ADSL and rain...

11-12-2006, 11:17

Does rain / heavy rain effect ADSL connectivity?

May seem a stupid question, but does this statement hold water...

/Gets coat...

Seriously though - what's your take on this theory?

Halcyon · 11-12-2006, 11:20

I've always seemed to think that my cable broadband get's a little slower or doesnt connect as well when it is raining too.

11-12-2006, 11:21

If the rain could reach the cabling then yes I dare say it could have an effect.

Telephone systems at one point or another operate with electricity I believe, even with Fibre, the water could dispell the light. So in theory I do imagine it could cause problems.

handyman · 11-12-2006, 12:15

The quality of telephone lines that are damaged and have water leaking into them can be sunstantially degraged. This is called egress or ingress (something like that). I would imagine that this extra noise on the line would have a substantial effect on packet loss, thus slowing down data transfer.

Graham M · 11-12-2006, 12:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by timewarrior2001

If the rain could reach the cabling then yes I dare say it could have an effect.

Telephone systems at one point or another operate with electricity I believe, even with Fibre, the water could dispell the light. So in theory I do imagine it could cause problems.

Erm how could water affect Fiber? Hypothesize!

handyman · 11-12-2006, 15:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeph

Erm how could water affect Fiber? Hypothesize!

Fibre only works because of total internal reflection. A very very fine fibre of pure glass is encased in a outer of not as pure glass. Laser light entering at a precise angle cannot escape into the outer layer so keeps getting reflected 100% back into the fibre. Older optical fibres I think did not have the glass glass core and had glass/something else I guess if water got inbetween those layers it would interfere with the internal reflection.

But for modern fibre optics its 100% sealed and unaffected by water.

Graham M · 11-12-2006, 15:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by handyman

But for modern fibre optics its 100% sealed and unaffected by water.

That's what I thought, I didn't know it had changed.

RUSTY · 11-12-2006, 15:43

but damp/water can get into still get into the final cable link??

handyman · 11-12-2006, 16:22

A little piccy to illustrate the fibre.

For those that are interested they make the fibre by taking a hollow glass tube thats about a metre long and 1 cm thick glass with a 1cm hollow centre. they heat this up and squirt in a pure glass in gas form then heat the end so that they can extrude the fibre and the gas forms the central core with the tube becoming the cladding. All very amazing stuff.

Paul K · 12-12-2006, 07:16

Back to the OP yes rain can affect ADSL being carried on standard copper telephone lines. While at BT I had a couple of cases where heavy rain was causing line noise which was affecting the line and in turn would have affected any ADSL connection on the line.