Mike L: Yes, there was a BIG wasp's nest inside the upper right corner of the left (large) cabinet. We had to spray and wait about 30 minutes to get close enough to take pictures since the cabinet door hasn't closed completely in years.

AnthonyH: No, the customer decided it was "too expensive" to clean up. There are 14 T1 circuits in there alone and one of the tenants in the building is an interconnect! The tenant's association voted to ride it out, despite the fact that it's been like this for at least 12 years.

Hal: It looks like a piece of 3/8" or 1/2" Greenfield is used from the round box to the NID. I would like to hope that there aren't multiple tenants in that building. No doubt, that's a big-time sparkie job.

I haven't ever seen a telco use Greenfield to sleeve an underground cable though. That certainly doesn't appear to be a Bell thing. The power company in DC and Maryland's immediate suburbs uses Greenfield for underground electrical service risers to the meter. Telcos here either use no cable protection at all or occasional U-guard or PVC conduit.

Like I said, the original picture is actually a pretty clean installation by most standards in these parts. It's mighty tacky to leave a 12" tail of a 14" cable tie just flopping in the breeze. Granted, it's a typical case of a lazy installer who had hundreds of 4" cable ties, but that would have meant having to actually walk back to the truck. Hey, it's OK. It's just the company's money being wasted, not theirs..........for now.

TechHead, I am sorry to say that this is a typical telco installation, and I might add that it's one of the cleaner ones I have seen. Yes, someone can come up and cut the cables and that is a significant concern. Unfortunately, the telco is not required to go any further than what they did. All they have to do is deliver service to the MPOE (Minimum Point Of Entry), usually where the cable comes up out of the ground or out of the air.

Ed Vaughn, MBSWWYPBX