atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Outside Plant OSP Construction Phone line to new home?

Hello,


I recently bought land and had a home built on it. I called my Phone company to get phone and DSL put out there. They sent a tech and he told me this property had no line on it and that I would need to do it myself or hire someone to install a line to the house. They apparently don't do it. It is about 700 ft from the house to the box on the street. My question is how do I go about doing this? Can I run just a regulaur phone line underground to the junction box/local loop from the house, leaving the two ends sticking out of of the ground for the tech, one by the box the other by where they would install my NID?
Also I have called the local office and 800 number for info on what I need to do but no one can seem to give me any info.

If I can do this myself it will save a bunch of money FOR my car insurance.

Thank you for your time.

-Daniel

You might want to check with the Public Utilities Commission. In most areas, the LEC is required to provide service to any proper address when service is requested. In this area, the only exception to this rule is if it is temporary service, like with a construction trailer. In those instances, they will only place their NID on a customer-provided pole at the corner of the property.

Ed pretty well covered it for most places....but the state will be the final say!

If the answer is "unusual construction"....check with a local electrical supply house...they should have the correct underground telephone cabling for your area. Check with your local inspector for depth requirements.

Good luck....

I found this page:
https://www.azcc.gov/divisions/utilities/telecom/rules.asp

I dont see anything under regulated companies with Qwest (My phone company).

Thank you. I appreciate your help.

It's been years since the telephone company ran buried wires on private property in NY State. Usually, the electrical contractor who installs your buried 220 Volt service will also bury a coax for TV/internet and a 6-pair 22-gauge filled (waterproof gel inside) telephone wire, in the same trench. That's a standard method in New York.

Since you are the first owner, you would know better than us whether those wires were installed. For an electrical contractor NOT to have put them in would be very unusual (and silly). I would call the original electrician back and ask him what he installed. What was spec'd by the architect or general contractor? Didn't they realize you might want to call someone while you were watching the Super Bowl?

At a distance of 700 feet, your house is at the limits, generally, for 220 Volt buried service, and you may have a 13,200 Volt step-down transformer near your house. In that case, all bets are off, as the EC might have only run 220 V wires to that transformer, and a primary to the street. In that case, there will be hardly a chance that any low-voltage services were run, unless someone in charge of the construction knew what they were doing and didn't cheat you.

Do you have TV service in the house? There's always Vonage® telephone service until you get the answers.

In New York State, since the LEC is in bed with the PSC, Verizon claims that they will not/cannot/aren't allowed to/aren't obligated to do any buried work on private property.

If you yell loudly enough, you may get results, but I'd check with the EC first. To trench a wire in this state, it would cost about two bucks a foot, plus the wire. Watch out, if you decide to do it, that you don't hit the electric wires.

Slightly different here in Manitoba regarding who does what.

The electricial utility and not the E/C is currently reponsable to run all the lines(incl. tel and cable) to the foundation wall in a common trench if new residential construction.

They are usually coiled in a flat plywood case at the lot line during utility rough in of the development as the foundations are not in yet.

A different crew digs the box up and trenches to the foundation wall once the house is ready for the utility stub up.

Our telco (MTS) even does repairs up to the interface of u/g lines.

On that link you provided under section R14-2-506. Construction Agreements I see this;

2. Upon request by an applicant for service, the utility shall provide, without charge, a preliminary sketch and rough estimates of the cost of installation to be paid by said applicant

Interesting...out here both at&t and the cable company run the lines from their pedestals and bury them to the house.

Ok, so after running to Home Depot, Lowes and multiple electric stores I am being told multiple times that my phone company (Qwest) is supposed to provide the Line. After about my 6th call to customer service and being told I had to do everything myself I finally talked to someone who agreed with me and gave me the direct number to there engineering dept. So sadly it is the weekend and I need to wait until Monday. For now me and my friend are still shoveling out another 450 more feet of trench. Dam in Arizona is it hot.
I will keep you posted as to what happens next.

For 450+ feet plus of digging in the hot sun I would rent a gas trencher for the half day rate from Home Depot or United Rentals. Beats sunstroke etc.

And I hope after all that hard work you and your friend are doing you don't find out on Monday that Quest includes trenching as part of their install price. Our local telco includes using a trencher in their flat rate.

And the answers to my questions still remain unanswered:

(The most important) Why didn't the (choose one) architect/builder/electrical contractor/building inspector know enough about his job to have specified/ordered/buried/checked for the proper wires in the first place? Is it possible that they had never seen a house without TV's or telephones?

Let's see, the last two houses I built, I coordinated a JUT with the cable, electric and telephone company. Not exactly rocket science.

Arthur, I was driving around a subdivision that started about 3 years ago about a 5 minute drive east of me today just to see how it was coming, and was surprised to see occupied houses from the first build out 3 years ago with the telephone and cable still coiled on the wall above the u/g stub out.

I guess these people must be of the generation that is using cell service for both their telephone and internet providers and satellite for TV.

This reminds me: Years ago I had a customer move into a nice new manufacturing facility where they could better serve their customers and to quote their Web Page:

"Dedicated plastics & metal machining, quality and affordability has placed [insert company name here] as the highest volume pallet manufacturer in the USA since 1989."

When I went to install their new telephone system and I looked and looked for the D-Mark. I walked around the building and observed that the area had overhead utilities...but only electrical feeding from the utility pole to the building...

Apparently the GC "forgot" to notify someone.

Just a side note: If you happen to be a Veteran, you get a 10% discount at both Home Depot and Lowes.

Hey Dean, how about my customer who said 'take out everything' when I they were remodeling their office...he pointed to the telco splice box and demark too...I had to tell him I couldn't cut it

Jeff: I am working on a remodel site [should have taken a picture for Ugly Cabling] where the demolishing team did just that, all cables CUT & REMOVED...even the riser cable (third floor of nine). :confused:

There is about eight feet of 4-25pr PVC riser available and I am going to have to terminate the cable on a 66-block and run 6 IW's to the backboard. The area is being totally enclosed and no further access will be available.

NOTE: the 25 pr cables terminate on a 100 pr 110 block the floor below...above the ceiling grid...which has about 6" of space. :confused:

The suite is all open, exposed and concrete and they want it to look nice. :scratch:

If you do end up placing your own buried drop, please put it in a conduit, will cost a few dollars more, but save you major headaches by avoiding cut drop wires when planting trees, etc.