atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Outside Plant OSP Construction Other lines on customer DMARC

Mike:

Now your question makes more sense. I thought you meant shared jacks on the same property. Now, when you mention cable multiples, that's a different story.

We actually were hired by the police department once to check a neighborhood for multiples on lines that were working at a house that was under surveillance for drug activity. They got a warrant to allow a third and independent party to check for appearances of their phone lines in other homes in the neighborhood. They knew the deals were being done over this phone number, but in order for it to hold up in court, they had to prove that this number ONLY worked at that particular address.

The warrant gave us (an interconnect) permission to enter telephone company-owned pedestals and cross-connect cabinets. I felt so powerful!

We inspected about 20 pedestals along several streets. The neighborhood was built in the 1970's using the "PIC or ready-access" concept where the same 200 pair cable looped through every pedestal. The installer simply picked a vacant pair at the cross-connect box and threw a tone on it. He then could grab this pair at any pedestal, splice on to it and voila. A second line for a customer.

The problem with this concept was that sometimes this pair might have been used at a different residence for a second line say ten years ago. The jack and inside wiring was still intact, still connected to that same cable pair. Many times, the "jack discovered behind the dresser" had dial tone on it, but it wasn't the right line.

Obviously, this PIC (or ready access) concept ended up being a bit of a disaster for the telcos. Most have gone to a fixed-count system, where pairs are dedicated from the cross-connect box to the terminal block in the pedestal. No more risk of multiples.

Oh, by the way, back to the CSI story. No, there were no multiples on the pairs feeding the house in question and yes, they had quite a drug operation going. We got paid $100.00 for our efforts (that was all they were authorized to spend while keeping it quiet). We didn't want any names getting out if you know what I mean. It was more of a fun thing.

Sorry to drift as usual, but back to your original question Mike. It is very common to have the same count in a cable appear in multiple locations. Telcos, especially in rural areas, don't have the luxury of providing dedicated pair counts to a building. A house on the side of highway 84 might be a shack that has only had one line for fifty years, but a renter comes in and orders 15 lines for a bookie operation. The telco isn't likely to trench in five miles of 25 pair to give them their lines. They will simply half-tap the emptiest binder in the 100 pair cable running down the road and place a 25 pair NID. The bookie gets his 12 lines, but rest assured, the other 13 NID positions have other peoples' lines on them. The bookie won't be there long, so the telco kept their plant investment to a minimum. This is a bit of an extreme in my example, but I hope it makes sense.

Multiple cable pair appearances have been around for decades. Telcos using computerized cable pair assignment programs might do a better job of keeping this to a minimum, but hey, it's all about money. A strip mall may have a requirement for a total of 25 lines, but they aren't going to make 25 available to every tenant. Those same 25 pairs run throughout the whole place and whoever needs the pairs gets them.

Everyone else just gets to listen!

Yea, Hal.

Thats what I am talking about.

You go into the customers wiring closet and there will be their lines then the lines of other people on their inside DMARC.

So your saying that should not happen?

Thanks,

If those lines are for another address, no they shouldn't be there on the demarc. If the telco located a terminal on the premises then there can be other lines on it.

Around here Verizon sometimes gets lazy and will not install an official demarc when their terminal is right there on the same wall.

-Hal

If there is a terminal in two buildings with the same dedicated or over lapping pair counts, at the rj21 there could be others numbers, but it should NOT leave the rj21. If the terminal is outside the building and the LEC is brings them into an inside demark a pair at a time (no dedicated count) than the answer is no as Hal and Ed said, the LEC should have removed them from the other locations prior to hooking up the new..again due to laziness a lot of times they don't.

Sorry Hal said the same thing you did.

Here in California, the Demarc is the Minimum Point of Entry (MPOE). If it is a building entrance terminal, it might be 25, 50 or 100 pairs, and there are going to be multiple appearances of other lines on them.

The SBS telco installer only has to tell you the binding post numbers that YOUR numbers are on, to complete HIS job. They trust that you won't connect to any others.

Verizon usually padlocks their terminals, and brings out the customer's numbers to a RJ-21 or a block that resembles the inside of an SNI, with the plug/jack disconnect and screw terminals.

Thanks fellows! :thumb:

The SBS telco installer only has to tell you the binding post numbers that YOUR numbers are on, to complete HIS job. They trust that you won't connect to any others.

I only wish Verizon had that policy. Certainly would cut down on the number of "locate and tag" requests when you can't locate a line in a closet or the Verizon installer forgets to identify it and there is no demarc.

Verizon usually padlocks their terminals, and brings out the customer's numbers to a RJ-21 or a block that resembles the inside of an SNI, with the plug/jack disconnect and screw terminals.

Naah, no padlocks around here unless someone pisses them off. Most of the stuff is either too old or not designed to be secured anyway. At most they will wrap a big lashing tie around it.

I hate those demarcs with the binding posts. They are designed for homeowners or DIY's, not someone who actually has to connect wiring to them for a living. Fortunately they are no bigger than 5 or 6 lines around here.

-Hal

Amen, Hal. Around here in the former GTE territories, there are actually walls of 100 Pair Siecor/Corning NIDS with every single stinkin' pair on an RJ11 test jack with screw terminals. You almost have to add another hour to the job because of course, your first three lines are on pairs 906, 925 and 971 in the first NID, your next one is on 844 in the second, and so on. By the time you get all 24 lines traced and connected, you've blown half a day!

Nobody locks them around here. And Bell very rarely tags or labels anything.

That's because they can get paid to go back again to mark it. The customer didn't request that the NID be marked when they placed the ohdah.

That's "order" to the professionals here.