I think you'd be very surprised if you walked into the central offices of MANY of the large LECs.
The majority of the wire frames are gone, replaced with fiber, even where the service is delivered as copper to the end user, it's usually served from something fiber fed much closer to the end user.
I can tell you that one MAJOR LEC has a major push going on to retire ALL copper.
Shane
Its not ancient. While cooper based products are slowly fading they still matter. Im using 66 blocks to accommodate gauge/voltage for dial tone in all facilities. Lots of OOB still happens via copper dial tone or DSL. Show me one LEC that has torn down their wire frame?
We bought new. Im seeing this product on the intertubes new at $18 per block. We didn’t mount distribution from LEC in rack. Instead we placed the standard 5/8’s plywood backboard and mounted there. We transition to a 110 block in a rack over ladder tray via ABAM cable to deliver to the back of a 110 block and patch from front. Not perfect, but cost effective, easy to manage and simple. It works.
Warm regards,
-M<
I know I'm discussing what some consider ancient technology. I counter that it meets or exceeds the needs of many, many people.
Currently, we use 100-pr Telect-style termination blocks. They don't offer much in terms of ease of use for testing and don't organize well on a 19" or 23" rack.
I was recommended to look at Krone blocks. They look just great. Easy to break into for testing with their "look both ways" plug as well as their preterminated blocks looked much easier to rack-mount.
Well, Krone was bought by ADC. ADC was bought by Tyco Electronics. TE was bought by Commscope. Commscope discontinued everything I found interesting with no replacements.
Some of the stuff is on eBay (even NIB), some not.
Any recommendations for places to get old telco blocks, testers, mounts, etc.?
Any recommendations for alternatives that are easier to source?
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Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions
http://www.ics-il.com
Midwest-IX
http://www.midwest-ix.com