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Let me explain, we have a two analogue lines (something like 16 pair each, the standard cable that's put into buildings) that come into our building but they pass through the building next door.

These two cables were cut in two places (and i mean straight through its now 3 cables), the engineers then twisted each individual cable back together and used insulation tape to keep it together.

What I want to know is what side effects should I be getting from the damaged cables. I have been pinging an outside IP address all day in CMD and every 16 ping's or so I get 1-2 timeouts.

I hope this is the correct place to put this on stack exchange? if its not sorry :)

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    I don't even know where to start trying to answer... Just replace the cable. Physical plan (aka cables in this case) is simple and inexpensive (compared to the headaches it can cause.)
    – Craig Constantine
    Commented May 30, 2014 at 14:07
  • The cables That need replacing are the ones that our internet service provider would have put in.
    – James Waring
    Commented May 30, 2014 at 14:08
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    Call the ISP and get the cable fixed.
    – Craig Constantine
    Commented May 30, 2014 at 14:53
  • 3
    I agree with Craig, if this is an ISP maintained cable, then I would insist that they do it right. I don't know of a quality ISP that would operate this way.
    – YLearn
    Commented May 30, 2014 at 15:08
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    No solder should be used, mechanical contact is better in those cases (you might verify that normal ethernet never uses solder in any place, everything is done by mechanical contact). This is to avoid galvanic corrosion induced by the contact between two different metals, the presence of water and electrical charges.
    – Jorge Aldo
    Commented Jun 30, 2015 at 2:43

1 Answer 1

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This can introduce a number of problems, like additional attenuation or cross talk. Splicing is to be avoided whenever possible, but I have seen this work in a pinch although I would never recommend it. They key is to use a cable certification tester (not just a continuity tester) to make sure it still passes your required standard (Cat5/5E/6) after splicing.

I would also be concerned about the manner of the splice. Twisting and electrical tape are not a reliable splicing method. Even if it is working properly initially, there is too much chance of problems to occur over time as the cables move slightly (temp changes, building vibrations, large vehicles driving by, etc).

The very first type of problem you can experience would be the inability to connect over the cable. Since it appears you can do so, then the next problem would be frame loss, often from corrupted frames that will get dropped when they fail a consistency check.

If you have real equipment on both sides of this link, you should be able to view the interface statistics and see how many frames are being dropped as well as the reasons.

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