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DSL wiring

My DSL comes into my house separately from my voice line. There is only one DSL phone jack in the house. It is in the same junction box as a voice jack (i.e. two cables--one voice and one DSL--come into the same junction box and there are two jacks on the plate). Both cables (DSL and voice) have 4 wires.I don't remember all the colors so I'll use numbers. Let's call the DSL wires 1-4 and the voice wires 5-8.

The guy who wired the connection put just 2 wires from each cable into their respective jacks. So, wires 1&2 go to the DSL jack; wires 5&6 go to the voice jack.

Wires 3&7 are joined together. Wires 4&8 are as well.

It sees weird that all 4 wires are not going to the jacks. Was this a mistake or is it supposed to be like this.

My Verizon modem DSL line has 4 pins. I am obviously using only 2 of them (the jack only uses the 2 middle pins). It seems to work but if I can make it faster and more stable by using all 4 wires, I'd like to.

What say you?

Comments

c0lnag0

It was definitely lazy work on the tech's part, but I don't think he did anything BAD with this. I think he could have (and should have) finished wiring things up, even if the pins in the jack weren't being used. But as you saw, it isn't affecting your phone or DSL connection. Theoretically, a wire could act as an antenna and bring some noise into the active lines, but practically, I don't think you'll see any kind of performance difference if you tie it all together (but it would still bother me until I "fixed" it, and it would only take you five minutes).

Just my two cents,

Joseph

meir1

I am having some speed issues as well as a lot of dropped connections (once every 1-3 weeks for at least a few min). Is it possible that this is part of the problem?

I'm a novice at phone stuff. How would I fix it if I wanted to? The DSL jack actually supports 6 pins, but there are only 4 wires. I presume that the middle 4 pins (#2-5) are the ones we care about. Pins 3 & 4 already have wires on them. How do I know which wire goes on pin 2 and which on pin 5?

And what do I do with the other wires from the voice cable? Remember that the 2 "extra" DSL wires are connected to the 2 "extra" voice wires. If I take those caps off, I'll have 2 naked voice wires in the junction box. I presume they will have to go somewhere.

c0lnag0

Well, I'm far from a wiring expert myself, and I hope anyone out there feels free to correct my misconceptions, but here's what I know. Each pair of wires has a TIP wire, and a RING wire. If you have a traditional four-wire bundle, your typical phone would use the red/green for your tip/ring on line #1, and black/yellow for your tip/ring on line #2. So, for your DSL jack, you'd have blank-black-red-green-yellow-blank; for your phone jack, it's just black-red-green-yellow

Depending on what wires you have running through the house, you might have differet wire colors. If it's a bundle of twisted pairs (like CAT5), then it will be multiple pairs, each with a white wire and a colored wire. People usually talk about a pair as a white-blue and blue-white, because the white wire will have a thin like of its matching color, and the matching color will have a thin line of white. Again referring to CAT5, you'll have the blue pair, then orange, green, and brown. There are different standards for which is line 1, line 2, etc, but if you stay consistent with the colors on each end, you'll be fine. Also, the 6-pin jack for your DSL probably has a color code on the back of it, where the wires attach to the pins. I know mine did when I wired it up (Leviton, from Home Depot).

On the NID end, you'd just pair up the DSL tip/ring wires together on the same lug, and the phone tip/ring wires together on their lugs.

Hope this helps. I'll check back in tomorrow evening, so if you have any questions, post 'em, or PM me. This is a very cursory explanation, but it should move you in the right direction. Again, if anyone feels a need to correct me, please do.

Here are some links that cover the basics:

http://nemesis.lonestar.org/reference/telecom/cables/25pair.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_jack

http://telecom.hellodirect.com/docs/Tutorials/TelWiringBasics.1.040401.asp

Joseph

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