How do I check the phone line from house to modem dsl and fix it?

Hi Cherie,

It's been a lot of years since I was one of the first on the block to get DSL, but I recall that when it came in they effectively removed filters from the phone line going to the central office to allow the higher density data signals through. So when I wanted to use the line for the original telephone you had to have a small filter hooked up, while using the DSL modem wanted to be done without a filter.

I don't know how your modem and phone line are set up, but if you're using the old school telephone lines wired into your house, it's quite likely they've got bad connections, shorts or interference somewhere on them. If that's the case, if I was doing it all over again I would take an entirely separate set of new telephone wire and run it out to the external box then directly to wherever you've got the DSL modem set up. It may take some drilling and wiring; since I don't know your situation I can't tell you how to go about it, but that way you've guaranteed you don't have any interference between the exterior box and the modem.

Otherwise, if you're stuck using the existing house wiring, you'll need to go to each telephone jack in the house, open up the wall plate and check and reconnect all the wires in each one. Since they're all wired in parallel a bad connection anywhere along the line will affect all of the jacks on the line. If you know how the wiring is run, start at the exterior box and hook your DSL modem up there directly. That'll give you a baseline for the speed you can expect; in this case you're saying 8 megabits, right? Go to the first jack in the line and disconnect the wires from that jack to the rest of the house and retest with the modem. If you get a good signal there, the problem is farther down the line so reconnect the rest of the house and move on to the next jack. Repeat until you find where the problem lies. If it's a problem with a specific jack they're easy enough to replace, but if you find the wiring between a couple of jacks you may have to rewire them, which may or may not be difficult.

Hopefully this has given you at least a place to start and maybe a bit more understanding of how it all works so you can find and fix the problem. I feel for you; my son's first house is far out in a rural area without broadband or satellite access, so he's limited to DSL as his only choice for internet access as well. I just bought him a DSL modem so he doesn't have to pay the monthly fee to rent the one he has now; for the equivalent of two months' rent now he owns one and won't have to pay that rent again.

Anyway, good luck and feel free to come on back and ask questions if need be. Be sure to let us know what you find and how it all turns out.