10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

[Chuck Guzis]

On 12/31/2015 05:27 AM, Geoff Oltmans wrote:

> Not saying they don't know what they are talking about, but if it's
> brand new equipment, particularly vdsl then I find that hard to
> believe from what I've been exposed to. Vdsl does fallback to adsl
> mode for adsl modems in which case the dslam has to have an ATM
> interworking function, but the uplink to the dslam would still be
> Ethernet, fiber or copper.
>
> Did you happen to get a peek in the cabinet?

Several times.  When the weather improves and they start working again, 
I'll corral a tech and ask him to open one up for photos.  They're great 
guys to a man/womam.  It's a big cabinet--perhaps 10-12 feed long. 
There are smaller cabinets there too, but they're mostly filled with wire.

What surprises me is the age of the customer copper. Folks around here 
feed from individual pedestals on the road, using 5-pair buried cable 
that's probably 30 or more years old to the residence.  When the local 
REC (rural electrical cooperative) came through about 5 years ago to 
replace the buried individual 12KV customer feeds, it would have been a 
golden opportunity to bury new customer lines, sadly ignored.  So while 
my electrical goes along the driveway from the disconnect on the road to 
the transformer in my yard, the telco buried wire wanders across the 
property among the trees until it finally enters the house.

During the BBS era, all of those 5 pairs saw use.  Not so today.

--Chuck