Dry loop

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A dry loop is an unconditioned leased pair of telephone line from a telephone company.^[1] The pair does not provide dial tone or battery (continuous electric potential), as opposed to a wet pair, a line usually without dial tone but with battery.^[2]

A dry pair was originally used with a security system but more recently may also be used with digital subscriber line (DSL) service or an Ethernet extender to connect two locations, as opposed to a costlier means such as a Frame Relay. The pair in many cases goes through the local telephone exchange.

Wet pair naming comes from the battery used to sustain the loop, which was made from wet cells.

Many carriers market dry loops to independent DSL providers as a BANA for basic analog loop or in some locales PANA for plain analog loop, OPX (off-premises extension) line, paging circuit, or finally LADS (local area data service).