I was working at a Macy's store today that is undergoing renovations. They have sold off the fifth floor which originally contained Verizon's underground facilities and their PBX room. Yeah, that is a bit of an odd setup, but that's how it was.

Verizon brought in fiber and installed a rack with all kinds of power and electronic equipment on it. The customer had ordered one DS3 which came in over the fiber. Another DS3 was used to feed a rack of Adtran cards that are presumably there for various other DS1 circuits, etc. None were live.

They also brought in a brand-new 100 pair copper cable from the manhole out in the street. Ironically, about 15 of the pairs were being used for POTS lines.

I saw a similar situation last week where they brought in a brand-new 600 pair copper feed cable for a six-story office building. Of course, this was in addition to the usual racks of fiber stuff.

It doesn't appear that copper is dead in these parts as Verizon seems to be more than willing to bring it in on new installations just like the good old days. The only thing that I can't get my head around is those damned Krone blocks that they've started using.

Ed Vaughn, MBSWWYPBX