Verizon, FiOS, and CLEC/UNE orders (was AT&T diversity)

Thu Mar 22 16:18:59 UTC 2012

> From: William Herrin [mailto:bill at herrin.us]
> On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 10:18 AM, Robert E. Seastrom <rs at seastrom.com>
> wrote:
> > Jimmy Hess <mysidia at gmail.com> writes:
> >
> >> Seems like a waste for VZ not to reclaim it so it can be
> >> recycled/put to good use.
> >
> > To put some numbers with this statement (which I agree with btw):
> >
> > OSP cable is commonly available composed of 19 AWG, 22 AWG, 24 AWG,
> > and 26 AWG pairs.  19 and 26 are outliers; 19 is for low pair count
> > cables going extra long distances and 26 is only good for quite short
> > distances (CO/SLC to customer) but Superior Essex makes a 3000 pair
> > cable in #26 (22 and 24 max out at 900 and 1800 pair, at least on the
> > spec sheet I have handy).
> >
> > Most of the cable out there is 22 or 24.  Solid #22 and #24
> > (uninsulated) copper wire weighs 1.95 and 1.23 pounds per 1000 feet
> > respectively.  That's without the insulation, and only one wire, not
> a
> > pair.
> >
> > I found scrap pricing for "telco" (obviously the contaminant ratios
> > out there are different for different types of copper) at
> $1.20/pound,
> > which may or may not be current, but if you figure a single pair of
> > #24 is probably around 4 pounds per 1000 feet scrap weight...  if an
> > average loop is, say, 5000 feet, you can see where there is
> > substantial incentive to recycle all the 600 pair that you have lying
> > around.
> 
> Hi Robert,
> 
> That depends on the cost of recovering it. We're not talking about
> salvage operators pulling cable, we're talking about highly trained
> [sic] Verizon installers.
> 
> The last 4 pairs in use on that 3000 count cable will tend to linger a
> long, long time before you can go remove it. Mostly you'll recover
> short runs of low-count cable like the fifty-foot two and six pair
> cables from the street to the house: maybe $3 in scrap. How many
> dollars worth of time will the installer bill Verizon for recovering
> it?

If it means they're shutting down the CLECs in the process?  I suspect it's worth quite a bit of installer billable time...

Jamie