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Have you seen the state of Telstra copper? No way, I can't even break 0.8MB/s with ADSL2. The pit outside my house is filled to the brim with water when it rains, which drops the sync speed even further. The MDF of my building was hanging from the wall by the copper lines, which Telstra has deemed to not be an issue. Heck, the lines are just twisted pair buried straight in the ground with no protection at all.

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Copper can take quite a bit of abuse, the real issue you will find on your line will either be in the pit (Telstra trialled a program with a anti-water gel which had a reverse effect and corroded the copper connections). Or you have the issue of wiring within your house, even though household wiring is typically straightforward most houses in certain areas will have Optus and Telstra copper running into the house, how those are wired into the actual wall socket is another story as Telstra are only required to supply a working phone line if you sign up for TPG/Dodo or any other ISP that isn't Telstra. Sign up for Telstra and they ensure all wiring is nice and only distance/exchange conditions are a factor.

I redid the wiring in the house as far as I could and cleaned up the MDF myself (screwing it back on the wall was a nice start). Problem is probably in the pit, but as you said it's not their interest to fix it as I don't have a Telstra service at all.

What type of wire did you replace it with?

Replaced the end points, not the wiring itself. The wiring is 2000s vintage and not anywhere near as terrible as the huge old Australian baseboard plugs it was fastened in to. Replacing the wiring in the walls was a bit too much given that I expected to be ditching it for fibre soon.

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