Telephone Crosstalk

[EVGTech]

i just got my second phone line installed but i dint get any line insurance. all they did was conenct the extra phone line at the box. the apartment already has 4 wire cable hooked up. i plugged ina splitter and i have two lines. great but i am getting crosstalk between the lines.

sucks. This is screwing up my possibly grand modem connection.

i am using USWEST and i fear they will charge out the yang do double check their installation.

 

[Luc]

If you are lucky, your 2 pairs of wires are twisted together (one pair at a time, for a total of two twisted pairs). If you connect the lines using one wire from each pair of twisted wires, you will get a lot of crosstalk. You can fix this by connecting each line to its own twisted pair of wires. Most wires with four conductors are color coded, and many jacks have colors next to the connectors - as long as you match the colors, you are OK.

If you are less lucky, you may have a flat cable, with four conductors running in parallel, in which case you want to have a tip1-ring1-ring2-tip2 or tip1-ring1-tip2-ring2 setup instead of ring1-ring2-tip1-tip2. You may also have a round cable with all four wires running in parallel with no twists (not very common, but still available). If this is the case, you may need to rewire the place.

One more thing: some 2 line equipment introduces Xtalk - disconnect all two line phones, answering machines, etc. and make sure that you still get Xtalk before you start a major remodelling project

 

[Yang]

Hey EVGTech what are you saying about me?! hehe


Yang--

 

[Cellular Mitosis]

i ran about 50 to 75 feet of phone line extensions in the attick back home. We had two phone lines, and it caused horrible cross talk.

the solution:

instead of running both phone lines in one 4 conductor wire, I ran two sepparate lines, spaced about a foot apart. a pain in the ass to have to run the phone line effectively twice and use twice as much cable, but now there is no more crosstalk.

 

[Rab]

Call them back, and let them know about the problem with the install. The installer should have checked it before leaving.

You should be able to get your line fixed without paying for the repair.

 

[EVGTech]

called them and said it's not their fault and i need to talkto the apartment managers.
damn.

the wire is the round 4 wire.
damn.

Is there anything i can do? maybe there is a place the wire changes into a better medium that i can splice from?

Is there any kind of line filter device out there like the magnet on a monitor cable?

 

[Luc]

Some of the round 4 wire cable is twisted inside - check it out, you need a couple of twists per inch to avoid Xtalk. If its not twisted, you can use existing cable to pull a new one, or stay with a single line.....

 

[woodboat]

LUC explained everything perfectly. I will add that there is supposed to be a standard to the twist on round, 2 pair cables. Red, Green,Black and Yellow. Red is ring 1. Green is tip 1. Black is ring two and yellow is tip 2.

 

[NakedSavage]

It's not likely, but the problem could be in the cable before it reaches the building that you're in. If this is the case then you're not responsible for the cost of any repairs.

There's one thing you should know, though. If US West is anything like the "Baby Bell" that I work for they will repair it to the point where you get tolerable "voice grade" service. They will not guarantee any data over a normal POTS (plain old telephone service) line. If you're paying for a voice grade line and end up having modem speed problems even after they fix the crosstalk problem they will most likely tell you that you're going to have to pay for a data-grade line, like ISDN or DSL.

 

[woodboat]

Forgot to ask, Where is the "box" and is there crosstalk present there? In apartment buildings around the Baltimore MD area the phone company takes responsibility for the signal to the kitchen jack which is the first in the loop.