Something to be aware of as you plan a migration from Centrex to PBX or VoIP. There is a potential that if the customer does not use the phone system that the LEC sells, the LEC may charge the customer for the in-house wiring. There have been cases where the LEC was seeking over $100,000 for the wiring after the customer switched.
Cable plant
In some areas, regulators have allowed the LEC to carry some OSP (Outside Plant Cables) on the regulated side of the books so some projected accounting value minus the depreciation would need to be recovered by the LEC if the customer were to leave the LEC. OSP has a life expectancy of 25 years or more, especially in environmentally protected locations such as equipment rooms.
A general rule of thumb is if the cable is black jacketed it is OSP. If the cable is gray or beige it is Inside Wire or cable such as riser. In some states, at the time of the ATT break up and thereafter black jacketed cable is still carried on the LEC’s books while the gray jacket is expensed. However, the customer should talk to the LEC OSPE (Outside Plant Engineer) as soon as possible to determine your specific situation.
The OSPE may want the customer to buy the risers and black jacket, which may include a 50-year-old black jacket, a mixture of Paper & Lead (a method of insulating conductors using paper pulp and covering in a lead jacket) as well as more current PIC (Plastic Insulated Cable).
An option would be to rebuild the complex. This option could be less expensive and easier than negotiating with the OSPE to take over 50 years of infrastructure. Infrastructure which will never support any modern high-speed services.
Rebuilding the infrastructure also provides an opportunity to turn the tables on the LEC. With their own infrastructure, it is possible for the Owner to tell the LEC to vacate the building since they no longer provide service beyond the MDF. Maybe this is your opportunity to link the buildings with fiber and replace older copper while it is in good shape (having been inside most of its life).
Another tactic would be to convince the Telco into certifying that they had “abandoned the cable in place.” If the LEC has installed the infrastructure, and if they want to claim ownership of the cable then they would be responsible for removing the cable as is required by state/local building codes. In many areas, if a cable is not terminated on both ends then it is considered to be abandoned and must be removed. Removing cable is almost as expensive as installing it.
PBX Circuit sales
Another advantage Owners may have is that the LEC is the Centrex provider. A PBX deployment still represents an opportunity for DS-1, DS-3, and trunks sale. Another lever would be to keep a small Centrex as a backup, as part of a business continuity plan as well as ISDN services to remote locations.
One consideration is that when taking over the cable plant the LEC will have to deal with the fact that there may be customers within the facilities that were not part of the enterprise and which were customers of the LEC. We ended up having to sign a “Shared Sheath” or condominium agreement with the owner. The condominium agreement will let the LEC support their customers on the Owners riser system. The Owner will have to provide a technician to help the LEC in mapping out cable pathways for their customers.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
According to former Federal Communications Commission commissioner Michael Copps, American’s civil rights should be expanded to include broadband access. Mr. Copps stated at a July 21, 2008 speech at Carnegie Mellon University, “No matter who you are, or where you live, or how much money you make … you will need, and you are entitled to have these tools (broadband Internet) available to you, I think, as a civil right.”(download from http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-283886A1.pdf).
Today 06-30-08 was the last day