Reading this thread got me to thinking about dealing with the local LEC who recently changed their name from one word to two.

Lots of their techs seem to be contractors who may or may not drive a vehicle with the company logo. For whatever that is worth.

Our POP or telephone room as we call it was designed to serve our facility with one or two 100 pair cables. I have never actually counted the 66 blocks. Later fiber was installed and a cabinet on wheels of what I believe to be multiplex equipment. From there is seems to have evolved that the cables are used for loops to the neighborhood. These 66 blocks are a mess and have many cross connects that likely have been dead for years, most not connected to any of the premises wiring. We have tried to keep our part of the wiring neat and to remove unused cross connects that terminat on our premises cables. You get the picture, typical LEC facility. They have a "right of way" or "right of use". Building owner doesn't touch it.

Back to the war story. A very young tech came to troubleshoot a circuit problem. Not a LEC company vehicle but he had a LEC ID. I let him in to the room as per access agreement and when he looked at the demarks he said something like "my goodness". I replied something like "yeah and this section all belongs to your company". He actually had a record that told him what pair he was looking for and quickly found a bad card in one of the old tellabs shelves. He didn't have one so called his support people and after a long wait found a tech who had one on his truck. This tech arrived in a logo'd vehicle, came in and started lecturing about customer premise wiring. I got a little (maybe a lot) pissed and informed him the wiring belonged to his company. He switched subjects and proceded to lecture us on how it could never work as all the cross connect wiring was not data wire. He pointed out all the shelves where the NIUs are for T1s and said never touch them. He said the data coming in was high speed and typical cross conect wire wouldn't work. I asked him what we should replace it with. He said something like high speed, not a LAN connection. In the mean time the young tech replaced the card and got his circuit working and began to pack up to leave. Not to be deterred from the old tech comments I asked him if I could remove all the messy stuff as he believed it was mine. The young tech said no, it is not CPE wiring. The old tech said call customer service and left.

I went outside and had a smoke while young tech packed up and made his calls. He then conversed with me for a few minutes about what I knew about the wiring in the room. I pointed out what was ours and explained again that what used to be for incoming now went out from the fiber interface. I yuck-yucked a bit about removing all the mess old tech said was mine, assured young tech I would not and he left.

It is still a rats nest. Young tech did good tracing the wiring and fixing his trouble call and has a great future. Old tech, I hope he retires soon.