Ordered DSL a few days ago, will be atleast a week before activated. I am roughly 5K Ft. from central office, so probally won't get fastest speed, but hopefully it will be a vast inprovement over dial-up. Can/should I attempt to run cat 5 wiring from my network interface box outside and utilize those wires for my phone/dsl connection.

It will be a tremendous improvement over your dial up. 5k is darn good. 18k is max, and even then its still going to be a lot better than dial up. As to your question - NO! DONT TOUCH IT! LEAVE IT ALONE! There is no re-wiring required on your part. D

I thank you for your reply. However, it contradicts some reading I done on internet. Most sites I visit say Cat 5 will do you better, however, since I would be using only one pair of the wires, I suppose crosstalk wouldn't be an issue. There are also suggestions of using shielded wiring and someone posting on this site suggested even goin with shielded microphone wire. The run of wire I use goes under the house from the NIT up through the floor to the jack, much shorter length of wire this way, however, the wire does pass at about a 90Deg. angle with a Central air electical wire, but I notice very little noise from it. I been waiting for DSl for 2 years now, and now that I can get it, I would like to get as close to the 1.5MBits/sec as I can. kinda sucks that I am six blocks from CO, but line lenght is 5K ft. thanx....Later....

I think there is some confusion. There is two different types of wiring involved. The wiring from the Tel Co to your home which is outside phone box, and then pulled into like a 66 block which then runs into your standard phone jacks inside. This is all standard analog wiring stuff that your phone company already has wired or you wouldn't have phone service right now. From your standard phone jack the phone company is going to install a little device, and then run a standard RJ-ll (phone wire) to your DSL modem or DSL router. That DSL modem/router will be able to deliver to you ethernet by you connecting to it using a standard RJ-45 (Cat 5 or Cat 3, whatever you determine to buy). That's the way DSL works. The whole premise is to use standard phone lines to get high speed internet connection. So exactly what are these websites that you find you are getting conflicting information from, other than what I have described above? As far as cross-talk there is some chance (though it's not a high volume item that you will) that you may get it, in which case you may need a Cat 5 called STP (shielded twisted pair), instead of the standard Cat 5 UTP (unshielded twisted pair). Bad news is that STP because of sheilding reduces bandwidth, good news is its still magnitudes of bandwidth above your DSL speed so it won't bottleneck you. If you are concerned that you may experience cross-tall, then go ahead and buy yourself some STP. As far as you concern about being a mesely 5 blocks away, PLEASE STOP! You are in great range. Why dont you get the thing in first and then come back and cry "boo hoo" if you don't find yourself zippin around the internet. I guarantee your never going to want to go back to dial up.

Okay D. Thanx. My history folder is empty, so the list of websites I have been to is gone. The fact is that I'm excited after waiting so long and since this is gonna be a self-install, I want to be sure everything on my side is ready. Thanx again. Later.. Have nice day.