Hawaiian Tel DSL installation

[Linkmeister]

If this is duplicated in here somewhere, sorry. I tried a search for DSL and was told it was too short a word. Then I tried Hawaiian Tel DSL and got every thread with "Hawaiian" used in it.

We've got about seven phones on one line here, and we want to get broadband for the one Mom uses for her MSNTV2 in the family room. I called Oceanic and talked to one of the order-takers and told her we wanted to hook up the cable to the Ethernet port on the MSNTV2 receiver; she, of course, said no problem. I suggested she check with her techs before she so blithely said that. A little while later she called back and said her techs told her flatly "Can't be done."

Well, that annoyed me, because it can be done; there are hundreds of people on the MSNTV forums at MSN who have done it with Roadrunner. But rather than fight with her I just said your techs are wrong, but cancel the installation anyway.

I then called Hawaiian Tel and was told that there would be a $95 installation fee to have a tech come out and wire the specific jack we wanted so it would take DSL. He said that HawTel could get DSL to the house, but there was no way of determining which phone jack it would work at beforehand. I thought that was nonsense, and I still think so, but I just said I'd get back to them.

Has anyone heard this business of "to the house, but not to that jack" before?

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Hawaiian Tel DSL installation

First, who is responsible for the house wiring? Are you paying HT to maintain it, or did you take over the responsibility to save a few $?

I think HT is hedging their bets. They have no idea what condition the house wiring is in and to be able to isolate that one jack from all the other phone devices in the house.

To review - DSL runs on high frequencies over the phone line. Normal phone devices frequently don't work right in the presence of the DSL signal or they mess up the DSL. One usually needs to isolate them using filters. In a ideal situation, the installer puts in a "whole house filter" for all the jacks except the jack of interest. But that's only possible if they can isolate the line that runs just to that jack at point where the phone line enters the house. If one wire goes to a bunch of jacks, then you are stuck putting filters on every device that plugs into the phone line.

Even then, if the wiring is really ancient, the DSL signal may not like it and that's enough to scotch the whole plan.

Is there a reason you are not doing the self-install route? They give you a modem and a handful of filters. Plug the modem into the jack of your choice. Filter all the other devices that use that phone line. Fairly good chance it will work.

Now, is there broadband in the house at all? Why won't it work it connect it to the existing broadband?

Another idea: Install the DSL and wireless access point where the DSL modem will work. Get a wireless bridge to connect the MSNTV2 unit to the wireless. That way you don't have to get DSL right to that jack.

[Quark]

Re: Hawaiian Tel DSL installation

I have to echo what GeckoGeek said. Hawaiian Telcom will bring DSL to your house but because of all the complications that could arise once in the house, they will charge for that service.

For what it's worth, it is a good time to get high speed Internet from HawaiianTel. There's a $9.99 for three month special going on and they're rolling out their next gen high speed service shortly. ( I work there so I figured I'd give the plug.)

[Nords]

Re: Hawaiian Tel DSL installation

We've got about seven phones on one line here, and we want to get broadband for the one Mom uses for her MSNTV2 in the family room. I called Oceanic and talked to one of the order-takers and told her we wanted to hook up the cable to the Ethernet port on the MSNTV2 receiver; she, of course, said no problem. I suggested she check with her techs before she so blithely said that. A little while later she called back and said her techs told her flatly "Can't be done."
Well, that annoyed me, because it can be done; there are hundreds of people on the MSNTV forums at MSN who have done it with Roadrunner. But rather than fight with her I just said your techs are wrong, but cancel the installation anyway.
I then called Hawaiian Tel and was told that there would be a $95 installation fee to have a tech come out and wire the specific jack we wanted so it would take DSL. He said that HawTel could get DSL to the house, but there was no way of determining which phone jack it would work at beforehand. I thought that was nonsense, and I still think so, but I just said I'd get back to them.
Has anyone heard this business of "to the house, but not to that jack" before?

Yep, HT doesn't have enough tech staff to do individual home installations without getting paid for it. To be fair, neither did Verizon nor any of the Mainland firms I used to talk to. The industry thinks that DSL installation has been "dumbed down" enough for any homeowner to handle on their own.

We've had DSL since late 2004. The home installation was painless, although our jack filters could be installed backwards (Murphy's Law) and that's probably been fixed by now. In the entire time that we've had DSL I've only noticed two outages-- one over a year ago for a couple hours and one last week for ~30 minutes (DNS servers messed up). There may have been other outages but if you're not using the Internet at the time then you may never notice.

