How I wired my basement

Internet Broken

This is a description of major problems I have had with my internet connection. More details of more problems can be found on the Lossage List >here<.

April 2023

I have had the same IPv4 address for almost exactly 20 years and a lot of things depend on that, from my own configuration to the spam and abuse counts of computers around the world.

It was first set up by speakeasy.net; the service was excellent. Speakeasy sold its business to BestBuy, which sold it to MegaPath, which sold it to GTT (I think I forgot one or two). Each time I lost some confidence in the system. I have been afraid that they would change something they did not understand and it would all quit working.

What has happened is in some ways better and in some ways worse. GTT has notified me that they will be discontinuing my service in four months (September). This is better, because I have some advanced notice. It is worse because there is no chance that I can send them a bug report which will reach somebody who understands and fixes it. They are doing it on purpose.

December 2022

From 2022-12-21(Wed) until 2022-12-30(Fri) my internet connection was broken. Those ten days are far from record length (see below) but notable because it seems to have nothing to do with telephone wires, or power cables, but due to a mis-match between my modem and the ISP's database.

After a bit of weirdness when they seemed to think I was lying about which modem I had, they seem to have found the problem and fixed it. A copy of Ticket email is Here. I have more confidence in the system than I have had for some time. —(but see above for how that worked out.)

As before, this web site, my personal email, and all mailing lists hosted by this computer, did not work. If you are reading this, then it's better now.

July 2021

From 2021-July-4 until 2021-July-17 my internet connection was broken. This easily beats the previous record of 60 hours from 2020-10-07 to 2020-10-11, but that previous time was more annoying because the electrical power was also off.

During the time the connection was broken, this web site, my personal email, and all mailing lists hosted by this computer, did not work. If you are reading this, then it's better now.

While trying to diagnose the problem, I discovered that although I have a fairly complete log of every time I re-booted the modem, I had no record of when I made major changes to the wiring in my basement. I still don't know when I did it, but I have documented what I did.

Verizon outage

2021-07-02(Fri) 12:48:30EDT
We are about to leave for a few days vacation. I decided to send one quick message first. Internet connection was lost. I went downstairs and power cycled modem, tried to ping three times. Don't know exactly how long it takes to reboot. Finally it worked. Went back upstairs; it didn't work. Went back down to try again. It was working before I did anything. Back upstairs I type this. It has quit again. It went out again while typing this. Downstaits Reboot. It's working now. We are leaving.
2021-07-04(Sun) 20:00:00EDT
DSL is out. Last connection to mail server was Sunday Fourth of July 14:30 EDT. Tried to call ISP; no dial-tone. That's a problem. Called Verizon on borrowed cell phone. The robo-help says they will look into it by next Friday!
2021-07-05(Mon)
Traced wiring in the basement. See below.
2021-07-06(Tue) 14:00EDT
I called the ISP on the borrowed cell phone.
They say Verizon has a multiple customer outage in Worcester. Don't worry about it myself; they are on it.
2021-07-06(Tue) 16:00EDT
Saw a Verizon truck in the street around the corner. It was pumping air into a man-hole. The man in the truck says probably someone hit the cable with a backhoe and covered it over without telling anyone. It won't be fixed today, but likely tomorrow(Wed). He showed me a list of eight or ten phone numbers written on a piece of brown paper. Our number was third on the list.
Got a message from Verizon saying the problem is resolved. That was frightening. Called them, got past the robot, a person says our single issue was resolved by merging it with a multi-customer issue. I think that's good.
2021-07-07(Wed)
At about 3pm I went for a walk. I saw three Verizon trucks parked on Copley Rd. engines at idle, one driver in each, nothing visible happening. An hour later on way back there were four trucks, nothing happening. One of the truck drivers said they would pull cable today someone else would come tomorrow to connect it up.
2021-07-08(Thu)
Nothing happened that I could see.
2021-07-09(Fri)
Storm Elsa.
2021-07-12(Mon)
Nothing visible happened over the weekend. There was a Verizon truck parked at Commodore and Copley around 8am, but it left while we were gone. No visible digging. Verizon Ticket status now says expect repair next Friday (2021-07-16).
2021-07-13(Tue)
The Verizon truck is back. I talked to the driver, who is the same one I talked to last Tuesday. He says that the weather is a problem. They need to dig up the street. The cable between the manhole at the top of the hill and Pleasant street needs replacing. Maybe they will not do that, but just splice around the problem section. The old cable has paper insulation. It got wet and turned to mush. Probably somebody hit the cable conduit with a backhoe and then didn't report it, but just buried the problem. It worked for a while, but eventually water leaked in. They need to dig up the conduit and fix it before they can work on the cable itself. It might be working again in a day or two.
2021-07-14(Wed)
I took a walk around the block for exercise. The Verizon truck drove up Lovell. The driver recognized me and stopped to talk. He said they need to call Dig Safe to make the digging legal. I said that should take five minutes, unless the phone was not working. He did not laugh at that joke.
2021-07-15(Thu)
I thought I saw a truck in front of our house, but when I went out to look, it turned out to be a U-haul. Then I saw the orange cones blocking the intersection on the next block. They did not block a street with orange cones just to park a U-haul.
Sure enoiugh, there was a big scene around the corner. I talked to the policeman who was hanging around and asked about Dig Safe. It's not just something you have to call to tell them your plan; they come to the job site and paint symbols on the street.
Later that day I talked to the Verizon men, who had the ends of a pair of cables. They were using an instrument that I did not recognize and calling numbers into a hand held telephone. They were talking to someone in the manhole down the block. It was like sorting spaghetti. They said it would be much faster if the old cables had color-coded insulation like the new cables do.
They showed me a piece of the old cable with paper insulation. It looked tangled and dirty like something you might dump out of a shop-vac.
2021-07-16(Fri)
Around 10am a Verizon truck parked in front of my house. I asked the driver why they had spliced the old cable instead of just pulling new better cable. He said that was not his decision.
The driver got out and carried a ladder into the back yard to test the connection on the outside. He said the dial-tone was there, but there was no DSL signal. I asked whether the modem needed to be on in order to hear the signal. He said yes.
The truck driver took his ladder and went away while I went into the basement. I traced the rat's nest of wires and found that last week I had unplugged the (old, working) modem to try a new modem, and had forgotten to put it back. I plugged the modem back in and went to test my connection.
I found that DSL seemed to work. I could ping various places, the name server seemed to be working, and I could even send and receive email, but the web browser did not work. I could see my own web pages, but clicking on anything else took a long time and then displayed the "Unable to connect" message. My housemates's Windows machines had no internet connection. Also my web pages were not visible from outside.
I sent an email to the ISP with that complaint.
2021-07-17(Sat)
In a random spastic action I ran my firewall set-up script. I think I might have been wondering if it would show an error message. After I did that, the web browser started working and my housemate's Windows machines could get an internet connection. I have no idea why.
I sent another email to the ISP telling them to ignore the previous complaint.
2021-07-18(Sun)
Try several different things; they all work. I think we're back on-line.

