atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring I thought I had heard it all

I've been helping do some office remodeling and the new tenant moved in today. I was talking to their CG about the T1 they had installed and he told me the horror story of dealing with AT&T:

The building is served from a fiber RT in the garage. I guess at some point they ran out of OSP copper to feed the building, so 25 pair cables go out of this unit, feed into the basement phone room, and then are distributed through the original house cable to each floor closet. A few years back, a tenant needed more connectivity so they had a DS3 installed. A backboard was installed next to the RT cabinet, fiber connected to the DS3 equipment, and also a 28 circuit smartjack was installed. This cabinet was empty until today. Every other tenant has either had the smartjack in their own suite or the floor closets.
I was told that the at&t tech refused to extend the T1 circuit any further than this board, because "building management did not install a 3 inch conduit from the garage to the phone room". The owner of the building was never asked or told to install this conduit, and the coax for the DS3 runs through the ceiling all the way to the 2nd floor. The smartjack and DS3 stuff/RT is right in front of the phone room! 50 feet at the most to run a wire before it hits the rest of their cabling. End of story, the CG ran a cable from the smartjack into the phone room and through the house cable into the suite.
All I could do is shake my head.

Here's a new acronym to look up SMH https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=smh

Pssh, I knew that one already LOL

Since the wire run goes from the garage to the phone room, I would assume that it passes through a fire wall. I don't work for AT&T so I can't say what their policies are, but a few years back we were given an M&P that basically said the customer has to provide a "path" if the wire passes through a fire wall. A path could be a sleeve or solid conduit. I can't remember a time that I have ever had to have a customer provide a path for a copper run (fiber is another story), but the internal paperwork is there if it ever comes to it.

Now if I were the AT&T installer, I would have ran 2 32 pair cables from the output of the sj shelf, into the phone room and terminated them on Krone blocks (no more 66 blocks here). Makes the job so much easier for the next installer... just have to run an x-conn to the house cable to extend the ckt. None of that making spaghetti by running 4 pair for each ckt.

I think the guy was just lazy. If there is conduit running from A to B, he would have to do less work. He even told them 'it is illegal to put the smartjack in the customer's suite'...yet there was one in this office already lol

Yes, it would absolutely make sense to do what you suggested...but why would anyone want to make it easier for their fellow man? It's everyone for themselves!

Ed, Sam, Hal...I am waiting for you to chime in here!

Whenever I come across this situation, I tell ATT to go ahead and install it in the closet. The minute they leave, I unlock it and re-locate into the client's suite.

I would say it's time to renegotiate the co-location agreement!

No need to Jeff, you've covered it all.

The guy was lazy. Period. If there was a conduit there he would have insisted on a pull rope. If there was a pull rope he would have said he couldn't pull the cable without help. If.....

Just lazy.

Keep doing what you're doing.


Sam

Yay acronyms!

AT&T: All That & Then some.

Back in 2006 when they were considering a merge with NCR, it was C.R.A.P. (cash registers and phones).

Of course everybody knows that AVAYA stands for Apply Vasoline Around Your *$$h0le!