DSL cable / phone sockets

seanee

I recently received the self install pack from IOL. My phone line is DSL enabled but the cable I have won't reach the DSL modem. Do I need to get a special DSL cable or can I use an ordinary phone line to make an extension? Will the bandwith decrease if I use an extension of a few metres?

ALSO: I have 2 phone lines, one for phone, the other for dial-up internet. Now that I'm changing to DSL I want to get rid of my second phone line because it's no longer needed. I asked eircom if they could switch the socket for the second phone line so that it is just another socket for the first phone line. They said this would cost €200 and it would take 3 weeks...

Anyone have any suggestions what to do? Should I just go with the cable extension?

longword

A decent length of CAT3 cable would be ideal, but a regular phone extension cord may work in a pinch. I know for a while I was using two flat cables with a back-to-back connector in the middle to hook up my DSL modem. Seemed to work just fine, but YMMV.

sceptre

Moving to Net/Comms as you'll probably get a better answer from those types who connect bits of cable tgether with duct tape over there

more Nets/Comms than Broadband I think

tomk

Originally posted by seanee
I have 2 phone lines, one for phone, the other for dial-up internet. Now that I'm changing to DSL I want to get rid of my second phone line because it's no longer needed. I asked eircom if they could switch the socket for the second phone line so that it is just another socket for the first phone line.

I did the very same thing myself - didn't even occur to me to ask €ircon. The cabling for the second phone socket probably goes to the first phone socket, which is where the line comes in to your house. If you open that socket up and examine the wiring, you will see that the second socket connects to a different incoming pair, which is your second phone line. All I did was rewire the second socket in parallel with the first socket i.e. attach it to the same incoming pair. Before disconnecting anything, make a note of what's connected to what i.e. green to black, red to yellow, or whatever - those are just examples by the way, not actual combinations that I encountered. In my case, the wiring for the second socket had a completely different colour scheme to the incoming wiring.

If there's anything else I can tell you, let me know.

seanee

That worked a treat! Took me a while to figure out what to do, but I jst did one over on Eircom at last! Nice one!