atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Demarc Cut, Proper Reinstallation Help

Commercial site, demarc was removed during demo. The building owner had someone within their maintenance department tap/splice direct from osp pairs to a 66m block.

Is there regulations for fuses or ground to be in-place? What corrective actions need to be done to correct this? Part/item recommendations?

Thank you,
-- JP

Call Teleco the DEMARC is theirs to install and maintain, you'll probably have to pay for it since it was removed. CO pairs to a 66 block is no good for anyone.

Ouch. This is a problem. The telco will not have a sense of humor about this, so be prepared to pay big bucks. They won't likely be sympathetic since you or your people should have called them in advance for advice prior to demo. Sorry for the bad news.

Another point: Telco folks don't exactly jump for joy once they find their pairs spliced directly to the 66-blocks. :nono:
How long has the splice been in place?

A long time ago, I was installing a phone system in a building that was at one time a 'Co ' for Bell atlantic(I'm dating myself here!) anyway,
there was one wall about 40 feet long that had nothing but loops of 900 pair underground cable coming up from the ground and going back into the ground, The guy taking over the building says to me, " I want all this stuff removed"

I said , "here's the hacksaw " have a nice day!

about 30 minutes later, after He cut thru 1 cable with sparks flying everywhere, there was about 7 'Bell Atlantic trucks' on the scene.

it took them almost a week to Repair the damage.

He knocked out service to almost the entire business park!!

I figured the splice and direct punch down to the 66 block is a bad idea. The splices are new, within a few weeks. They used electrical crimp type beanies with the teeth inside (yellow jackets).

My company was called out to locate/tag sdsl circuit and this is when i noticed the splice.

Thanks.

JP, You say the splices are new! Were they done by service provider or building maintenance?

Since this is local to me I might want to put it on the list of places to be cautious of. If it was done by building maintenance I don't even want to park my truck next door and eat lunch.

You're funny John, yet you will park your truck at a school dorm that has all it's brand new network wires spiced with Scotchloks! :rolleyes:

:rofl: That was before the signs were painted on!

Dang, you had them "painted" on. There goes my plan...

Pssst...."removable decals"

The site is in Tallahassee. Circle K right off I-10 exit 199.

circle K

what do they have one ,two lines ?

Telco shouldnt hit you to badly on that

Well, Right, Wrong or otherwise, I feel I must add my 2 cents. (Considering the Real Issue has been handled)

I will never forget the day, early in my career with SWBell, while working as a helper to a Cable Repairman, we pulled our truck up to the place where the POWER COMPANY had just drilled a hole for a new Power Pole.

We were sent there due to numerous trouble reports.

To our surprise, there were all kinds of wires coming out of that Hole for the Pole.

It seems the Power Guys had hit a SPLICE (with over 1500 Pairs in it) DEAD CENTER.

You wouldn't beleive how fast a Construction Truck can Pack Up and leave, once you tell them something like that.

Of course, 3 or 4 days later, all was good.

Merlinman, that is funny, but at the same time not so funny if you know what I mean. Directional boring has brought on an entire new understanding of buried facilities.

Cables literally being destroyed due to digging accidents happen around here all the time. It's usually an entire duct bank that's affected, not a single cable.

If a contractor was aiming for the center of three cables, they would have missed by five feet. When they are trying to avoid existing cables, the contractors manage to hit all of them, dead-center.

It's rare that we don't hear of some kind of area outage on the news weekly at a minimum for this reason.

I used to support one of those old Days Inn properties that were built with a restaurant in their main building. New owners decided to renovate the entire structure, upgrade into a new phone room and demo the old phone room in the process. The demarc was one of those old bakelite and screw terminal jobs and looked to be about 600 pair and I'd noticed quite a few dial tones that didn't belong to the hotel.

