Are you getting the best possible speed from your DSL provider? Physical wiring is the primary bottleneck to line speed (physical distance is the secondary bottleneck). Older homes tend to be cabled with "quad wire" which is untwisted, two pair wire. Quad wire is not very good for DSL. It picks up noise due to being untwisted and will certainly affect the noise margin on your modem. Worse than lowering the line speed, a poor noise margin/signal-to-noise ratio can cause your modem to drop out or reboot itself periodically in order to stay connected. DSL requires CAT-3 wire or better for best perfomance. This should also be installed in a "star topology" (each cable leads to a central point) so that a modem can be isolated from any given jack, eliminating the need for filters (see below).


    The other consideration for the best possible DSL experience is - filters. Plugging them into every phone except the modem is not the best practice, but it is widely practiced since it's the only way a phone company can send a kit for self installation of the subscriber. The best practice is to install a DSL splitter at the NID, running a direct pair to the modem (CAT-3 or better grade wire), and connect the existing voice pair to the voice side of the splitter. No filters needed. Contact us today to install new or retrofit an old installation for DSL.