Cable Integrity

[rickatk]

Over the past couple years I consolidated all my Shaw gear to just one location in my house. Centrally located, the XBxxx modem routers have been serving all my wireless TV players and pods very well. I currently use an XB8. I even dropped my phone modem and connect my cordless phone directly to the router. In the process there were a number of hot Shaw cable jacks around the house. To be extra diligent I asked Shaw for a tech to come out and disconnect all the redundant cables.

A couple days later a Shaw tech showed up, he knew exactly what I wanted. He disconnected all the splitters and joined just the one cable for the living room, where I had all my gear located, to the big pipe coming into the exterior box. He also checked the connections at the pole. The tech said I was wise to have this done as the redundant, live cables can cause low grade interference. My system is running along very nice and I feel confident the signal integration is as good as it gets.

Down: 1.535Mbps
Up: 135 Mbps.

Thanks Shaw, I mean Rogers😉 

[rstra]

@rickatk  Yes, those outlets are like big antennas, potentially picking up interference. 

[rickatk]

@rstra I never really thought of those live cable male ends sticking out of the wall as being little antennae’s. I would agree though. After disconnecting I have found my connections to be very stable. I was having difficulty with my iPad Pro M2 staying connected from time to time. I did two things:

1. Deleted two devices “Silex Tec unknown” on my network. I think these were old exterior wifi smart plugs.

2. Decommissioned all the cables except one.

My wifi connection has settled right down.

I have phone jacks around the house that are hot. I am going to contact Telus and ask to be disconnected at the pole. The XB series modem/routers doesn’t require a phone connection to work like the old Shaw phone modems.

[rstra]

@rickatk  The copper is pretty well insulated, but it is always best to disconnected anything not being used. 

With the BlueCurve equipment, it is really great only needing one cable connection. 

[rickatk]

The main reason I don’t go with Telus Fibre is because of the really great XB series modem/routers. The wifi expander setup is very clean. With Telus and most after market expanders you have to place a pie dish or other expander antennae near the modem then broadcast out to the house. With the XB series the expanders are out in the other rooms where they should be. I think Plume makes very good mesh/expander hardware. 

The all in one features like ethernet and phone connectivity is a real plus. I did a post a while back showing my phone setup with a headless cordless phone by Motorola. Next to the router there is a small antenna which is plugged into the modem for signal and broadcasts to four phones around the house - very clean. The phones are Alexa enabled.

The XB series modem/routers and Docsis has allowed me to have everything centralized in the house. With Telus the fibre may only get to the garage and then copper throughout the house. In some cases Telus will connect to existing coaxial cable to get around the house.  Essentially what the cable cos can do now. If WiFi is used, the Telus signal usually starts in the garage. In many cases the garage is not very central. That is the big difference with cable modems and the XB series modems. 

I understand Shaw and Rogers are rolling out a “greenfield” program putting fibre into new homes. Mostly condos and townhouses right now. I don’t know how all that will work but I do like how the cable cos are leveraging their legacy coaxial cabling with

[rstra]

@rickatk My MIL has Telus, the remote and TV guide and settings are horrible. We stayed with her while waiting for our house to be ready, it was brutal. The gateway was in the garage, and then needed an extender to hit the whole house. The Telus installer could have used a cable outlet to install centrally, but opted to make a mess of it all and screw it to the wall.

I still have the wired BlueCurve, I haven’t moved to the wireless boxes. I have a very clean install, but I might move to wireless, because I might be moving a TV, and I might put a screen outside.

I worked for Shaw for many years, so I am not going anywhere. 

[rickatk]

@rstra said: “I worked for Shaw for many years, so I am not going anywhere.” Ahhh hence the Grand Master and insightful posts and answers.

I have seen some messy Telus installations as well. I am looking forward to the new WiFi6e pods they are supposed to be pretty good.

I waited for years to get a wireless TV into the kitchen, no drilling through tiles. This stuff gets better all the time. 

[rickatk]

Yeah I did the tongue test on those little copper wires, they are hot 😱

[mdk]

@rickatk --  I am going to contact Telus and ask to be disconnected at the pole. 

Instead, look for a "patch panel", where the Telus twisted-pair comes (from the nearest telephone-pole) and the patch-panel fans-out to all the twisted-pairs to each room where you have a wall-jack.

Just disconnect the Telus "input" wires from the patch-panel, to isolate all the wall-jacks.

Much easier than getting Telus to disable at their telephone-pole.

If you ever switch to Telus, then Telus probably will run a fibre-optic cable to your house from their telephone-pole, i.e., never again will Telus activate any "legacy" twisted-pair wires.