A good day: Fixing Mom and Dad’s DSL
There are some days that I get completely fed up with the IT career path I’ve picked for myself. Then, there are some where I love what I do. I thoroughly enjoy when, even though there is a problem, everything gets worked through to completion properly and I can make someone happy – especially when it’s my parents.
Mom and Dad finally decided it’s time to upgrade from dial-up to DSL. Both of them had high-speed access at work (in fact, I set up the DSL at Dad’s office), but there’s been nothing faster than dial-up in that house since they moved in — and that was finally about to change.
When I lived with them, I had dial-up on a dedicated second pair coming into the MPOE/NID that was cross-connected via CAT3 that we pulled around the house and drilled into a wall/interconnected in a modular jack in my old room. At the time for where we lived, dial-up at 33.6 was definitely better than any neighbors could ever ask for. When I moved out, there was no real need for the second phone line for net access anymore, so it was dropped.
Unfortunately, dial-up access on the primary line was horribly slow and unreliable – I always chalked it up to the inside wiring, and threw some inline microfilters on all extensions, which helped a bit. It was never too much of a concern for them, since they didn’t use the connection a lot, and they didn’t want to be a bother about it – Mom always says, “don’t worry about it, it’s not important” and Dad jokes about not being able to type quickly enough for faster internet access anyway.
Today was their DSL due date. I come out to help hook it up, disable automated dialing of the old connection, and to make sure it worked well. Unfortunately, it was working much slower than expected, especially for a 1.5mbit product. Assuming it was the inside wiring once again, I went around replacing microfilters through the house and checked the inside jack’s wiring – but to no effect. What a killjoy; 1.5mbit down/1.0mbit up DSL that works at 256kbit down and 128kbit up, which is slower than the lowest speed offering from the phone company.
Not in the mood to be beaten by the house wiring again, I head out to the car to grab my test set and other tools. I take out a box knife and run it along the seam of the NID, removing a nice layer of paint that’s been curing in the sun over it for the past 6 years. Screwdriver in one hand, cordless phone in another, and lineman’s handset hanging to my side, I make entry into the NID, bound and determined to make the horrid copper bundle inside cower in fear at my geekiness.
I note the wiring job from over 10 years ago when we ran the CAT3 cable from the second line into the house, and admire how it has held up. I again start to wonder why the original wiring was done with an interesting 7-pair bundle running to two modular jacks, and who in the heck decided to ignore the standards for color coding telecom wiring by hooking up each jack to random color pairs. Time to get down to business – off comes the house wiring, when I notice one of the joys of copper – a familiar green foe. Oxidation, my old enemy – at last we meet again. I clamp the test set to the terminal posts and all is well until I brush one of the insulated wires and unleash a crackle of fury out of the handset speaker.
Off with the terminal posts and wires; out comes the metal brush. Goodbye, gunky green evilness. Hook it all back up and test with the lineman’s handset again, and the quality sounds great. Plug the home wiring interconnect back in and head inside to watch the DSL sync up at full speed. Success!
Head back outside, make pelvic thrusting motion towards the NID to show my superiority, and close it up.
I’m happy. Mom’s ecstatic. Dad still types slowly, but is happy too. I am rewarded with unending gratitude and food to take home for dinner. It has been a good day.