Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 02:01:14 CDT
From: Patton M. Turner <pturner@eng.auburn.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Two Experiences With BellSouth
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 586, Message 5 of 11

A friend of mine recentaly bought a house in Atlanta (Tucker GA
actually).  She only had three phone jacks in the house and they were
wired with a hodge-podge of wiring, and connected to the old (123?)
style demarc which was hanging loose from the side of the house.  I
decided to scrap the old wiring and replace it with twisted pair.  I
called the repair service and asked then to replace the demarc.  The
rep asked me if the phone were working, I said yes, but could they
change the demark anyway.  She said sure and that it would be cleared
by Thursday night (less than 48 hours later).

Thursday PM a very competant craftsperson showed up.  Not only did he
replace the demarc but even installed RFI filters at my request.  He
even installed a RFI filter on the second line when I told him it
would be connected soon.  (I will be using one of the rooms as an
office when I am in Atlanta).  He also gave me the loops specs when I
asked him. Though he had not heard of ISDN when I told him
unfortunataly the loop was to long (23.6 kfeet), he volunteered that
there was a SLC that we could be served off of if that would work.  I
was impressed for a residental installer.

     I then put her jacks wherever she wanted them and wired the back
to a 66 punchdown block (AT&T four pair cable and PDS jacks).  From here
I ran a single line back to the network interface and punched jumpers
down as necessary (tring to keep the antenna system to a minimum as a
AM station was faintaly audiable in the background before).  The ends
of the old wire were disconnected from the network interface coiled
up, tywraped, and left laying in the crawlspace (the old wire wasn't
stapled, but just laying on the ground)

     This worked fine for over a month until her phones went dead.  SB
sent a repairperson out who said my wiring was shorted and a piece of
crap anyway.  He also said he would have to disconnect it as I had
used "Twisted Pair" wiring which was also crap and they were told to
disconnect it since it didn't meet spec.  He said I should go back to
school and learn how wiring should be done.  The cause of the problem
was the coil of wire in the crawlspace that wasn't connected to any
thing, plus I had probally shot a few staples through the wire. (Any
one who has ever used a T17/T25 or even a T75 knows that is a virtual
impossability).  He refused to believe her when she told him the
wiring had worked for several weeks, and he assured her that whether
she knew it or not I had worked on the wiring that day.  (I was
several hundred miles away).

     I've stopped by my house, picked up my megger and am heading to
Atlanta in the morning.  If there is a problem with my wiring, I will
apologize to the net, but right now I have a very low opinion of
opinion of SCB.

     GTE is often called Graft, Tape and Extort; Gross Telephones
Everywhere; Great Telephone Experiment; Contel, the sunshine phone
company... as long as the sun shines, the phones work fine; REA sub'd
companies, Ripoff Enhancement Artists.  John calls PacBell PacHell.
Now what could I call Bellsouth ... what matches the initials BS ... :)
In all fairness, as Pat often says, any company is no better than it's
front line personnel, but I will have to give Bellsouth credit for
having quite a few good ones.

     If anyone is looking for a Telebit, I bought one from the Questor
Project.  (As Seen On CDT!!!) While it took a few weeks, I saved quite
a bit (Thanks Steve!!)


Pat Turner    KB4GRZ  turner@dixie.com <= I think this is correct