atcomsystems.ca/forum
Posted By: Arthur P. Bloom Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/03/16 10:18 PM
A former VZ subscriber asked me to intervene with our famous internet voice company. The customer has a house on the beach about 400 feet from the street, and that house is fed with a buried 6-pair from a pole. He is an artist and has a 100' by 40' barn on the same property which he uses as a studio, also fed by a buried 6-pair cable from the same pole. Our illustrious cable company came out and put a modem in each building, and told him that he couldn't have the same telephone number in both buildings, because "It would cost a fortune to bury a new line from the house to the studio."

I back-fed the dial tone from the main house modem to the pole, bridged the 1st pair from each building at the abandoned VZ terminal, and "voila" the dial tone magically appeared on the NID at the studio. It took all of 10 minutes' labor, 2 Scotchloks, and approximately zero feet of cable to accomplish what the expert said would be so difficult as to be not cost-effective.

Sometimes we get to use our amazing powers for Good rather than Evil...bwahahahahaha.
Posted By: 1864 Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/04/16 04:44 AM
Good Thing you got involved.
Posted By: EV607797 Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/04/16 03:15 PM
Sadly, people often take the word of the service provider's "technician" as the gospel. They don't even think to get a second opinion. I shudder to think of all of these applications that exist out there for this reason, not to mention all of the missed work opportunities for us.
Posted By: Arthur P. Bloom Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/04/16 11:27 PM
Ed, you have said it better than I could have.
Posted By: Silversam Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/05/16 01:45 PM
Good job, Arthur!

Sam
Posted By: skip555 Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/05/16 02:38 PM
Quote
I back-fed the dial tone from the main house modem to the pole, bridged the 1st pair from each building at the abandoned VZ terminal, and "voila" the dial tone magically appeared on the NID at the studio. It took all of 10 minutes' labor, 2 Scotchloks, and approximately zero feet of cable to accomplish what the expert said would be so difficult as to be not cost-effective.

so simple for a real phone man ..good job
Posted By: pingable Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/09/16 03:42 PM
Even though Verizon is ~abadoning~ their copper facilities, is it legal to bridge into that block
Posted By: Arthur P. Bloom Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/09/16 06:30 PM
"Even though Verizon is ~abadoning~ their copper facilities, is it legal to bridge into that block..." Is that a question, or a question fragment?

Why is there always a jail-house lawyer in the crowd?

Of course it's "legal" to use abandoned LEC facilities that exist on private property. In this case the two buried service wires were the property of the home owner in the first place. Once they are buried, they become the property of the land owner.

Can you supply any logical reason why that would not be the case? Can you think of any possible scenario where the "Phone Police" (if they still exist) would detect such an arrangement, create a case, drive from Brooklyn NY to 11964, mount surveillance, sneak up to the terminal, ANA the number, dust for fingerprints, and ask the DA to convene a Grand Jury?

Neither can I.

I didn't "bridge into that block." If you read my message carefully, I said that I bridged the first pair of both cables **IN** the terminal block, using two Scotchloks. The terminal block in question, Your Honor, was installed on a pole on private property, for the sole use of the property owner. Once it was installed on private property, and then once VZ abandoned it, I can think of no reason to believe that they might want it back, considering how many earwigs were living in it at the time of my visit.
Posted By: Silversam Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/09/16 10:12 PM
You go, Arthur!

Sam
Posted By: Rcaman Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/09/16 10:35 PM
LOL..."Phone Police."

The Communications Act of 1996 following the Carterfhone Decision of 1968 made ownership of existing non demarced cable in a gray area. Because of the provisions in the "Unbundling of services" portion of the Communications Act of 1996, most all Verizon and most incumbent LECs released ownership of the cable embedded in the customer's building or on the customer's property with some specific exceptions such as payphone service and radio transmission feeds, just to mention two. Part of this is found in CS Docket No. 97-151.

The big reason is that Verizon knew it had to justify ROR on ALL the cable they claimed as being "serviced" by them and this was a huge chunk of that cable plant that WASN'T being serviced and had not been serviced for some time, yet was still being calculated as eligible for ROR rating. The bottom line, before the bean counters from Justice started to figure out Verizon's little dirty secret, they "abandoned" ownership of in house and on premise cable, again, with a few exceptions.

Rcaman
Posted By: EV607797 Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/11/16 01:12 AM
While I believe that this is true, I recently encountered a situation where a customer (a golf course) had a new 25 pair feed cable buried to a canteen at the 19th hole. The prior technician stole a pair from Verizon's original five pair drop and back fed an extension to another five pair drop that went out to a courtesy phone further out on the course. They opened up Verizon's pedestal and Scotchloked the first pair of each drop together to complete the circuit. At some point, the second drop got cut and someone who didn't know any better called VZ to fix it.

When they discovered 'foreign' dial tone on the cable, they refused to fix it and threatened to charge the customer for OPX services via their facilities. They cut the drop at both ends at ground level (sabotaged) and insisted that the customer provide their own cable between the building and the courtesy phone, which is why we were brought in.

