Rain....

[rafiki]

Anyone know how we are still able to get an ADSL connection whist the phone always stops working when it rains (like now!)? I thought it all went down the same cable?

[pilgrim]

Don't know Brian, but we had to get telefonica out to fix our phone line when that happened to us.......and we live in the same village!!

[rafiki]

Hi Mary. The Telefonica technico gave us his mobile number yonks ago and tld us to call when it happens. Every time we call he says 'I'll come tomorrow'!

[pete_l]

Anyone know how we are still able to get an ADSL connection whist the phone always stops working?

Yes, it does go down the same cable. However, I am told that the cable
has 4 wires in it. The phone circuit uses 2 (?) of these and the ADSL
uses at least one of the others. (sorry to be vague)

This is how it was explained to me a few years ago when my BT phone line
died, but my ADSL kept working. The engineer got the phone company
to redirect all incoming calls to my mobile - so I didn't miss anything.
BT also paid me over £300 in compensation as it took them over a
month to fix the fault.

'corse even though this was in england, it wasn't raining all the time.
So it sounds like your problem may be different but the point about the
different wires within the cable would still be true. As is the ability of
ADSL to work when one of the phone wires gets K.O.'d

Pete

[El Cid]

Yes, it does go down the same cable. However, I am told that the cablehas 4 wires in it. The phone circuit uses 2 (?) of these and the ADSL
uses at least one of the others. (sorry to be vague)

There are only 2 wires (unlike the UK where there are 4).

The ADSL signal goes down the same wires as voice.

Sid

[Beachcomber]

But at different frequencies so maybe that is the reason.

[McT]

Although in the UK three wires (not four) are used between phones within your house (a throwback to the days of rotary dials - loop disconnect signaling would cause the bells of extension phones to tinkle when you dialed - the third wire stops it), as in Spain, only two are used between the house and the exchange. At the exchange the ADSL signal goes one way, into a 'DSLAM', and the wires continue into the switching equipment. So it's quite possibly that a fault within the exchange could stop the phone working but leave ADSL intact.

However, I was extremely puzzled the other day after wiring a new phone socket; the phone didn't work but ADSL did. I had mistaken a brown wire for a black one and so only one wire was connected. I guess that because, as Beachcomber said, the ADSL frequency is very high and has virtually no current, it will work over one wire.

McT

[spanish_lad]

Yes, it does go down the same cable. However, I am told that the cablehas 4 wires in it. The phone circuit uses 2 (?) of these and the ADSL
uses at least one of the others. (sorry to be vague)

There are only 2 wires (unlike the UK where there are 4).

The ADSL signal goes down the same wires as voice.

Sid

then why do they sell 4 core telefone wire here in spain, and when you get the fereteria to make up an extension, they always use 4 core wire?

[McT]

I have seen 2-core wire sold here for telephone extensions. I suspect the use of 4-core is just convention. Only 2 wires are needed for a standard phone but anything more complex requires more - PBX lines for instance, where there is a 'recall' button.

In the UK, 4-core is always used even though only 3 wires are required. Perhaps because no one makes 3-core telephone cable? When I was a telephone engineer in the 1970s, 'party' lines (or 'Shared Service' lines as they were called officially) were still common and needed the 4th wire.

McT.

[spanish_lad]

i've just installed a new telephone socket with an adsl connection. both the telephone and adsl work as they should, and its only 2 connected wires. the cable that i installed contained 4 wires, but as i say, only the red and the green are connected. (to the brown and the white in the socket...confusing, it would help if the colours matched at both ends.. but nevermind

it all works and there are only two wires coming into the house on a new installation by a telephonica engineer, i have just extended it further to the other side of the room.

strange how adsl can work on 2 cables.

[rafiki]

We've endured the problem of no phone connection when it rains for several months now. When the phone reconnected this morning after a night of rain I finally grasped the nettle and got through to an English speaking operator via 1004. She took details at about 10:30 am. Whilst shopping in the village I got a call on my mobile from a Telefonica engineer at 1:15 pm telling me he was outside our house. By 2 pm he had found and (hopefully) fixed the fault (a poorly insulated wire). Time and the next rainy day will tell but he seemed confident that he had done the necessary. Pretty good response anyway.