A method of conditioning a twisted pair telephone line (102, 104, 106, 108) at an intermediate location in the twisted pair line between a central office and a customer premises for high data rate broadband operation, comprising: measuring at said intermediate location first characteristics of a first portion of the twisted pair line (102, 104, 106, 108) extending between the customer premises and the intermediate location by using standard DSL handshaking tones in an upstream frequency spectrum that are transmitted from the customer premises over said first portion of the line while a microprocessor prevents the tones from reaching the central office; measuring at said intermediate location second characteristics of a second portion of the twisted pair line (102, 104, 106, 108) extending between the central office and the intermediate location by using standard DSL handshaking tones in a downstream frequency spectrum that are transmitted from the central office over said second portion of the line while the microprocessor prevents the tones from reaching the customer premises; said upstream and downstream frequency spectrums being different frequency spectrums above voice frequencies and said measuring being performed automatically; and determining at said intermediate location upstream and downstream gain-frequency characteristics that respectively equalize the line for an attenuation-frequency characteristic of the line over said upstream and downstream frequency spectrums, the upstream and downstream gain-frequency characteristics having peak responses at respective peak frequencies; and based on said upstream and downstream gain-frequency characteristics equalizing the first and second portions of the twisted pair line (102, 104, 106, 108) at said intermediate location in response to said measuring by providing first and second gains to upstream and downstream signals in said upstream and said downstream frequency spectrums, respectively. measuring at said intermediate location first characteristics of a first portion of the twisted pair line (102, 104, 106, 108) extending between the customer premises and the intermediate location by using standard DSL handshaking tones in an upstream frequency spectrum that are transmitted from the customer premises over said first portion of the line while a microprocessor prevents the tones from reaching the central office; measuring at said intermediate location second characteristics of a second portion of the twisted pair line (102, 104, 106, 108) extending between the central office and the intermediate location by using standard DSL handshaking tones in a downstream frequency spectrum that are transmitted from the central office over said second portion of the line while the microprocessor prevents the tones from reaching the customer premises; said upstream and downstream frequency spectrums being different frequency spectrums above voice frequencies and said measuring being performed automatically; and determining at said intermediate location upstream and downstream gain-frequency characteristics that respectively equalize the line for an attenuation-frequency characteristic of the line over said upstream and downstream frequency spectrums, the upstream and downstream gain-frequency characteristics having peak responses at respective peak frequencies; and