We used to encounter these situations when installing COCOTs (pay phones) using existing Bell Atlantic wiring. When they removed their phones, they would often cut their cables off flush in the conduits and pour sealant into them to render them useless. It was so ridiculous. If they couldn't make money on a property, they went out of their way to ensure that nobody else would be able to do so either. This was especially prevalent in major cities with a strong union presence. I don't think that it was necessarily company policy though because many of our new installations were sabotaged by people who obviously had the necessary security tools to enter the pedestals. In one instance in Baltimore, they went as far as to remove the nuts from our new anchor bolts so that the pedestal was unsecured. It tipped over, injured a child's toes and our insurance company ended up paying out a huge settlement for our supposed 'negligence'.
Posted By: gelehu Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/11/16 02:43 PM
I remember at Univ. of Tenn. after we refused to pay ransom for So. Bells station cable, they said they would cut all their old station cable flush with the conduit. Also wanted $.50 a duct foot rent on their outside plant conduit( which I dont think they even owned). UT responded that they would charge So. Bell for occupying their duct space after we rewired everything. Strangely, we didnt hear anymore about it after that.
Posted By: EV607797 Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/11/16 06:13 PM
They did something similar with one of our customers in Maryland in the late 80s. They said if the customer didn't pay for all of the inside wiring (some ridiculous amount), they would remove it.

All they did was cut the 900 pair riser cable flush at the conduit and left everything else in place. What a waste to destroy a cable of that size for no other reason than to get even with the 'competition'.
Posted By: Rcaman Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/11/16 09:24 PM
Ed,

The fact that there were Verizon pedestals makes for a sticky situation. Technically, if they still have working pairs in their pedestals, then just opening the pedestals is considered vandalism by Verizon Security. If there were no working pairs, then the golf course would have to formally notify Verizon that they were considering the pedestals as abandoned. If they respond, then they will probably ask for payment. If they don't respond, then there is deliberate legal action that must be taken to insure there is no "blow back" from Verizon.

In 1974, I installed a 400 line crossbar PBX in a Howard Johnson's motel in Pittsburgh. The motel management bought the riser cable (600 pair PIC) from the then Bell Telephone. The cable was terminated, in the basement, on a 600 pair solder protector frame. The old PBX was a stepper.

On the night of cutover, the Bell Telephone foreman walked in the phone room with a big H.K. Porter ratchet cable cutter and whacked that cable right at the conduit and then walked away.

That left zero telephone service to all the guest rooms.

I knew there was a pulling loop hidden in a corner of the basement in a pull box, so I pulled that stub out enough to splice enough pairs to get the rooms going again by 5 AM....that's when wake-up calls were made....manually.

From that time on, I NEVER trusted ANY operating company to leave working pairs.

Rcaman
Posted By: EV607797 Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/12/16 12:08 AM
Originally Posted by Rcaman
Ed,

The fact that there were Verizon pedestals makes for a sticky situation. Technically, if they still have working pairs in their pedestals, then just opening the pedestals is considered vandalism by Verizon Security. If there were no working pairs, then the golf course would have to formally notify Verizon that they were considering the pedestals as abandoned. If they respond, then they will probably ask for payment. If they don't respond, then there is deliberate legal action that must be taken to insure there is no "blow back" from Verizon.

We just took on this customer, in fact, this was our second service call at the site. Whatever was done with the old drops was long before we got there. The pedestal is at the dead end of a 25 pair leg with nothing else working on it, but I agree that since it ties back into an aerial distribution cable down the road, it is still theirs. We were hired to come in and clean up these 'situations' that exist all over the property.
Posted By: Rcaman Re: Sometimes you CAN win. - 04/12/16 09:11 PM
We had a similar situation with a country club here. For whatever reason, Bell Telephone peppered the entire property with pedestals and 12 and 25 pair PIC. All the cables terminated in a "hut" off property in a right of way.

The management had purchased a key system from a "snake oil salesman" who was also a member. It was a Toshiba and this guy's company just installed the telephone sets in all the outbuildings using Bell's cables.

This story could be pages and pages, however, for brevity's sake, I'll get to the middle. Bell's legal beagles sent the country club a letter stating that the Bell Telephone equipment was illegally opened and connections made and there would be an immediate disconnect of all Bell Telephone services as well as a hefty "usage" bill. Further, Bell Telephone would seek punitive damages as well.

This case was watched, very closely, by all the "interconnects" at the time. The case went to court and the cocky owner of the interconnect decided he didn't need representation and acted as his own counsel.

The judge agreed with Bell Telephone and the country club ended up paying $117,500 to Bell Telephone.

Fast forward 20 years and the pedestals were still there and the country club wanted to make some changes, build some buildings, etc. and those cables and pedestals were in the way. We were called and, knowing the history, I immediately called our attorney and the Public Utility Commission. After several phone calls and legal papers, Verizon relinquished all ownership of the cables and pedestals, even though there were working pairs in them.

You see, since Bell Telephone did what they did earlier, they were on the hook for relocation and maintenance of the equipment. Verizon took the easy way out and abandoned all of it.

Rcaman
© Sundance Phone System Forums - VOIP & Cloud Phone Help