[lug] Line quality?

[Matt Clauson]

On Sun, Feb 04, 2001 at 10:09:45AM -0700, Timothy C. Klein wrote:
> Tony,
> 
> I think the telco is only, stritcly speaking, obligated to give you 1 POTS
> capable line.  That being said, it usually seems to me hit and miss about
> these.  If you get a friendly repair screener at Qwest (that's who it is, 
> right?) they will send out a net tech to try and figure it out.  If the
> the screener is grumpy or a up-tight, they will tell you your modem
> connection speed is none of their problem if the voice is working.
> 
> If you want to be really certain that someone comes out, you could say you hear
> noise on the line, and that it causes problems.  Even if you don't, hear, it is
> likely something is wrong with your line (grounded, unbalanced, crossed, or
> something like that).  2400 is REALLY slow.  Now you do mean 2400 bps?  If you
> mean 24000 bps, then I wouldn't be too optimistic about getting it fixed.  Those
> kinds of speeds often seem to be the result of Pair Gain (subcriber loop
> carrier, your POTS leaves the CO as digital, gets converted to analog at your
> cross box.  Said D to A conversion is less then perfect for digital data on your
> modem).  Or a UDC, which is similar, but only for your house.  In these cases a
> nice net tech may try to give you a copper pair, but in Pair Gain cross boxes
> they are often not available, or if they are they may be worse.

I need to backtrack this, because I dunno if it's legit...  However, I
could swear that a few years back, I read something that said that
telcos are required by FCC regs to provide a line that is at least DS0
(56k) capable...  And that's usually useful in helping turn up t1's
and stuff on dirty lines, since some specs are similar.

I'll see if I can find it again.

--mec