Contrast our Oceanic experience from 1997-2004 at two different addresses (same hardware). The cable on our current street gets wet enough after every hard rain to wipe out analog channels above 70 as well as the RoadRunner signal. Calls to Oceanic's alleged "customer service" line reporting that "There's no signal on the cable modem" would be met with "Do you have cable channels working on your TV? Is your TV turned on? Is your computer turned on? Is your monitor turned on? Are you running Windows with or without Internet Explorer? Have you rebooted? Do you have a TV or a microwave oven interfering with your computer? Oh, you know what Mr. Nords, no one else on your street has complained." No kidding guys, I'm the only RoadRunner user on the street, but thanks for treating me like a blissfully ignorant computer user. Eventually things would dry out and the cable signal would recover itself, and I finally realized the rain/outage cause/effect.

After a half-dozen or so of these calls the RoadRunner tech came out to speak geek. His gear confirmed the high-freq ground at the connection box so he replaced the connector and dried everything out. Next rainstorm, same problem, same idiot treatment. This time it was the connection box at the top of the street. By now we were pushing almost seven years with Oceanic, nearly four at this address, the problem was occurring more frequently, and the idiot treatment seemed (if possible) to be getting even more idiotic. Next rainstorm, same problem, same treatment, and when I saw the Oceanic vans at the next upstream box we cancelled our RoadRunner and installed DSL. Verizon/HT mailed me the DSL modem & kit, but I still had to drive to Oceanic's office to return the (by then technically obsolete and worthless) cable modem.

The HT new-customer DSL rate is almost cheap enough to compare them side-by-side with RoadRunner. Rainy season should be starting in a few months...

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Hawaiian Tel DSL installation

The HT new-customer DSL rate is almost cheap enough to compare them side-by-side with RoadRunner. Rainy season should be starting in a few months...

I routinely move between RR and HT. I really don't notice a difference in the download speed. But the upload speed is different. I see it when accessing the computer remotely. DSL is close to twice the upload speed.

[Linkmeister]

Re: Hawaiian Tel DSL installation

First, who is responsible for the house wiring? Are you paying HT to maintain it, or did you take over the responsibility to save a few $?

I think the inside wire maintenance went away when Mom switched to local/ld service with MCI.

I think HT is hedging their bets. They have no idea what condition the house wiring is in and to be able to isolate that one jack from all the other phone devices in the house.

Fair enough.

To review - DSL runs on high frequencies over the phone line. Normal phone devices frequently don't work right in the presence of the DSL signal or they mess up the DSL. One usually needs to isolate them using filters. In a ideal situation, the installer puts in a "whole house filter" for all the jacks except the jack of interest. But that's only possible if they can isolate the line that runs just to that jack at point where the phone line enters the house. If one wire goes to a bunch of jacks, then you are stuck putting filters on every device that plugs into the phone line.

Even then, if the wiring is really ancient, the DSL signal may not like it and that's enough to scotch the whole plan.

Is there a reason you are not doing the self-install route? They give you a modem and a handful of filters. Plug the modem into the jack of your choice. Filter all the other devices that use that phone line. Fairly good chance it will work.

That's almost feasible. (Counting on fingers...) There are six extensions on that line, and if it comes with four filters, and I have several left over from the installation on the other phone line in the house, I might be able to do that.

Now, is there broadband in the house at all? Why won't it work it connect it to the existing broadband?

Different telephone number/line and location for the DSL I'm using.

Another idea: Install the DSL and wireless access point where the DSL modem will work. Get a wireless bridge to connect the MSNTV2 unit to the wireless. That way you don't have to get DSL right to that jack.

I don't quite see that, because I don't have wireless at all. How would it apply?

[pzarquon]

Re: Hawaiian Tel DSL installation

We went through something similar just a few weeks ago. There was so much static on the line, not only could we not make calls, but incoming calls were mysteriously picked up, squealed at, and dropped. We called HT, they did remote diagnostics on the line up to our door, and told us that just to come and take a look would cost $95, because once inside it was our responsibility.

This distinction was probably custom made for folks in homes like us, where apparently marginally qualified handymen did their own kludges to extend the phone line within, splitting here, running a wire in the corner along this and that wall, and nailing another jack wherever. I couldn't tell where the original jacks were, and which ones were added on!

Fortunately, it turned out to be a single bad jack, which had been smashed by a dresser and was hanging off the wall. We just cut it out completely, and our line returned to normal.

