I've done quite a few cable installs for various things but they were all low pair counts and mostly additions to existing infrastructure.

The job I'm working on now involves a 30-year old commercial office building with 200-Pairs brought in with 30-years of tenants and technicians and whoever running cables all over the back of the building to get phone service.

What that means now is that there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 600-pairs of cable (in various pair-counts) strung across the 250' back wall of this building that looks more like spaghetti. To make it even better, it's hung off of whatever is protruding from the building about every 50-60 feet. Basically you have to duck to walk under the cable where it sags.

Ok, that doesn't bother me. Mapping Pairs doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that the 4 boxes on the back (each with 50-pair of verizon terminating in them) are basically a rats-nest of wire (which pops the covers off in hard-wind) and are unlabeled. So now how do I determine what the binding posts have on it when the boxes aren't labeled? More specifically, how can I tell if a pair is DSL Only (without line-sharing), or T1? Is it something that can be determined with simple tools such as a Buttset/voltmeter? If I have the property-owner call verizon will they actually send me a cut-sheet for the property with what F2 pairs are active and with what? Will that even be worth getting?

The goal here is to strip the telecom out of the building, Take 4 50-pair cables, run my incoming 200-pair to 66-Blocks in a wiring closet, and run the rest of the building there too. The wiring closet is on an external wall so I will sink a grounding-rod and run a ground-bus inside the closet for all the surge protectors/NIU/etc to connect to. Obviously this means that giving a new tenant phone-service from the demarc only involves a cross-connect.

My only concern is a method to accurately identify active pairs and what is on that pair. The only thing I can think of at this point is surveying what the current tenants services are, and if there is DSL/T1 dedicated service somewhere, having someone stand there while I start unhooking wires till they see the circuit go down. Pain in the ass and time-consuming.

Then the other problem is verizon in the Tampa Bay area has what they call "Ready Start" where they will leave a pair active and block routing at the CO unless they need the pair upstream in the F1 lines for a copper shortage. So basically a pair could be active but wont let you dial out.


Any feedback is appreciated.

Sounds like a job that I would pass on unless the client was well aware that it would cost big bucks in labour. I agree that it sounds like it should be done and from what you're describing, it would look real nice when done.

However, IF i was to do it, I'd first make a site survey of who has which lines and where....not by only asking them, but by physically checking every jack that you can find. The larger clients usually haven't a clue as to what are all their numbers, except for their main tel number, fax, etc.

I would think that the only way Verizon would help is to give you a list of what numbers the client has....if you're real lucky what pair they are on. Each client may have to make that call. Verizon, if they are like Bell Canada won't divulge that info to you.

If the job's a go, I would then start by cutting out the extra unused pairs in those terminals as I'm sure they're not terminated to get them out of your way. Remember you'll be bringing in another 200 pairs so you don't want 400 pairs in those boxes to get in your way.

I would then run my 4 x 50 pair cables and terminate them. Then plan on spending a weekend to do the rest of the Xconn, when it's quiet.

Mind you, the client(s) would have to OK access to all the premises during this period and to protect yourself, insist on one of THEIR employees on site during this period to avoid any future claims for theft, etc.

Then plan on being on site Monday for the eventual complaints that "my line isn't working".

Dave

I have a similar methodology mapped out to how I want to proceed. I already plan on doing a site-survey of the tenants in the building, and trying to determine what services they have. Also have them fill out a sheet with an emergency contact, and number of lines and what type of service (that they will verify with verizon/etc). Then it's off to the wiring.

Basically step 1 would involve cutting all the dead pair out of my way, eliminating about 95% of the garbage on the back of the building. I'd classify a dead-pair as 0-voltage, and not necessarily an un-used circuit.

Step 2 involved pulling my 50-pair cables and terminating them in the new wiring closet and demarc, and running all my new cabling to the offices, but leaving the old existing wiring active.

Step 3 would then be done afterhours on weekdays with someone from each tenant present. Basically that would be where the live cross-connect is done in the wiring closet and the tenants CPE is transferred over.

The last step is to rip all the rest of the old garbage out and drink some beer.

But I cant find any solid information on how I tell if a pair at the Demarc is T1 or Naked DSL or POTS. POTS would be somewhat self explanatory but I don't want to hook my buttset up to every line in hopes that I don't hit a T1 circuit and fry my set. I was thinking there would be a voltage difference between POTS/T1 but that would depend on the LBO and how accurately it was done. From what I have read before voltages will vary and can overlap.

I'd be very hesitant on that. A few months ago, I cleaned up a terminal while waiting for the client to check on some info and did exactly that.

When I go to leave 1/2 hour later, another tenant came screaming that I had put his business o/o/s.

There were 4 "dead pairs" that I had disconnected because some SOB had criss-crossed the field instead of the usual over, down & in method. As these were "dead", I removed them.

To this day I still don't know what kind of lines they were, but they were definitely active.

