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Re: Outside plant - prewire customer demarc preference


From: Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2023 17:45:04 -0500 (EST)

My relative is buying a new house is a typical American surbuban tract housing development. Yep, I'm the extended family I.T. consultant.

The marketing brochure calls it "custom home" but he only gets to talk to the developer's "design consultants", i.e. sales people. The developer has a sales center and pre-set upsell options, kitchen countertop choices, carpeting, etc. He never talks to the architect, general contractor, electricians or construction crew.

He paid for a finished basement option, which means most of the basement will have sheetrock finished walls. So the first cable, fiber or telephone utility will be cutting holes in the new sheetrock. I was trying to avoid needing to cut brand-new sheetrock or fishing wire through walls.

The design consultant's answer for everything was 5G ... 5G ... 5G. No more ugly boxes on the house, everything will be wireless. There is a special deal if he signed up for 5G wireless service before his house was finished.

For something "no one ever asks about," the design consultant seemed to have a lot of prepared sales pitches.


Acting like a dumb homebuyer over the Thanksgiving weekend I did notice the model home had a demarc box on the garage outside wall. The garage in the model home is used as the builder's office, so it may not be how the built homes are setup.


A new version of ANSI/TIA-570 (residential wiring standard) is due this year. In the old days, a minimum of one wired telephone outlet was required. I was just wondering if there was new 'standard' for demarcs in new residential construction. But it sounds like there isn't. Draping cables around the sides of the house.


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