As someone mentioned, Link, I think the solution may be just giving up reliance on physical wiring and their locations, and going wireless. Two ways to do this should cover the bases:

1. A wireless phone system with mutiple handsets. We just got the four-handset Uniden (or is it Panasonic?) pack from Costco. I plug the main base station and phone into the sturdiest phone jack in the house, and then I can put other phone handsets and charging stations anywhere in the house, even rooms that don't have makeshift jacks in them.

2. A wireless internet router and however many wireless NICs or USB receivers you need to get online. Again, plug the wireless router into the phone jack that works the best (i.e. the one HT likely considers your main outlet and/or the one they determine to be able to support it), wherever it happens to be in your house, and then just snare the signal from various computers and devices over WiFi. Hard to go wrong with the Linksys WRT-54G for your base station; any brand WiFi NIC or USB receiver should suffice on the other end.

Basically, regardless of the number of jacks scattered throughout your house and their respective line quality, you can get both phone service and internet access from any room wirelessly.

We were with Oceanic for years, and hated it. We switched to HiTel DSL, which I installed myself (at the time it was Verizon, and I got the modem and instructions in the mail), and can't complain. The improved upstream is a big deal (especially for "content creators" like me), but the downstream is great, too. The "max speed" may be lower than Oceanic's, but the sustained speed is better. It's consistent on DSL, where RoadRunner seemed to go from rip-roaring fast at 3 a.m. to a snail's pace at 7 p.m.

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Hawaiian Tel DSL installation

Different telephone number/line and location for the DSL I'm using.

Is there any broadband in the house at all? Any that you could run a wire to the unit and connect it?

I don't quite see that, because I don't have wireless at all. How would it apply?

I guess the offer may be over, but at one time HT offered a free wireless access point with a new subscription. Install the DSL where it can be made to work. Connect the AP to it. Then use the bridge I spoke of to get the broadband to the unit that needs it.

Then again, you might just get a Clearwire unit. If it can get a signal near the box, it's a simple "one box" solution. The cost of the Clearwire 768kbps rate is the same as DSL. I'm not sure just what this MSN unit does, but I suspect the difference between 768kbps and 3Mbps isn't big enough to go for a lot of hassle. It's still way better then 54kbps dial-up.

[Linkmeister]

Re: Hawaiian Tel DSL installation

The other DSL line is in a room at the back of the house, 50-75 feet away and through the kitchen/dining room/hall. Not an option.

Here's the exceptionally non-useful page about wireless and MSN TV:

http://www.msntv.com/pc/support/msn_faq_wireless.asp

Here's a picture of the unit, though, for those who're interested:

http://www.msntv.com/pc/

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Hawaiian Tel DSL installation

Note that the MSN TV 2 Internet & Media Player will support any broadband connection in the home, provided that the broadband provider:

- Does not require a subscriber to load client software
- Supports DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)

Does Road Runner require a login to work? I don't remember requiring that.

Otherwise, the requirements are minimal.

[Konaguy]

Re: Hawaiian Tel DSL installation

Does Road Runner require a login to work? I don't remember requiring that.

Road Runner back in the late 1990s required a login to work. Then they switched to a HFC MAC address registration.

[pzarquon]

Re: Hawaiian Tel DSL installation

The other DSL line is in a room at the back of the house, 50-75 feet away and through the kitchen/dining room/hall. Not an option.

No? Hmm. 75 feet? Not unheard of, even for old-fashioned 802.11b.

And, of course, 802.11g (or 802.11n) obviously have better range than 802.11b. And from the link you posted, the MSN TV 2 already has WiFi (and both 802.11b and 802.11g) built in!

I think your best bet is hooking up a WiFi router to your existing "back of the house" DSL modem and throwing the signal to this new gadget... rather than paying for a whole new line of service which may or may not work!

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Hawaiian Tel DSL installation

from the link you posted, the MSN TV 2 already has WiFi (and both 802.11b and 802.11g) built in!

That's what I thought, then I found this page. I didn't look up the numbers, but I'm betting they are bridges (converts a Ethernet jack into a wireless "jack").

[Linkmeister]

Re: Hawaiian Tel DSL installation

That's what I thought, then I found this page. I didn't look up the numbers, but I'm betting they are bridges (converts a Ethernet jack into a wireless "jack").

No, they're adapters. They're darned hard to find, too. The later versions from D-link and Linksys may or may not work; I got into a chat with Linksys and they didn't even know what the MSN TV 2 was, so they couldn't help. D-link said via e-mail they couldn't guarantee the new ones would work.