The Valuation of a Disconnect During the 1968-1971 time frame, the new line installations at New York Telephone Company [now Verizon] all but came to a grinding halt in its busiest commercial districts of New York City. No, not because of labor actions or a strike (although a strike actually did ensue late during this period, as described in a moment), but because some genius at headquarters came to a startling realization that there was no money to be made in disconnects. A disconnect, for clarity, is an order to remove a line, or to remove portions of a line that were rearranged or upgraded. Consequently, the main distribution frames within central offices (some of which were L-shaped and a city block and a half long) became swamped with copper wires to the point that technicians could no longer find the termination blocks on which "soldering lugs" were located to affix new circuits, for the mountain of singles, pairs, triplets and quads that had accumulated and literally buried several of the larger frames. Fortunately for the telco, the union did eventually strike in 1971, but for better pay and working conditions and obviously not due to reasons sated above, although the strike nevertheless allowed the telco's management to call in legions of management staffers from the other 22 Affiliated Bell Operating Companies across the nation (which they'd not ordinarily do in the presence of union workers during normal times) to assist in its rescue that was effected through a massive initiative aimed at removing untold tons of dead wiring. During this period the telco was shielded from the burdens of new line installations by virtue of the strike as it feigned being understaffed (until the mess was cleared, and then new lines began going in like a charm, which gave management the opportunity to gloat over how fast things could "really" be done!). But the lesson had been learned the hard way that disconnects actually do matter, and they need to be administered in much the same way as do new line orders or any other "profitable" offering. I once had access but no longer do to a set of photos that illustrated the "waterfall" effects of the cables overflowing NY Tel MDFs at the W50th and E56th St COs. If anyone here has a link to those photos or a copy of them, kindly post or send offlist. TIA. Frank -------- On Mon Sep 10 1:14 , Jay Hennigan sent:

Vinny Abello wrote:

...

One of the stranger things a field tech of ours encountered wasn't necessarily

bad wiring (although it's not great), but the fact that the demarc was located next to the toilet in the bathroom. Naturally, the constant humidity caused bad corrosion problems and other issues with their telco services. :) So as a general rule of thumb, avoid putting your telco and/or network gear next to the crapper or the services the equipment is meant to provide might also stink.

...

http://users.tellurian.com/vabello/bathroom-demarc.jpg

On the plus side, they didn't have to go far for a ground.

-- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV