Taking Responsibility for the Inside Wiring

In the previous section, “Getting all the equipment you need to make your dedicated circuit go,” I make a passing mention of the inside wiring controversy. This section gives you the ins and outs of dealing with your carrier over this contentious issue. In the simplest terms, inside wiring is the wiring that goes between the network interface unit (NIU) to the channel service unit (CSU).

Knowing the facts about local carriers and inside wiring

To understand who is responsible when it comes to inside wiring, you need to understand the different methods of completing this connection. Then you need to accept that some things are out of your hands. The local carrier lays out what it believes its responsibilities are in terms of setting up the circuits, and although you might like to think that you can negotiate, the fact is that you may have to accept responsibilities (and the accompanying headaches) that you would really rather not deal with. The controversy over inside wiring stems from two important facts:

• Fact 1: The two most important physical locations in your building (from a telecom perspective, that is) aren’t in the same place. You see, there’s something called the MPOE, which is the carrier’s initial entrance to your building. The MPOE is almost never in the same place in the building where you keep your equipment.

   Tip  Demarc (pronounced dee-mark) stands for demarcation point, and the MPOE (pronounced em-pow) is short for minimum point of entry. There is usually a piece of hardware at the demarc that is installed by your carrier and represents the end of the carrier’s domain. Your ultimate goal is to get your carrier to place the demarc in your phone room only a few feet away from your phone system. By wiring to your phone room, your carrier is providing you with an extended demarc, extending the carrier’s responsibility only feet away from your hardware. The cable you plug into the demarc is your responsibility, along with everything else in your phone closet and all the wiring that runs into your office. The dictates of the local loop provider identify where it is allowed to drop the demarc. It may be at the MPOE, in your phone room, or anywhere in between.

  The MPOE is usually a phone room or utility closet where your carrier drops a circuit if you do not specifically tell the carrier to put the circuit somewhere else (like, say, the demarc point). The MPOE is a room where all phone service enters your building. It is frequently locked, with only your local carrier or building management having the key. Representatives of local carriers commonly say that they will only drop a circuit at the MPOE, and that you are responsible for doing the rest of the connecting. You want to avoid hearing these words if you can (see Fact 2).

• Fact 2: The carrier is responsible for everything it installs. If your carrier agrees to go past the MPOE, then it is responsible for maintaining all the work it does past that point. That’s better for you.

To give you an understanding of the significance of these facts, here’s a scenario to consider:

Your carrier wires a circuit into the basement of your building and your hardware vendor takes care of the wiring in your office on the second floor, running cable from the phone closet in Suite 1 to your equipment in Suite 5. Sounds great, right? Well, not really. You still don’t have a complete circuit.

You can easily overlook all the bits and pieces of this job because it all falls into the category of inside wiring. The person who wired from Suite 1 to Suite 5 on the second floor may say to you, “I finished the inside wiring,” and you may perceive that to mean that he connected into the circuit in the basement when in reality he didn’t. There is a lot of gray area in inside wiring, so make sure you are thorough when following up on it. You need to know which specific locations have been wired by each contingent of this massive project.

 Remember  Someone must tie into the cable in the basement and then pull the cable up to connect the other end into the phone closet for your floor in Suite 1. That someone is determined through a series of negotiations, planning, pleas, prayers, and luck. If your carrier doesn’t provide the wiring, your only option is contracting your hardware vendor to complete the connection. This isn’t undesirable; it simply makes the vendor, rather than your carrier, responsible for the wiring. Confirming with your carrier that all the wiring connections have been completed will set your mind at ease. Most of the time, wiring is completed to your phone room without any problems. The challenge arrives if your building management is difficult and isn’t working with your carrier. In this case, be prepared for weeks of negotiating the install of your circuit.

Addressing your options honestly

You only have three flavors of inside wiring options to choose from, depending on what your carrier either can or will provide:

• Worst-case scenario — carrier wires to the MPOE only: This is where your carrier, for one reason or another, will only install your circuit in the MPOE. The technician installs the circuit on the NIU (network inter-face unit), labels it with your circuit ID that acts as an inventory number with your carrier, or some kind of identifier, and then promptly leaves. If this is the case, you have to contract with your hardware vendor to wire into the NIU and run cable to the room with your phone equipment. You need to coordinate this effort with the office management because the MPOE may be locked.

   Tip  After the cable is run into your phone room, your hardware vendor should terminate the circuit on a phone jack (connector) of some sort. The circuit could possibly be wired directly into your CSU, but a direct connection of this nature makes replacing the CSU and troubleshooting the circuit a tad more difficult. You will have a much easier time if you can simply unplug the cable instead of unscrewing every wire from a piece of hardware.

• Could-be-much-worse-case scenario — carrier installs an extended demarc: In this scenario, your carrier does not drop the circuit at the MPOE, but actually moves the NIU to the phone room on your floor of the building, possibly even into your suite next to your CSU. This scenario gives you a great deal of protection against inside wiring issues because your carrier is now responsible for everything that is installed to your phone room. The circuit is still dropped and tagged with your circuit IDs so that you can identify them.

   Tip  If you already have an extended demarc in your suite, you may see other circuits listed on the hardware from other carriers. If you have an extended demarc, your hardware vendor needs to provide a small piece of cable from the extended demarc to a phone jack. Make sure the jack is also listed with the circuit ID; it connects into the NIU. Then all you need is a cable to connect from the jack to your CSU and you are ready to test.

• Best-case scenario — carrier provides inside wiring to RJ-45 jack (T-1) or coax (DS-3) cable: This scenario rocks because it places the greatest responsibility for maintenance on the carrier. The only piece of cable that is under your care is the section that plugs into your CSU on your hardware side and the phone jack on the carrier side.

Getting tips and reminders from the pros

So many factors are involved in who does the installation of all the inside wiring, and how you’re charged for labor, materials, and maintenance. Here are a couple of reminders from the insiders:

• Maybe it’s out of your hands anyway. Some buildings have very strict rules on wiring and have set up contracts with a company that handles all inside wiring issues. Other buildings are a bit more flexible and allow other companies to do the work as long as they have the proper clearance and are sufficiently bonded in case something goes horribly wrong. If this is the case with your building, your local carrier is probably already authorized to pull the cable to your phone room. If by some fluke they aren’t, your building management will gladly refer you to a company that is authorized.

• Consider all the costs. Inside wiring is not free and can cost more money to install. If your carrier provides the wiring, you may have to pay out twice the amount of what you would pay your hardware vendor, but then your carrier is responsible for the wiring. If your hardware vendor runs the wiring, you may pay less now, but you will definitely feel the pain later, if the vendor has to come out six months later to fix it.

• Find out your carrier’s inside wiring policy. Some carriers charge you to install it, but only claim any responsibility for maintenance if a problem occurs within 24 hours of installation. Some carriers give you free maintenance on it for 30 days. One constant in the inside wiring game is that if your carrier orders the inside wiring, it is responsible to fix it if a problem develops. They may be charging for the repair, but it’s still their responsibility to initiate trouble reports with the local loop provider and press through to resolution.

  Shh . . . Check the bill. All carriers have very complicated billing systems. Sometimes that can work in your favor. A carrier may very well have difficulty tracking things like inside wiring charges. Although you shouldn’t count on not getting charged, the bottom line is that the fee you were supposed to get hit with for installation or maintenance may never show up on your bill.