The pairs that I referred to in the previous post were the non-terminated inside pairs in Verizons box.

I would only be very concerned about the T1's or PRI's. The rest you should be able to figure out from the clients phones, and other jacks. Use ANAC for what it's for.

Dave

Although you may not want to hear this. DONT touch the nids.

I would call verizon in and allow them the time to properly mark "tag" their equipment. They are responsible whether they want to do it or not. The end points for their service MUST be maintained by them.

I know your are gungho about getting this job and all the props that go with it, but if you do take down some t1's without Verizon having your back it could cost you more than you would make on the job.

I'm with WRichey, tell them you are rerunning your side of the DEMARC and need to verify the Telco side. They are suppose to have the DEMARC clearly labled.

In your step 3 after everything has been identified, I'd just half tap, cut them to the new and remove the old. No need to be done after hours if I'm following you.

Make Verizon label their DEMARK. It is their responsibility and you could be legaly liable if you cut anything loose. In Florida each tenant is supposed to have a DEMARK in their leased area. If Verizon balks then threaten them with the Public Service Commission. If they still balk then CALL the Public Service Commission. All LECS, CLECS, cable companies, etc are governed by this agency.

I had a customer that brought BellSouth to their knees this way a few years back when they were having problems with their phone lines. BS kept pointing at me even after I replaced all the phone equipment. After this went on for a couple of months and 2 calls to the PSC I had BS engineers calling me every other day. :bang: The problem turned to be an incompatibility between cards at the CO and POP. :db:

Yeah... I'm not 100% sure if the tenants have a verizon-labeled demarc or not as I haven't made arrangements with them to do a survey.

I would think that if Verizon is supposed to demarc at each tenant, then why the hell are 600-pair strung across the back of the building.

I'm going to go take some pictures of the whole mess and post 'em up here for a laugh.

Verizon in Tampa Bay is pretty crappy. I dont know how many times a pair would fail on a T1 circuit and they would swap the dead pair with one of my other T1's active pair's and the tech would tell me "Well you will have to call about the other T1, that's a new trouble ticket".

I am thinking that what I will do is call the owner of the property and give him a sanity check. In other words, a "It will be atleast $X to fix it, maybe more" and ask him if he is still interested in me giving him a written quote. I've been down this road before and have had the "It's going to cost $X just to run some wires" thrown at me.

I was just thinking of doing the cut-over after hours so that there is no potential disruption in their service.

Ok. Here's some of the lovely pictures.

150-Pairs of Demarc on one side of building
you can see that one of the covers has popped off the boxes again. The box on the lower left is just lightning arrestor's. That cloud of wires is what i'd like to replace with 6 25-pair cables.

The wiring hung across the back of the building
Basically if it stuck off the back of the building and had a ledge to it, it was used as a wire hangar. You have to duck to enter 2 of the offices.

Inside of the box with popped cover
I stand corrected, this box has two labeled pairs. Lord knows where they go tho. The inside of the cover has a myriad of ground-certification stickers. No details as to what is what tho.

A lone 50-pair Demarc at other end of Building
All those draped cables are ran over to this demarc, where it is all crammed into the box and cross-connected inside. You basically cant even see the binding posts when you open it. It's solid pairs.

So that's the mess i've been talking about. Think I can pin most of the cable clean-up on verizon? This is the largest clean-up i've done so please, treat me with kid gloves. Comments are welcome

Kumba:

Sorry, but what you are seeing is the industry norm, so you need to get used to it. A protected building entrance terminal and a point of demarcation ("demarc") are two different things. GTE (Verizon) is under no obligation to identify binding posts within their own terminals. That's proprietary information. You should also not be entering them. Doing so is about the same thing as cutting the seal from an electric meter.

A true demarcation point ("demarc") consists of a telco-installed "RJ" (Registered Jack), be it 11,14,21,25, etc. The only exception to this is if the protected entrance terminal has an integrated field of individual RJ11C test jacks. This is clearly not the case in your situation.

Aside from picture #2 where white cable ties are used outdoors, the rest is the norm. Sorry, but this is a fact of life in the phone business. VOIP isn't going to solve this situation. Anybody who really knows what they are doing wouldn't be intimidated by what is a standard situation, albeit messy.

I can't tell you how many times we receive calls from national chain stores requesting that we extend a new line from the outdoor "demarc" because the guys installing their Cisco equipment have no clue how to handle that part.

No offense, but perhaps you might be taking on a bit much with this project?

Your kidding right? The rest is norm? First of all NEC states all work should be done in a "neat and work like manner". Secondly, if all this cable has been run by telco there are some serious liabilities here. Ducking under telco feeds in order to enter the building is hardly normal. And if it was run by Verizon I would have their ass out there in a minute replacing every bit of it. However if this is house cable then Verizon has no obligation.

If you really want this clean up I suggest hiring a company that contracts for many of the larger bells in your neck of the woods. This is not a fly-by-night job.

