> Aside: all of this begs the question, how are they getting gig out of

> crap cabling? What are they doing, technically? Where's Shannon's law?

> If it was always possible, how come this site is using a crappy slow

> DLSAM at all?

On the carrier DSLAM side, the technology is G.FAST: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.fast . It's a relatively new standard and keep in mind it's still asymmetrical.

ActivReach is a proprietary Adtran technology. It's primary advantage over DSL-style technologies is it's symmetric, it behaves exactly like ethernet on the switch, and it's also POE. It works great to roll out VOIP phones in places where there is no other existing network cabling and re-cabling is expensive or not possible.

> Why should anyone install CAT6 ever when their junky CAT3 can do Gb? Confused.

Cost. You can get Gig from CAT3, but you can get 100Gig (or higher?) from CAT6 for the same price. ActivReach is not cheaper than re-cabling in an average situation.

Yes, hacks are fun and of course that's more or less what this list is about so I get that. But being the only person on earth that can support something that is probably not that stable and that people have come to rely on is maybe not as fun in the long term so it doesn't hurt to consider the commercial options. An "expensive" solution might actually be cheaper if you count all your time and/or pain.

John