atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Outside Plant OSP Construction 50 pair cable

I have a customer that has a 50 pair cable coming in from the street. A contractor accidently cut the cable. There are only three lines in use on the cable.
I thought that I coud identify the live trunks with my toner.
When I stripped back the insulation I found that the pairs were not twisted and the color code is completly different from anything I have seen.
My question is, is there an easy way to identify the live lines without stripping back each wire and going through the process of elimination?
That would take forever. Maybe some kind of tester like what electricians use for line voltage, the tester beeps when it senses voltage.

Thanks

Tom

That cable belongs to the telephone company! Not on ly not your responsibility, it is off limits! The contractor should have called repair, he did it. NOW, you call the TELCO, rat out the contractor and get the cut fixed the correct, and might I add "LEGAL", way.

Can you go to the BET and see what pairs are being used or tone back from there?

And is this the service providers cable or your customer?
Because if it belongs to the SP, you don't want to mess with it, but I doubt they would use non-standardized cable.

Sorry, I was typing while John was posting.
Good advise John. :thumb:

And at the CONTRACTOR'S expense.

And charge the contractor for loss of business suffered.

Don't know the rules over in your neck of the woods, but you'd get in big trouble here for messing with a phone company cable. Guess he should have called for a locate and have been more careful around the cable.

Recently at a job in Southern California, the general contractor asked me to move an entrance cable from one wall to the other. It would have required disconnecting the ground and "bullet" bond, disconnecting it from the protector, pulling back the cable, cutting off a piece of AT&T's conduit, and reinstalling it onto the protector. I told the general I would not do it and he would have to call AT&T. When the tech came out, he told the superintendent that messing with their cable is a violation and Homeland Security could be involved!!!!

When I stripped back the insulation I found that the pairs were not twisted and the color code is completly different from anything I have seen.

Well yeah, after YOU stripped back the insulation. :scratch:

Don't be a typical electrician and think you can handle this. Like I always tell you guys- it's not your job!

-Hal

Hal, apparently it's not our job either...I would not mess with at&t's cable even though I am sure I could do a much better job lol

I'll bet that the pairs are indeed twisted, otherwise it wouldn't work properly as a telephone cable. You probably have not exposed enough pairs to see the twists. Most telephone distribution cable is manufactured with very few twists per foot, to avoid adding unnecessary length (and therefore, more resistance and capacitance) to the pairs.


Do the wires have dots, stripes, etc? What are the color combinations that you see?

There are cables with odd-count, even-count, central office code, switchboard code, and other specialized codes. There are cables in which the pairs are all the same color.

We would love to see a photo of this non-standard cable. I have been working on cables for 45 years, and have yet to see one that I couldn't identify. Do you have the facilities to take a picture and post it here?

The short answer to your original question is "yes" there's a way to identify the pairs, but I suspect that you don't have the proper tools or experience to do it. As the other guys have correctly stated, it's not your job to fix it.