Installing DSL

by Ron Nutter

March 13, 2001 —

Our company is considering installing DSL. We have an existing network that uses coaxial cable. What will we have to do on our side to get prepared for DSL? I've been told that we may need to get a hub. I've also been advised to switch to 10BaseT RJ45 twisted pair wiring. Can DSL run on coaxial cable?

-- Via the Internet

DSL can run on coaxial cable. Once the DSL signal hits the DSL modem/router supplied by the LEC or DSL provider, they won't know the difference. At the very least, you can get by with a Media Converter. This will allow you to change the 10Base-T connection that will be in the DSL modem/router and convert it to a 10Base-2 connector. DSL should run on a coaxial network. However, I would consider this as a short-term measure.

I agree with the advice you were given about changing over to 10 Base-T or even 100 Base-T wiring. I put in a lot of coaxial networks when I first started. They worked fine in the beginning but it wasn't unusual to see problems in the life of the network after a couple of years. This was due to oxidation of the network connections or broken network connections caused by to cable stretching. Although 10Base-T/100Base-T networks can suffer from some of the same problems as their coaxial counterparts, the whole network usually does not go down when you have a cable problem, unless that cable happens to be the one connecting to the server.

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