Warm weather

[Steve]

Does warm weather effect ADSL?

I seem to remember electrical resistance increases with rising temperature, so presumably this will in effect lengthen ones line. Reason I ask is that my error count FEC's have increased by a factor of ten these last few days

[Sebby]

Yes, I believe that's correct. Likewise, when the weather is cold, attenuation usually drops a little.

Don't worry too much about the FECs; it's the CRCs and HECs that you want to watch out for (and even then, if they don't cause throughput issues, they can be ignored). 

[Lance]

It certainly does. The difference in my attenuation is about 1.5db (worse off).

[Sebby]

My attenuation is showing as 46.8dB. During the colder months, it was 46.1.

[Rik]

If you want the physics, it's here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistance

Winter is good electrically for ADSL, but the longer hours of darkness increase noise levels. Summer is bad electrically, but the longer daylight reduces noise levels. Unless you have someone operating a noisy air-con unit nearby, of course.