I happened to be onsite the day the demo guy started in on the old phone room and the owner called me over to see if I needed to protect any of the old cabling. I had already cutover the new MDF on the other end of the building and had abandoned all the premise pairs but I pointed to the demarc and asked if he'd notified Verizon of his plans to demo. He couldn't seem to understand why Verizon would care, since they'd already put his lines in service at a new NID on the other side of the building. I checked a few pairs, still found dial tones, and told him that he'd better be calling Verizon before anything was done because only they would know if the black cable had been abandoned.

Nothing happened that day but when I came back about a week later I found out that the demo guy had just taken a 'cipsaw to the black cable anyway. Apparently, that demarc was put in so long before divestiture that it had once been a splicing point of some sort and phones were cut off over a half-mile radius!

Of course, the desk clerk who told me about it had worked at that motel forever and her comment was, "Yeah, we used to have phone guys in and out of there every day."

Around here, if you want to find a telephone cable or water line, you call a certain backhoe operator. If there's one within a mile, he'll hit it every time.

Dave

The power company has been replacing poles here for the last several months. On day I find we have no water. Seems they augured right through a 12" water main and just missed a 4" gas main. Now you would think that they had Dig Safe (what we used to call Code 53) mark out the buried utilities so that they would know what's there and where. The power companies excuse was that they did have everything located and marked but it snowed covering the marks up. Duh!

So after the main was fixed they have Dig Safe mark everything out again. They marked it on the snow but by the time the guys came back to set the pole the snow melted. Duh again but at least they knew one place where the pole shouldn't go.

-Hal

When I lived in Salina, KS, an unamed locator service employee did 2 inaccurate locations in a row. You guys decide which 1 was worse. 900 pr. cable at 2nd most major intersection in town. Electric company dug 5 feet from cable markings to install new co-ordinated traffic light system. You guessed it, DEAD CENTER. Entire NW side of town down! OR. High (As in HIGH) pressure gas main running along side I-135, west side of town. Once again 15 feet from locator marks. DEAD CENTER. You could hear it roaring out of that hole for a mile in any direction. Everybody shut off everything and ran for the hills, county mounties blocked 135 a mile north and south. The motel 150 feet from the hole pulled the mains in their buildings and went door-door saying get out and go west, bus waiting 1/2 mile away. DO NOT DRIVE. Believe it or not, they only took 5 hours to get the gas shut off! And it never did go up in 'noise and awe'. By the way, the 900 pr was fixed in about 6 hours!. So, which 1 was worse? And I should say that to the best of my knowledge, neither mis-locate caused any serious problems. Other than a lot of inconvenience. And I don't know what happened to that employee, but we never had another mis-locate in the 2 years after those, that I was still there.John C.

OK all let get it back.

Interesting discussion someone may want to start a topic in the booth.

Thanks,

Harry, a 600 pair feeder to a hotel? That sounds way outside the norm. Regardless, that wasn't a "splicing point" for the area. It just happened that that same cable pair count appeared in many other locations in the area. This is very common. It's not legal to have "splicing points" (cross-connect facilities) located inside private property, but multiple feeder counts are perfectly acceptable and legal.

Circuits for other customers at different physical locations cannot go THROUGH an another unrelated address. This must be done via external splice or cross-connect facilities located within public rights-of-way.

Using a saw to cut the cable surely placed plenty of troubles on pairs that might be feeding circuits all over the place in the area. I am sure that's what happened. We are talking about basic parallel elctricity.

By multiple feeder counts, do you mean that the same pair is going to building A and B with the two cables spliced somewhere in between to a splicing point outside? Therefore, the same dialtone can be in both buildings and the hacksaw job probably shorted pairs?

Exactly.

-Hal

Sorry, Ed, that was some sloppy wording. I didn't mean cross-connect so I shouldn't have said "splicing point". The issue was that there was a splicing case on the wall that tapped in another buried cable feeding a nearby office complex. I know that some of those dial tones appeared on the demarc at one time 'cause a worked a few tickets for other customers in that building. As for the cable size, I was just guessing, based on what entered the room.

