atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Is a new apartment building legally required to have phone wiring?

Topic sums it up. I am working with a developer who is building a new student apartment complex. He currently manages several other student apartments in town. In the existing buildings resident landline usage is very low – one building has less than 10 lines for over 600 residents, one building has no active landlines for approx 200 residents. It seems most students are content with their cell phones or possibly the VOIP offering from the Internet service provider.

Now for the new building, the question on the table is whether it is worth it to wire phone jacks in addition to the CATV/data jacks in each room.

First question: Does the owner have any legal requirements to wire the units for analog phone service? In other words, does a resident of an apartment have a legal right to phone service specifically from the local phone company (AT&T)? Maybe for 911 service? ADA requirements?

BTW, the building itself will have Bell lines for elevator phone and fire alarms, per city code. Plus a phone line for the pedestrian entry gates.

Now the second question: If there is no legal requirement for phone lines, what reasons can anyone offer up for putting them in anyway? Current usage is fairly dismal and so far everything that I have come up with has been shot down.

The pedestrian gates on existing buildings work fine with cell phones, so we don’t need phones for that. AT&T DSL or U-Verse IPTV isn’t compelling, as every resident gets free Internet and CATV anyway.

Anyway I would like to hear any thoughts on the subject.

If this were my building, I'd have the wiring installed now, before the walls are closed.

Eventually, someone is going to want a REAL phone line for whatever reason, and I believe at that point the owner cannot stop him. Therefore, if the wiring in non-existant, the local Telco will running the wiring on the surface. After awhile you're going to have one heck of a mess.

My word of advice....DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME

To my knowledge stupidity has no legal requirements.

While the group you're serving is tethered to their cell phones, with internet supplied, who's to say that will always be? If your pulling in CATV and data you're already paying for the labor the cost of adding phone cabling is minimal. I think a bit of logic comes to play here.

I couldn't agree more. Remember how everything was going wireless in the 80's, even desktop phones? Remember how quickly that idea fizzled out? Remember the first two roll outs of VOIP and how miserably they failed? Just because today's fad is cell phones, who is to say that's going to last forever?

One of the proposed changes in the 2008 National Electrical Code was to require at least one wired telephone outlet in all new residential construction. Unfortunately, that idea was rejected. With that being said, I don't see the NEC as having any authority on this. I would think that it would all revolve around local codes if anything.

I am sure it would vary from state to state but I am not aware that even electricity is legally mandated. As far as I know the only thing absolutely required for human occupation is the usual building codes for what you choose to put in and a mandated functioning sewer system. In California that is 1 toilet per 10 people. Pretty loose standard. You could build a whole complex off the grid if you wanted to. Coveniences like water and power sure make it more attractive to tenants, though.

But not installing phone wiring is a huge mistake. Going to cost the owner a lot of money to retro domestic construction with TELCO. Dirt cheap relative to the cost of the whole project when done during initial construction. Cheaper than anything else in the whole project to be sure.

This kind of budget cutting is for fools.

I think here in California the CPUC mandates that it is the landlords responsibility to provide 1 working phone jack. If there were no IW to begin with, it might get expensive to have it done when the time comes; if the landlord is ever called on it.

I assume that there is a licensed architect or "design professional" involved? Has that person presented any electrical drawings to the owner/developer/GC? Are the low-voltage outlets that are specifically for telephone called out on the "E" drawings? I doubt any architect, regardless of his/her age or opinion of landlines would risk designing a building with no landline capability.

I can see the headlines now:

Entire cell system taken down by hackers.

Those with landlines continue to make emergency medical and fire calls for their neighbors.

Next-of-kin plan class-action lawsuit against landlord, builder, electrician, city.

Sounds like this is being designed by the Millenium Generation for the Millenium Generation. They can't remember the past because they haven't any yet.

At any rate I certainly remember 911 when the entire cell system went down for a long time. A tornado came through here a few years ago and it went down again. Lesson to be learned is that the reliability is not there in times of emergency.

-Hal

Thanks to all of you for your replies. Just for the record, this building is still in the planning stage and this was just a budgeting conversation. Still eliminating a bad idea is best done early in the process! I am posting an except below of my summary of the issue.

Thanks again to all of you for your feedback.

Nicely worded.

Has there been any discussion about providing optical fibers to each apartment?