Outside plant - prewire customer demarc preference

Mon Nov 20 01:55:09 UTC 2023

On 11/19/23 16:54, Sean Donelan wrote:
> Of course, every local carrier will be different, what are the current 
> preferences for pre-wiring a customer demarc (NID, the box that hangs on 
> the outside of the house, whatever the service provider calls it now)?
> 
> 1. Nothing - telco/cable will do whatever the heck they want and wreck 
> the outside of the house anyway

This is pretty much the norm around me.  If I can get with a builder 
prior to the walls getting closed up, I will hand them a spool I/O fiber 
for them to run from whatever they call the inside service point to the 
outside demarc for me, and they usually don't screw it up.

> 2. Smurf tube from demarc to central distribution point with an interior 
> power outlet near the demarc

This certainly works well.

> 3. ANSI TIA-570 prewire (2 x CAT 6, 2 x RG 6) from demarc to central 
> distribution point (low-voltage contractors don't use UV-rated cable for 
> the demarc, and the jacket is trash in a few years)

This is almost pointless in the world of FTTH with indoor ONTs being 
preferred and even basically required for XGSPON (outdoor ONTs for 
XGSPON are uncommon and expensive).  It'll make the local cable MSO 
happy, though, since they have RF ready to go.  It'll make the local 
fiber provider scratch their heads and try to decide if it's worth using 
an outdoor ONT or just ignoring the pre-wire and starting from scratch.

This is doubly true of there's no outlet near the pre-wire outside the 
home.  How the heck am I going to power my outdoor ONT to use that CAT6 
without one?  Reverse-power outdoor ONTs are even rarer and even more 
expensive.

> In the past, I found if I made the pre-wire look nice and easy for the 
> field technician, they usually made the extra effort to keep their work 
> clean and tidy.

Most installations are contractors, and they get paid by the job with an 
add-on schedule that nobody's willing to pay for, so they're going to 
have a roughly set amount of effort they're willing to put into a job. 
If you've done 90% of the work for them, then that effort can be put 
into making it tidy.  If they have to do everything from scratch, see 
your point (1).

Due to the use of indoor ONTs, lack of fiber pre-wire, and combined with 
customers wanting hand-holding up to and including managing their "in 
home WiFi", the "point of demarcation" has become really nebulous.  In 
practice, the real demarc for many resi customers is their 802.11 SSID.