Girl Geekette

DSL is a service that connects us to the internet with a high-speed connection over your phone line. When you order it, in a way it can be thought of as adding a feature to your phone line - like call waiting or caller ID. But a lot more goes into adding DSL to a phone line than just "turning on" the service.

When you order DSL, a line check is run on your phone line. This line check determines multiple things. It will determine how far you are from the office ( or serving terminal ) in loop length where the DSL is coming out of. (The distance of the cable from the terminal to your address is known as the loop length.) DSL has a maximum distance of 18,000 feet in cable length that it can go through without degrading the signal too bad. The line check will also determine if you have bridge taps or load coils on your line. A Bridge tap can be thought of as a way to run one line to the central office and split it into multiple lines in the field. Not all Bridge Taps can keep you from getting DSL, but longer ones can interfere with the quality of the signal. A Load coil is essentially a way to increase the distance and quality of a voice call on a phone line - like an amplifier. Bridge Taps or Load Coils that will affect the DSL service may need to be removed in order for the line check to run clean for you to receive DSL.

Once the line check runs fine, DSL may need to be "Wired Up" at the office or serving terminal. The basic drawing at the left can give you an idea of what it is meant to "wire up" DSL. Normally for a telephone line, there are 2 pieces of equipment with one jumper wire. The LEN (Line Equipment Number) is the piece of equipment where the dial tone is generated and it is connected by a jumper wire to the Cable Pair. The cable pair is where the copper cable line starts in the office or terminal that eventually runs to an address. This copper cable will eventually meet outside the residence or business and be connected to the inside wiring at the NID (in homes, it is the grey phone box outside of the house that connects the outside phone line cable and the wiring for all of the phone jacks on the inside).

With DSL, this single jumper wire that connects the LEN and the Cable Pair in the office is removed and re-wired so it connects the LEN to another piece of equipment - the DSLAM (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer) - or simply put where the DSL signal is generated. Then a second jumper wire is run from the DSLAM to the cable pair so the DSL signal is sent to the correct address.

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