Wires in my basement

2023-09-11(Mon) 14:43:16EDT
Plugged in the Spectrum self-install cable modem. The included 7ft cat-5e ethernet cable was not long enough to reach from where I had to put the modem (because the included coax was not long enough to put it where I would rather have it).
There was a cable that came out of the wall above the door and went into a 8-way coax splitter. Only one of the eight outputs had an cable plugged into it. That one cable went upstairs to a shelf where it looked like there might have been a television. I labled both ends of it "TV-1". I did not trust the splitter, and so I used the included 2-way splitter. I don't really need a splitter at all, just a gender changer to connect the cable that comes out the wall to the cable that goes to the modem, but I used what I was given.
2021-07-04(Sun) 20:00:00EDT
We are back. Tried to get it working; could not do it. Tried to call ISP; no dial-tone. That's a problem. Called Verizon on a borrowed cell phone.
The robo-help says they will look into it by next Friday! It also suggests unplugging devices in my home to see if one of them is causing the problem. It then asks if I want directions on how to check the connection on the outside of the house. It says I will need a screw driver, but doesn't mention that I would also need an eight foot ladder. No thanks.
2021-07-05(Mon) 16:00EDT
While waiting for that I trace the wires in the basement. There are four boxes stuck to a beam across the ceiling. From left to right they are NID; phone hub; Wilcom; circuit protector.
- NID; The Network Interface Device; Wire comes in from left from circuit protector; wire comes out front goes to Line on Wilcom.
- phone hub. wire on top left comes from RJ-11 phone jack on right of Wilcom. Two wires on bottom left and two on bottom right go all over the place.
- Wilcom DSL splitter; see below
- Circuit (Lighting) protector; front cover snaps open on hinge
The Wilcom DSL splitter has the connections, from top to bottom, on both left and right, Line, Modem, Phone. They are screw terminals on left and RJ-(11/45) on right.
Wilcom Quick Step Installation instructions
Mounting: Wilcom ADSL master POTS splitters are compact devices with include RJ connectors and screw type terminals for ease of installation. The splitters can be wall mounted with screws.
Connectors:
The terminals and the RJ connectors are connected in parallel and allow either to be used for installation.
1. Locate TIP (green) and RING (red) leads from the Network Iterface Device (NID) and disconnect from premises wiring.
2. Connect network side TIP and RING leads to the RJ-11 connector or terminals on the POTS splitter marked LINE.
3. Connect premises wiring to the RJ-11 connector or terminals on the POTS splitter marked PHONE.
4. Connect the xDSL equipment to either the RJ connector marked ATU-R MODEM or to the screw terminals / push pin terminals marked ATU-R MODEM (data grade cable is recommended)

Function Type Tip Ring

======== ===== ==== =====

line RJ-11 Pin 3 Pin 4

modem RJ-45 Pin 4 Pin 5

phone RJ-11 Pin 3 Pin 4
2021-07-05(Mon) 17:00EDT
Plugged a working telephone (from downstairs) directly into output of NID. No dial-tone was heard.

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Function	Type	Tip	Ring
========	=====	====	=====
line	RJ-11	Pin 3	Pin 4
modem	RJ-45	Pin 4	Pin 5
phone	RJ-11	Pin 3	Pin 4