atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Demarc Cut, Proper Reinstallation Help

Harry, a 600 pair feeder to a hotel? That sounds way outside the norm. Regardless, that wasn't a "splicing point" for the area. It just happened that that same cable pair count appeared in many other locations in the area. This is very common. It's not legal to have "splicing points" (cross-connect facilities) located inside private property, but multiple feeder counts are perfectly acceptable and legal.

Circuits for other customers at different physical locations cannot go THROUGH an another unrelated address. This must be done via external splice or cross-connect facilities located within public rights-of-way.

Using a saw to cut the cable surely placed plenty of troubles on pairs that might be feeding circuits all over the place in the area. I am sure that's what happened. We are talking about basic parallel elctricity.

By multiple feeder counts, do you mean that the same pair is going to building A and B with the two cables spliced somewhere in between to a splicing point outside? Therefore, the same dialtone can be in both buildings and the hacksaw job probably shorted pairs?

Exactly.

-Hal

Sorry, Ed, that was some sloppy wording. I didn't mean cross-connect so I shouldn't have said "splicing point". The issue was that there was a splicing case on the wall that tapped in another buried cable feeding a nearby office complex. I know that some of those dial tones appeared on the demarc at one time 'cause a worked a few tickets for other customers in that building. As for the cable size, I was just guessing, based on what entered the room.

No harm done here, Harry. I just wanted to clarify this type of situation that people may encounter nation- or world-wide.

To clarify, please bear with me in the following goofy example.

Let's say that I have an auto parts store at 3605 Richmond Highway. My store is fed by the main 2,400 pair distribution cable running down my road, known as cable #234. My building's 25 pair cable is tapped into pairs 1501-1525 of this main cable, but only five or them are actually being used for my business. The other 20 pairs are unmarked and unused at the terminal in my building.

There's a flower shop at 325 Fifteenth Street that has a 100 pair feed there. That's because this place used to be a stock brokerage firm and they needed a bunch of lines. The flower shop only uses three lines now. Still, ten years ago, the telco tapped the same feed cable running down Richmond Highway to get more pairs into the firm. There were very few customers in the 1501 count on cable 234, so they brought a complete 100 pair count in, meaning that the terminal at the flower shop now has pairs 1501-1600. This also means that the same pairs feeding my auto parts store are appearing on the terminal at the flower shop around the corner.

Along the three miles that cable 234 runs down Richmond Highway, there are occasional needs for lines to single residences and a few pay phones. Their dial tones actually end up being assigned to pairs within the 1501-1525 count as well through the use of ready-access terminals. After all is said and done, my five lines, the flower shop's three lines, eight homes and four pay phones have lines appearing in this same cable count. This means that in reality, 20 pairs within the 1501-1525 count are being used and many, many other addresses. I have a 25 pair terminal at my auto parts store, but in reality, many of these pairs are being used by other people, and they are separated from my location by blocks or even miles.

NOW, let's say that somebody comes in to remodel the flower shop (similar to your situation) and cuts the incoming cable for phone service with a Sawzall. Of course, all pairs are hacked down to bare copper and most are touching. These include the 25 pairs that feed my auto parts store. Immediately, my dial tone pairs are shorted out and out of service.

In my simple example, by the flower shop's feed cable being cut with a saw, here's what happened:

My five lines at the auto parts store got shorted;

Eight separate residences along the way had their lines shorted;

Four pay phone lines ended up shorted.


Sorry to over-simplify things here in my little side track, but multiple pair counts appearing at different addresses are a very common occurence. Not every business customer site needs 25 pairs, or many typical streets for that matter. Still the telco needs to have the flexibility with their cable to accommocate temporary swings. They also need to have spare pairs for rapid service restoral.

Many times, a customer is using Verizon for ten lines, but they decide to switch over to a CLEC. The CLEC then has these same ten lines brought into the same address on ten different pairs. For a short time, 20 pairs are needed for this customer, and the telco must have a buffer to accommodate this.

For reasons discussed here, it's very common and possible for my "cable 234, pairs 1501-1525 to appear and addresses all over town and for a failure/mistake to cause the type of problem you mentioned.

Wow Ed. I think I understand it now!!

The service provider stated an ETA of May 8th to locate/tag. What is the best way to find the pairs used in the 50 pair? This is without knowing the terminations at the binding posts in the service area interface. The provider stated they do not have updated pair info. My greenlee volt detector only picks up 50vac minimum? Please don't tell me to start with wire1 and try to match wire 2-49 with meter then move to next. Bottom line is I need to locate the SDSL so I can bring the site to functional status.

I'm not totally sure what you are asking, but I'll try to help.
Each pair of wires has a color code. You need to find each pair and test them out.
You would need to go on each pair with a buttset most likely to check functionality.

the dmarc was cut, so the each wire is seperate, not twisted into pairs. do you have a link to a telco standard for 50 pair color code?

Pardon my ignorance as I have no TELCO experience, but can someone explain why there is always a splice before TELCO's cable is terminated? I never understood that...