Does anyone know the nec code regarding p-89 cable? I recall it can't run more than 10 feet exposed inside a building. More than that it needs to be in a conduit. I can't seem to find the code regarding it though. False
memory? Thanks.

Look in NEC Art 800. OSP cable no more than 50 feet.

-Hal

800.48

Any PE cable is treated the same (PE-22, PE-39, PE-86, PE-89, you name it). Polyethylene Jacketed cable was never intended for indoor installations, as in for outside plant construction only. I'm surprised that the fifty foot rule even applies because that stuff burns like a match when exposed to flame. Yes, it must be contained within metallic conduit when run indoors for more than fifty feet.

The 50' limitation wasn't ever intended to permit these cables to be run within ceilings and walls in buildings. It was more of an allowance when bringing OSP cables into vaults or frames within buildings where they just needed that much room in huge installations, such as in central offices or large buildings where one sheet of plywood wasn't even close to cutting it for the terminations of tens of thousands of pairs.

If it was my decision to make, I'd limit it to five feet indoors, which is typical for unprotected electrical service entrance conductors.

We used to bring Outdoor fiber into a building in PVC pipe. Nearby, we'd mount a LARGE (usually 4'x4'x4') steel junction box. I used to keep a slew of PVC to steel adapters (Connectors and couplings) and we'd bring the PVC pipe into the JB. We'd splice the OSP cable onto an indoor cable and then (usually) pipe it out to the customers location.

In Verizon's cable vaults, well.....it depended on who the CO Engineer was for that building.


Sam

Would this CO meet 5ft rule?

Did a lot of splicing in vaults. Anybody know what the large bulges to the left of the splice cases are?

Yes, but I don't want to spoil it for everyone else.

I almost said anyone but Ed. Sam and Arthur probably know too.

I wasn't a splicer but are they dams?

Wasn't as tough as I thought it would be, yes pressure dams.

I believe that the NEC rules do not apply to utilities on their on property.

Yes, they are air dams, or plugs. They are created either at the factory or in the field (not a pleasant task).

Thanks for the responses. Another contractor pulled it in. There's conduit to get to the other side of the room for it but they just ran the perimeter of the room. It's not secure terminated on a 66-block when all the previous cables are on 110 blocks for organization and space. In general just crap work. I'm pushing them to get it rerouted and terminate.

Thanks again,

It's all the icky-pic accumulating and getting ready to explode !

Exactly so. NY Tel used to do some of their own electrical work (mostly receptacles to racks) and it was a disaster. Nobody licensed, nothing filed, NOTHING to code. A fire waiting to happen.

Sam

On the other hand, I worked for a while in a gang that installed line voltage circuits in CO's in Manhattan, and we were very meticulous about doing picture-perfect work. Our foreman appreciated the fact that neat and code-compliant work required sufficient time to perform. His favorite expression was "When it's finished, it should look like it grew there."

Where is the protection? Any time I ever saw something like that the OSP cables were spliced to stubs going to BEP terminals. From there there was a wall full of 66 blocks to cross connect to the building risers. Not directly spliced like that.

-Hal

The way it should be.

Sam

Hal, when we did large jobs that require this we used CO protection and fuses to terminate the stubs. Look exactly like a CO frame.

LOL...if you guys want a good laugh, just come to Pittsburgh and check out how Bell Telephone used PE cable to run to any floor in a building. Some buildings have thousands of feet of it in ceilings, wiring closets and walls. It was the "soup du jour" of the techs tasked with delivering circuits to the tall buildings in the city.

Our COs, however, were pristine. The electrical work was all done by Local 5 electricians and the CO wiring was perfect. In the early 60s, Bell Telephone made several instructional movies to show other BOCs how to do it correctly. Of course, now...things have changed.

Rcaman

Yes, I've seen that too with wire wrap terminations.

-Hal

Standard procedure for running cables was to have a slot in the floor of the telephone closet and run the polyethylene cables from floor to floor. I believe what changed this was the major fire in 1975 at The World Trade Center in New York City. A fire started at night on one of the floors and spread to the closet and ignited the cables. Cables burned from the 9th to the 19th floors causing over $2 million in damages. Alarms were delayed because the Trade Center did not have to comply with NYC building codes. There were no sprinklers and smoke detectors only in the air conditioning ducts,which did not activate because the ac was shut down for the night. I' m sure Arthur and Sam remember this fire.

I thought that the 1975 fire occurred within an NYT CO, not the World Trade Center.

Hal, if you're referring to the picture, that's just the vault to contain the splices that transition from PE cables to 100 pair, 26 gauge stub cables from the BETs that are located upstairs.

Frame-type protectors (303 type, for example) can be ordered with stub cables up to 300 feet long for use in larger central offices.

That was another fire at the Second Avenue NYT exchange building.Thought to have started in the basement cable vault. At $70 million ,one of the largest fire losses in the USA up to that time.

Two fires - one at the WTC and one at the 2nd Avenue CO. The second one caused the big push for plenum wiring.

Sam

"I' m sure Arthur and Sam remember this fire."

Ummm...I wasn't there...I was on vacation...I was sleeping...I was out sick...I was never near the place...I was visiting a sick friend...my Mom needed me to do an errand...I don't even know how to start a fire...I'm afraid of matches...it was somebody else...I had to take my dog to the vet...

The 2nd Ave CO fire did so much damage and caused so many outages, the telephone company actually installed panel CO offices to help cope with the outages. #5 Xbar was king and ESS was quickly coming, however, neither was available in quantity so they resurrected some panel offices and installed them. I was there to see the "Monkey climb the pole." Talk about an amazing mechanical switching machine. I learned, very quickly, WHY jump suits were required.

Rcaman

That's the one that I remember. I lived in NJ at the time and I remember that even calling within my own CO in Westwood was severely hampered. I think I heard that they determined the cause of that fire to have been a cable maintenance technician performing a breakdown test on a faulty cable pair without clearing the ends first. I may be wrong, but that would make sense.

2nd Ave AT&T documentary

Unless there's another Jimmie Slemp in the world, a tech on headset is calling on the orderwire to my uncle in a manhole at 19:36 into the video. His sister remembers him heading to NY in the 70's from the Omaha Works. He passed a few months before I discovered this video, so I can't ask him about it.

So sad to watch the work done in this video, and compare it to the response by Verizon to Sandy.

Make me wonder if that fire happened today would they be able to have the same response. I seriously doubt it.

I think it was literally years until all service was restored after 911.

-Hal

I have friends who have an electronics store in Tribeca (the neighborhood just north of the WTC). Verizon gave them Cell phones and CFD their LDNs to the cell phones.

For several years.

Sam