No harm done here, Harry. I just wanted to clarify this type of situation that people may encounter nation- or world-wide.

To clarify, please bear with me in the following goofy example.

Let's say that I have an auto parts store at 3605 Richmond Highway. My store is fed by the main 2,400 pair distribution cable running down my road, known as cable #234. My building's 25 pair cable is tapped into pairs 1501-1525 of this main cable, but only five or them are actually being used for my business. The other 20 pairs are unmarked and unused at the terminal in my building.

There's a flower shop at 325 Fifteenth Street that has a 100 pair feed there. That's because this place used to be a stock brokerage firm and they needed a bunch of lines. The flower shop only uses three lines now. Still, ten years ago, the telco tapped the same feed cable running down Richmond Highway to get more pairs into the firm. There were very few customers in the 1501 count on cable 234, so they brought a complete 100 pair count in, meaning that the terminal at the flower shop now has pairs 1501-1600. This also means that the same pairs feeding my auto parts store are appearing on the terminal at the flower shop around the corner.

Along the three miles that cable 234 runs down Richmond Highway, there are occasional needs for lines to single residences and a few pay phones. Their dial tones actually end up being assigned to pairs within the 1501-1525 count as well through the use of ready-access terminals. After all is said and done, my five lines, the flower shop's three lines, eight homes and four pay phones have lines appearing in this same cable count. This means that in reality, 20 pairs within the 1501-1525 count are being used and many, many other addresses. I have a 25 pair terminal at my auto parts store, but in reality, many of these pairs are being used by other people, and they are separated from my location by blocks or even miles.

NOW, let's say that somebody comes in to remodel the flower shop (similar to your situation) and cuts the incoming cable for phone service with a Sawzall. Of course, all pairs are hacked down to bare copper and most are touching. These include the 25 pairs that feed my auto parts store. Immediately, my dial tone pairs are shorted out and out of service.

In my simple example, by the flower shop's feed cable being cut with a saw, here's what happened:

My five lines at the auto parts store got shorted;

Eight separate residences along the way had their lines shorted;

Four pay phone lines ended up shorted.


Sorry to over-simplify things here in my little side track, but multiple pair counts appearing at different addresses are a very common occurence. Not every business customer site needs 25 pairs, or many typical streets for that matter. Still the telco needs to have the flexibility with their cable to accommocate temporary swings. They also need to have spare pairs for rapid service restoral.

Many times, a customer is using Verizon for ten lines, but they decide to switch over to a CLEC. The CLEC then has these same ten lines brought into the same address on ten different pairs. For a short time, 20 pairs are needed for this customer, and the telco must have a buffer to accommodate this.

For reasons discussed here, it's very common and possible for my "cable 234, pairs 1501-1525 to appear and addresses all over town and for a failure/mistake to cause the type of problem you mentioned.

Wow Ed. I think I understand it now!!

The service provider stated an ETA of May 8th to locate/tag. What is the best way to find the pairs used in the 50 pair? This is without knowing the terminations at the binding posts in the service area interface. The provider stated they do not have updated pair info. My greenlee volt detector only picks up 50vac minimum? Please don't tell me to start with wire1 and try to match wire 2-49 with meter then move to next. Bottom line is I need to locate the SDSL so I can bring the site to functional status.

I'm not totally sure what you are asking, but I'll try to help.
Each pair of wires has a color code. You need to find each pair and test them out.
You would need to go on each pair with a buttset most likely to check functionality.

the dmarc was cut, so the each wire is seperate, not twisted into pairs. do you have a link to a telco standard for 50 pair color code?

Pardon my ignorance as I have no TELCO experience, but can someone explain why there is always a splice before TELCO's cable is terminated? I never understood that...

you would probably be best served by getting someone knowledgeable in outside plant to help

ok Ive got to ask why would you use a "Greenlee Volt detector" ?

