Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Question about installing a DSL line....

Oh I see ... how well would the AVR components run off of a wireless system I wonder? Or I suppose another option would be to move the PC in the TV room and go with an exclusive HTPC system.

And we do already have DSL in the house.

What Peter said.

Personally, I'd just run some Cat5 from your existing modem to the Living Room. But, I like copper. I don't trust all this "wireless" stuff people are always talking about.

If you go with a wireless 802.11n router, you should have no issues streaming audio and video within your home. Even one of the oldest standards (802.11b) is faster than the internet coming into your home.

Speak for yourself; I have 22.5 Mbps coming into my home.

I'm not sure if your actual question has been fully answered yet so let me try to add a bit to the already good advice.

DSL arrives to your house over your phone line. Your phone line is a pair of copper wires and inside your house, (older houses anyways) all the phone wiring is generally Cat2. Cat 2 is recognizable as it only has one or two pairs of wire in the sheathing and they are barely twisted together, if at all.

Once DSL gets to your home on your phone line, the data frequencies need to be filtered away from the voice frequencies. Think of it like crossover in an amp stripping out the bass and sending it to your subwoofer.

Normally, besides your modem, there is a also a "POTS splitter" ahead of the modem so that just the modem gets the data frequencies and alternately, you do not have to listen to the screeching of data noises on all your phone lines. Alternatively, some installs put an 'add on' filter on every phone jack where you are putting a phone. They often look like a short dongle sticking out of the jack and have a plug for your phone cord.

Point 1
If you want to place the modem there, the jack in question has to be wired to the data side of the POTS splitter if you have a central splitter. If you are using 'add on' splitters at each jack, then just remove the splitter from that particular jack.
or
if you are using it just as a run to go directly from the modem to another jack, it won't work well if at all. See point #2

Point 2
DSL signal travels quiet well in it's native format over old fashioned Cat 2 wiring. However, once it enters the modem, it gets turned into Ethernet. Ethernet, can only travel very short distances over CAT 2. Often even a room A to room B run is too long. You really need to have CAT 5 or 6 for the LAN wiring in your house. Otherwise you risk low speeds, data loss, etc.

CAT 5 is most easily recognized by the fact that it has 4 pairs of wires in it. Each pair is twisted like it's been spun tight on a drill plus the twisted pairs are also twisted around each other. It's all this twisting that negates signal loss and allows the Ethernet to flow.

So.... It is unlikely that the single pair wiring in your kitchen is suitable to get the Ethernet signal to a PC in this location, regardless of where the modem is. You could try. It certainly wouldn't hurt anything except your patients as the speed might really suck.

Final point.
Depending on how easy it is to fish some Cat 5 to this spot, wireless might be the easiest answer. A good wireless MODEM and a wireless USB or card receiver for the PC and you are all set, plus you are now ready to use any new wireless devices you might buy in the future.

Hope that helped rather than confused.

Yep, what Murph said. I was going to say the exact same thing, but with a little bit more detail. He did a pretty good job though

For a damn walkie....

Damn straight

Thanks Murph! It's probably going to take a few sessions to digest all of your very helpful information, and you did great explaining everything in lay terms ... I guess I'll just hide the telephone wires in the wall and figure out what I want to do for the component rack later.

I knew you were going to pull through for me Cam but that dang Murph beat you to it ... he probably just types a little faster.