I was checking with Ariel on an installation for a client and mentioned to the young lady that I'd have to get my own DSL checked one of these days because it was dropping out a lot.

"I'll get PacBell right on it", she said. PacBell called an hour later to make an appointment. The tech who came out the next day said signal strength and speed were great, but sure enough, there was a fault - a "bridge tap" 140 ft long 150 ft from my box. A wiring guy came right out, confirmed the bridge tap and fixed it. No more drop outs.

Bridge tap: The pair from my box was tapped into a pair that continued for another 140 ft up the street. OK for voice, but the DSL signal was echoing off the open end.

So, I remarked to my super secretive bookkeeping person, [link|http://www.aaxnet.com/roze.html|Rose] (not her real name (also not her real name)), "PacBell came out and checked why the DSL was giving problems. It was because there was a tap on the phone line".

The stunned, horrified look on her face was absolutely priceless. You just can't fake something like that. I quickly explained the "tap" was a wiring fault, not government agents.

"You did that on purpose!" - Accused, confessed guilty, and unrepentant.

This area was completely rewired less than 3 years ago. Problem was, when the wiring was switched over to the new, the guy who did it was a voice guy, and he just tapped into the pair rather than cut and splice.