If you don't know the color code, do as Skip says and get someone who does. Will the phone company at least tell you what pair it's on? Is there a phone number associated with the SDSL?

Speed 94. That nice little protector you see has a tail terminated on it at the factory. You can order what you want, but let's just say it comes with a 30 foot tail already terminated into the box. Now the cable guy comes in with a splice tool and lays out the wires from the tail into one half of the connector and the outside cable into the other half and crimps it together.
Instant 25 pair connection. He does it 4 times and it's 100 pairs.

Sometimes the building entrance terminal has only the tail from the protectors to the panel on the side. The installer still splices the entrance cable into the box the same way.

The 3M MS2 4000 series connectors are about 4" x 1/2" and take up less space than any single pair splices you could ever use.

110, if it was truly underground cable at the demarc, you're going to need more than meters and butt sets. There are only 10 colors in underground cable. The quickest way to find the pairs is to strip the cable back more and find them. Next quickest is to tone them out from another location. Last resort is to try to reconstruct the pairs with a butt set. Split pairs will still give you dial tone, so it's pretty self defeating.

Carl

resolved. but thanks for the help fellas.

answer: CO coughed up the binder info which was 15. connected modem and it linked.

the GC who had the demarc removed wants me to keep it spliced so the site can function but I don't know the code. Is there a legal issue here? GC says "at this point I dont care for the phone company." If I keep it connected (grounded and surge arrest included) will I hold liablity? CO will be out to work the cut demarc issue. Should I disconnect and walk away from this project or should I do what I'm paid from the GC?

Carl, I did not know that about underground cable. How are there only 10 colors?

Ten basic colors it's the combinations that make the pairs

Gee, I show up late and the post I had prepared (but not sent) is now yesterday's news! To answer your question, incoming feeder cables are not always spliced anymore. You are probably referring to service in Bell Operating territory, where an intentional "weak link" was placed in the cable before it terminates. This is referred to as a fusible link.

Usually, this involves a terminal that comes with a factory-equipped cable stub. Most companies make these with 25 foot stub cables which work just about anywhere. This factory stub cable consists of 26 gauge conductors. Since most outside plant cable is 24, 22 or even as large as 19 gauge, this means that the stub cable is much less capable of carrying high currents.

During a typical lightning strike, the surge is instantaneous and the normal gas-tube protectors catch them. If a power line crosses a telephone cable, the high voltage condition will last much longer. This results in a fire hazard since the gas tubes will react by shorting the pair to ground. The pair then heats up and can burn. Of course, it is hoped that this condition will be contained and all that will be lost is a protected terminal instead of the building.

By installing this intentional weak link, if a power cross occurrs, the pair or pairs in the cable stub will burn out. The stub cable is fire retardant, so any flameout will be contained within it's jacket. The only inconvenience would be failed cable pairs. The fire risk is minimized.

If you take a close look at any of these installations that have spliced incoming feeder cables, you'll probably see a label on the stub cable from the terminal that's exactly two feet from the point where it enters. It will likely say "fusible link; do not cut shorter than two feet". This is because it has been determined that two feet of 26 gauge wire is sufficient to provide the fusible link.

Some other entrance terminals have two feet of 26 gauge cable built-inside so that the incoming cable can be terminated or spliced directly inside the enclosure. These are much more common lately since they can be stacked and save a lot of time on splicing operations.

Lastly, many telcos try to plan in advance for expansion. Although a building's current subscriber requirement may be for only 300 pairs, they will bring in a 600 pair cable. By bringing this cable into a splice case, the unused pairs can be safely contained without the expense of having to install terminals to terminate them. These things cost thousands of dollars per hundred pairs.

You won't see this as much these days since fiber is commonly used for larger installations. They don't need to plan as much for copper expansion.

Unlike switchboard cable (inside wire etc), outside cable uses solid colors. If you lose the twists, you're out of luck. in 25 pairs you have 5 sets of 10 colors.

