7 Dec
2017
7 Dec
'17
9:34 p.m.
Oh, yes! I remember the copper T1’s eventually traveled over a single pair using ADSL at
high voltage. In our metropolitan area, the copper plant had loading coils
everywhere—undocumented. If your copper T1 had the misfortune of having a loading coil
somewhere in its path then your circuit was doomed. Plus, these little Pairgain’s would
literally explode inside the manholes. Copper and T1s should have been outlawed.
Especially, since using fiber for everything but the last foot (TLF, lol) was far more
reliable.
I do hope that the archivists view the delivery mechanisms like the T1, POTS, and so on as
having historical significance and are inextricably linked to UNIX. Talking to anyone
that worked on the Bell System (and later telcos) always reveal great stories. Many are
worthy of preservation.
Incidentally, I had a similar issue with a staffer needing remote access. There were no
viable wired solutions. However, surprisingly, 4G MIFI with an unlimited data plan
actually was a stable solution—-and she even received a dedicated IP.
Bill Corcoran
On Dec 7, 2017, at 9:04 AM, Ron Natalie
<ron@ronnatalie.com<mailto:ron@ronnatalie.com>> wrote:
T1 wasn't cheap nor ubiquitous. I ran the networking for the degree granting
public colleges in NJ (which on the whole is a fairly metropolitan area) but there were
places we couldn't get it.
It was also expensive. Old school copper T1 required repeaters every quarter mile or so.
Debugging could be fun. At least our telco (NJ Bell) back then could move the loop
back around while I did tests to tell them where the line was failing.
And yeah, I live in one of those backwaters now. No cable, no fiber optic anything. I
use two DSL lines to get an aggregate 20M down 1.5M up. That's the best the vesiges
of the old GTE telco down here can do.
ATT has fiber in communities down the road but we're too sparse to attract their
interest. Comcast won't even pull in a local drop from the main road.