I have to agree with Ed here..that is preaty much a normal site around here. Is it right...nope..Is Verizon going to fix it...Nope at least not without a lot of b^%&ing and wasted time. As long as they provide you a demark you can connect to, they feel they have done their job. As far as the hanging cable...that needs to be porperly supported..Now is that Verizon;s wiring or the Customers?

RustyNails:

I am sure that much of this cabling shown was not originally run by Verizon, or if it was, if falls under the unregulated part of their business as a utility. I agree with you on the NEC article 110 "neat and workmanlike" issue, but from what the age of the building appears to be (I'm guessing mid 70's), this was probably done before the NEC was actually applied to telephone cabling.

These cables aren't really considered "feeds"; they are extensions. I think that they fall into the "house cable" category, thus the responsibility of the customer or building owner. I have a hard time believing that this happened overnight though. White cable ties used outdoors, especially in the Florida sun will certainly fail quickly.

When in doubt, go to the source. Meeting verizon at the site to have them give me a ruling on it. All that cabling hanging down ends up inside the BET's.

Kumba:

Please keep us posted as to the outcome. Here's a few pics of a similar mess that Verizon (Bell Atlantic) made that I have circulated here before:

It's worth delaying any decision until you've had Verizon onsite. If you decide to accept this very in-depth project: Before touching anything, make sure you have a written copy in hand from Verizon of their entire response to this situation.

I can tell you what the decision will be. STAY OUT OF THE TERMINAL. You dont belong in them they are Verizon property. And FYI Verizon will do nothing to any existing copper. It's all about the FIOS.

Ok... here's the run-down from the Verizon guy who showed up. Still have to get in touch with engineering now to further my project.

The lines you see pictured hanging down over the entranceways are verizon's cabling. There is one 50-Pair BET at the south end of the building that has 2 25-pair cables ran from it to the 3 BET's at the north end of the building. From there it passes through the fourth Enclosure with the 5-pin lightning/surge arrestor's and then travels through 2 25-pair cables BACK to the single BET at the south end of the building.

Now, evidently at some point 3 more 25-pair cables were ran from the 3 BET's at the north end of the building to the lone BET terminal at the South End. Then inside this box it was all spliced and ran out of that box, back along the cable path, and into different parts of the building for Demarc.

That means in a BET designed for 50-pair of cable there is over 250 pair being terminated/spliced/crossed and otherwise molested.

The Cloud of wires below the 3 BET's at the north end is just the typical cross-connect garbage from box to box because the active pair wasn't in the correct box that had the pre-existing demarc extension.

So what I am getting is tomorrow (saturday) they are going to come back with the cabling crew to j-hook the wire up below the rain gutters every 4-feet and make it cleaner-looking. The guy who showed up said he wasn't properly equipped for the job.

They are also going to look at correcting the boxes so that covers will close and pull any unneccesary wire. This just means wire that's laying in there not connected to anything. I dont expect them to pull much, if anything.

Calling the engineer as we speak to see about doing something different with the demarc's and inside wiring. So it will be interesting to see how many ten's of thousands of dollars they want.

Atleast I can charge for not doing anything but making a few phone calls to verizon

Nice! Thanks for keeping us posted. We have a lot of members in the Verizon area of Florida, so it will be good to know how they actually address these issues in the future.

Oh, and yes, I am sure that this will be costly.

One of the advantages of small cities/ large towns is that you get to know all the installers, and even give 'em a hand occassionally. Makes for good relations and help back. More than once myself and 1 of the installers wound up on the same job and time to spare and really cleaned up/out the terminal and adjacent MDF. One job he needed to set an RJ21 and I wanted to set a 66 with arrestors right next to it. No room at all in one of the big lift out cover boxes that was 2 cells wide, in a bank. We spent 2 hours cleaning out the abandoned junk and generally straigtening out the mess. Once done we had 1 whole 'cell' empty. I believe it used to be that way 'before interconnects' when the 'phone company' cared and had inspectors that really did inspect. Now it's 'his fault, not mine', and the inspectors don't look unless they get a group of complaints that are about the same guy(s). I always told my guys, "if you have time, and can help, offer". But that was the last job, too many installers here, too big a metro area. John C.

Definately the case here... over a million people live in Pinellas County. So everyone is out to do just the minimum to get paid. Kind of sucks...

It looks like that area that's sagging down was maybe dropped that way during some remodel work. Doesn't it kind of look like that area was recently stuccoed?

I agree, it does look like the cabling was intentionally dropped below that stuccoed area.

Either that, or they had a few too many and were in the Christmas spirit.

The building was recently painted. But the stucco work isn't new. The reason the cabling appears to be hanging below the stucco area is because there are no pipes/lights/fixtures/etc to drap it over like there are on other parts of the building.

Also, there is way too much wire sagging off the wall for it to just have been pulled down from j-hooks for remodel. I'll have to take a follow-up picture of verizon's handywork once they are done.