110, don't be silly. The GC is paying you to keep it working, so do it. Unless you get some butthole installer they should understand.

Carl

Jeff, I just go to thinking, I bought the Siemon MT-5000 (25 pair tester) and a set of shoes to fit 66 and 110 blocks for that friggin' UT job.

If memory serves me, I don't think I got much change back from $600...the shoes alone were about $100 each for the 110 block ones.

That was almost 13 years ago and I don't think I have used them since LOL

Carl

You did the UT job 13 years ago?

Ahh yes. Sad but true. When they did the engineering bldg we put a 900 pr cable from whatever building that is to the two buildings across the street. I subbed it for my friend for what seemed like a good price. It was supposed to be done by March 31 and there were penalties for not finishing on time. They forgot to tell me that there were no penalties and it was my bad luck if the building was late. IIRC I finished on 7/3. The architect specified Krone blocks and those cables ended up being reterminated before I was even out of the building.

Okay, I thought this was a more recent job.
I am guessing the cable ran across the street to the computer center? That makes sense to me...but the campus has changed so much over the years.

It's true; only ten colors, no matter how many thousands of pairs that exist in the cable:

Base colors (Tip):

White
Red
Black
Yellow
Violet

Secondary colors (Ring):

Blue
Orange
Green
Brown
Slate

Pair one= White/Blue
Pair ten= Red/Slate
Pair thirteen= Black/Green
Pair nineteen= Yellow/Brown
Pair twenty-two= Violet/Orange

Over 25 pairs results in binders that follow this same color code until 600 pairs are reached. Each group of 25 pairs is wrapped with a spiral tape identifying that group of 25 pairs in the cable. The first group of 25 pairs has a white/blue binder, the next has a white/orange binder, etc. If you have to ask beyond this pair count, you might already be in over your head.

The most fun is dealing with the ICY PIC the vaseline like crap in the cable. Forget the pairs, you gotta keep them long so you get a better chance of being exposed to the stuff. It took me about 5 years to figure out why it's called ICY PIK (the cable is designated ICPCI).

Well, I still have a 1/2 bottle of HydraSol.

If I understand this correctly you are quoting the general contractor has negative feelings toward what is probably Bellsouth a.k.a at&t.

Why would the GC be irritated at them. It was under his supervision that property belonging to at&t was damaged.

I think at&t would be well within there rights to charge a premium for the repairs and the GC should end up with the invoice on his desk.

110, I understand your position in this but I must add a caution. Doing your best to help could end up involving you in the original error. Cover your butt in any actions you take.

When we meet someday, lunch is on you!

Just had a situation like this for a chain restaurant...csr wanted a line tagged after renovation. Well the contractor destroyed the demark. completely removed it and cut the Telco wiring. The customer had to place a new order for service to be reinstalled and will be charged a premium for removing the demark with out permission....Now If they would have called first and placed the order, Telco would have made the move and no fines would have been charged to the customer...plus the lines would have been up and working (well at least the demark would be installed)instead of a three week delay for the new order to be worked. I am sure the GC contacted the gas and electric company prior to moving their incoming service so why not the Telco. 110 Personally I would walk away from it. You did not make the error so why be associted with it.

Ed, it's the same as other 25 pair cables

except they are solid colors so you have 5 blues and without finding the pair twist or toning from the other end you have no idea weather that blue pairs with black ,red,violet, yellow or white .

Ok, lets get back on topic here guys!


My greenlee volt detector only picks up 50vac minimum? Do you have a link to a telco standard for 50 pair color code?

Your profile says "Telecommunications". You certainly sound like a sparkie to me. You are in over your head with this. The telco should be handling this and if the GC doesn't like it tough. Yes there can be liability here if equipment is damaged or lightning or power cross causes a fire. You were a person who had a hand in this mess and I wouldn't want to be in that position.

Do yourself a favor and leave the telephone stuff to those who know what they are doing.

-Hal

that's no fun!

Thanks Hal, I tried that once too.

