[asterisk-users] US T1 Hangup Detection

[Joe Greco]

> On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 12:58:59PM -0700, Daniel Hazelbaker wrote:
> > > Really?  You have an RJ-21X block that contains both analog AND T1
> > > wires?  That's really uncommon.  I hope they at least put the red
> > > special service caps on the T1 wires.
> > 
> > Yup.  I thought that pretty funny myself.  10 year old analog wires  
> > running a digital T1. :)  And they do have some caps on them, I think  
> > it was red but not 100% sure.
> 
> No, that's not the unusual part.  The unusual part is just that both
> analog and digital services are on the same block.  Maybe it's a
> regional think...

That's really not unusual.  It's not /preferred/, but that's an entirely
different can of worms.

In general, if copper is available into a building, the telco is going to
look very seriously at the possibility of using that.  If the building is
already wired and the copper tests clean, the telco will want to use that.
In most existing situations, that will already be terminated in a can with
lightning suppression and will have been crossed over to RJ21X's that are
going to whatever suites are in the building.

Since the telco will have /no/ /problem/ running the T1 over their outside
plant and up to the can on what is approximately Category 3 wire, and the
T1 signal is going to have been running alongside those same "analog wires"
for probably a few miles, what happens next should be obvious.

Suite 214 wants a T1.  There's already a 25-pair going up there from the
RJ21X.  It's second story, so do you go and spend an {hour, afternoon, 
etc} figuring out how to run fresh wire, or do you notice that only 6 pair 
are in use on the RJ21X, and decide to feed up on the existing cable?

Now, if you're nasty and you don't separate it (typically I see the bottom
used for data) and you don't put redcaps on, yeah, then that is just 
looking for eventual trouble.  And who knows, the wire may be cruddy, so
maybe you still end up doing the separate run.  But it probably works.

I've seen this often enough.  Would I prefer to see new cable run?  Sure.
But we've all done our copper sins.  I've seen a lot of things that are
uglier than that.  Here's one of them:

http://www.sol.net/hallofshame/

(I've always meant to expand that page, but it seems that I never get the
good photos of bad stuff)

Lack of space, lack of need, lack of having another RJ21X in the truck are
just a few other obvious reasons that this might be done.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.