough to have a motherboard that had the VIA 686B Southbridge chip you were screwed before you had even started.

I managed a whole 2 days of self control before it was launched over the balcony (literally) and replaced it with a 5861 to restore sanity.

[Kevin Wood]

I still remember the "Manta Fish" Alcatel USB modem that was provided when ADSL was first made available to the masses, that truly was the most unstable POS I ever had the misfortune to encounter. It constantly tried to pull the full 500mA that most USB ports struggled to provide back then, and if you were unfortunate enough to have a motherboard that had the VIA 686B Southbridge chip you were screwed before you had even started.

I managed a whole 2 days of self control before it was launched over the balcony (literally) and replaced it with a 5861 to restore sanity.

I found one of those while clearing out my electronics room last week.

I think (hope) it went in the bin.

[CaptainZok]

Hmm I bet I could unearth one somewhere in the house if I looked hard enough.

[TheBoy]

Ours went to 2+ yesterday. Syncing at 18mbps down and 880kbps up. 

Has made quite a noticeable difference.

Although moved to a WBC circuit a few months back, I've asked them to keep me on an ADSL1 profile, as my router is ADSL1 only.

Sync'd at 8Mb/448kb.


I never did get a frog, my USB one was a Speedtouch one.