Carl, I'm always careful to err on the side of safety, my money, liability or whatever. That said, I think 110 is assuming a terrific liability, especially if Thor or some idiot applies huge amounts of AC or DC to the phone pair! I'll guarantee you that the GC will NOT stand behind 110, unless it's at least 50 feet behind him! If anything, he'll deny EVER requesting assistance from 110 in getting his phone line back in operation. He'll say that he asked him to determine what happened and who he, the GC, should call. Anybody else have an opinion? If nothing else, 110 should get some sort of liability release. If it was me, I'd show the GC what to do, tell him he shouldn't do it, and RUN, not walk, away!
Duh,uh, I composed and posted this at the end of the 1st page with no thought that there was the slightest chance that there was a 2nd page. I repeat, DUH, UH! John C.

i was going to leave it alone but when the CO released the pair/binder info i was hooked and wanted to know how to read it. then after learning to read it, i wanted to know if i could solve it. which i did...

i ended up cutting out my temp solution. i don't want to play the odds.

hal, i know a little.

--jp

110, legally in Florida BellSouth is responsible for the termination to any comercial building. You could be held accountable for splicing any feeder coming from the street as that cable belongs to BellSouth.

They use an RJ21x (if you require it) to cross-connect to the inside wiring using bridge clips. This is so they can isolate the cable pair for troubleshooting.If this is a multi tenant building then they, by code, must install a demark inside each tenant space.

Wow, I truly hope that I am not learning more about this stuff through each additional post. I have never heard of any code that requires a telco to install a demark inside each tenant space in a commercial property. I assume that the term "demark" that you use refers to a separate building entrance terminal or minimum point of entry (MPOE)?

I only ask this question because the term is grossly over-used to the extent that the term "point of demarcation", A.K.A. "Demark" has lost its true definition.

No telco is required to place a building entrance terminal or an extended "Demark" in an individual space of commercial property. Just as with other utilities, they are only required to deliver the service to the building, which might not necessarily be the individual street address for the customer.

Beyond that point, it's all time and materials work and most of them are not interested in doing it. They are well within their rights to opt out of premise wiring and many of them do so.

I would really like to have some specifics on this code that you reference and exactly which agency enforces it. Also, what about areas that are NOT served by BellSouth (at&t)? Much of Central and Western Florida is not served by them, but is this code applied to other LEC's, such as Embarq (Sprint), Alltel (Windstream) and Verizon (GTE)?

I know we do not provide a demark in each tenant space. We install to either the basement or a phone closet and it is up to building management or the customer to extend to the proper space. We do this all the time at Malls and office parks. Install in a telco room and the building extends to the stores. The mall owns their own cabling so they must maintain it.

I don't know an actual code, but I can tell you that the phone company (BellSouth/AT&T, Sprint/Embarq, and the little experience I've had with Verizon) DOES extend the demarc into each tenant space here in Florida. Each tenant in a mall has their own demarc in their suite. Each tenant in an office building has a demarc in their own suite, unless they have a shared phone closet.

The phone company runs the wire, and terminates the RJ21X. Nowadays, they do require a conduit (with pullstring) to each suite, otherwise they might not pull it. I have had to pull the wire for the telco in the past if there was not a conduit.

Again, I don't know if it is a code or if it is just the way things are done around our part of the state.

wow..that must be nice

I need to start working in Florida.

down here with verizon its hit and miss , mostly they will extend it to the suite sometimes they tag it at the bldg terminal and we need to extend it .

(even with existing cable or conduit and string in place)

Ive asked a few times and never gotten a clear answer as to when they decide where to tag it .

I'm in South Carolina and in most cases for new construction, the contractor puts in a conduit and " request's " Bell South / AT&T to extend into the suites and it is done. In older commercial buildings I have seen it brought to a main closet. If the customer ask's the carrier to extend to their suite, they will for a fee. Or they just call us to extend it. Basically, if you ask then it will happen, if not then the customer pays companies like ours to do it. MO' MONEY !

Here in Michigan, I always have to extend the demarcs and T1. Thats fine by me, keeps me busy.

Here in Quebec, Bell will only take it to the suite if it's within 25 ft, unless of course the client is willing to pay.

Dave

Here the carriers never extend the demarc to the customer suite. More often then not they don't tag new service either so I'll have to call the carrier for the binding posts if I can't locate them readily or they weren't provided on the ticket they give the customer.

Mike, check me on this, but I am told by my super that Embarq's own rules say that they WILL extend dial tone/demarc to customer premise, suite or whatever. The installer usually isn't too thrilled, but if you catch them before they leave or tell customer/GC to push it, the installer will do it for free. HOWEVER, if you don't get it done upon initial install of new dial tone, then it's a chargeable call, and do they charge. John C.

You get sick of these colors while sitting in a hole covered in mud and icky pic at 3am because the water dept. cut your 600pr cable while repairing their main that broke

When I started at the phone company and the guy trianing me (He had 25yrs at the time) told me:

Why(white)
Run(red)
Backwards(black)
You(yellow)
Varmint(violet)

Because(blue)
Of(orange)
Great(green)
Big(brown)
Snake(slate)

That's how I remembered the color code until I just got used to it.

I still have a bunch of D-Gel!

My Ameritech branded coveralls have been covered in it completely. I used to wash them by themselves with D-gel and some tide to get it off.

I worked at the phone company right around 10yrs and never got a good answer why it was called "Icky Pic"
Everyone told me because it was icky stuff. It wound up in every type of cable at some point and is now even in some of the aerial cabling used by AT&T.
Thanks for the info on that.

Even worse than Icky Pic is the silicone grease in the buried drop splices we used called "Klik Its" it's brutal sticky and I was covered in it yesterday.

It is PIC (Polyethelene Insulated Conductors) and since it was filled with goo, it was nicknamed "Icky-PIC". Nothing formal about it. PIC was the first plastic insulation used in cables after pulp and remains today's insulation standard.

Icky-PIC should not be installed in the air or in ducts. It's meant for direct burial. Heat from sunlight causes the goo to expand and ooze out of the splices. It also drips out of the splice closures and onto cars or property below. If you have seen it in the air, it shouldn't be there.

True, the goo in the "Klik-Its" is much worse, since it's much more dense, like axle grease. There's definitely no silicone grease in phone cables or splices; it would eat up the plastic insulation of the pairs over time.

Better late than never.
In Florida as some of our colleaques stated the local telcos are required to provide a dmarc at the minimal point of penetration into the suite.
I post the Florida Adminstrative Code that states it:
Rule 25-4.0345, Customer Premises Equipment and Inside Wire, F.A.C., requires a local exchange company to provide and maintain the network facilities up to and including the demarcation point at each individual customer’s premises. Specifically, Rule 25-4.0345(1)(b), F.A.C., states:


(b) "Demarcation Point." The point of physical interconnection (connecting block, terminal strip, jack, protector, optical network interface, or remote isolation device) between the telephone network and the customer's premises wiring. Unless otherwise ordered by the Commission for good cause shown, the location of this point is:


1. Single Line/Single Customer Building -- Either at the point of physical entry to the building or a junction point as close as practicable to the point of entry.

2. Single Line/Multi Customer Building -- Within the customer's premises at a point easily accessed by the customer.

3. Multi Line Systems/Single or Multi Customer Building -- At a point within the same room and within 25 feet of the FCC registered terminal equipment or cross connect field.

4. Temporary Accommodations Subscriber Premises with Inadequate Grounding (e.g., some mobile homes, trailers, houseboats, construction modules) -- On a permanent stake, pole, or structure with a suitable safety ground.


As emphasized above, Rule 25-4.0345(1)(b), F.A.C., allows an exception to the required demarcation point as ordered by the Commission for good cause shown.