From Power Protection—Hold on to Copper Wire: Old Technology need not be abandoned by Telcos, if Practical Solutions are applied. Part 3,
by Russ Gundrum, Telephone Engineer & Management
published this on March 15, 1985.
“Telcos should be looking at their existing plant investment (infrastructure) in determining the best way to deliver the type of service the customer wants (and deserves) and in the most easily managed, and cost efficient manner possible.”
“In a recent case of computer damage, although protected with surge arrestors, voltage regulators and an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), a company lost accounting records at an estimated minimum cost of $14,000. Whether a phone line was involved or not isn’t the point. Will things get so bad in the industry that customers will have to unplug their equipment from the line? Some people are reluctant to use the phone during an electrical storm, but hopefully it won’t get to the point where they feel they have to unplug it.”
“This does bring up an interesting potential public safety hazard though, now that customers are allowed to do their own inside wiring and make a hard-wire connection to the public telephone network. AT&T Technologies must have seen this coming, and probably for liability reasons, wisely alerts purchasers of its modular jack converters to this message on the outside of the product’s package and on its instruction sheet—‘CAUTION: Your telephone connecting block may have varying amounts of electricity in the wires and screws. Therefore, to avoid the possibility of electrical shock, follow the instructions below:
If you have a telephone at a location other than the one you are converting, take the handset off the hook;
Avoid hand contact with bare wires or screws;
Use tools with insulated handles or use rubber gloves;
Do not install this device while a thunderstorm is in the vicinity.’”
“It may be hard to visualize the customer doing this (or even reading the instructions for that matter!), but at least the manufacturer is covered. Of course, if the worse-case situation ever did arise, would the customer or his family go to AT&T to lodge a complaint? Hopefully the local telephone company has its policy already decided before such an occurrence takes place, because more than likely the telcos will be the ones targeted in this situation.”
“When you stop and think about it, the TIF is only a High Voltage Neutralizing Transformer (HVNT), reduced in size and voltage rating, that has historically and successfully been utilized for worse-case protection problems into power substations. Thus, mitigation devices are as fundamental a part of basic telephony as are batteries, wires, load coils, cable sheaths, ground rods, and yes, even telephone sets and switches. The industry needs to stop procrastinating about these problems and start setting priorities in solving them before it’s too late! The power industry experienced ‘interconnect’ long before the telcos. If the power utility requires transformers to operate their business, then maybe the telcos need to do the same thing in some locations. Old technology need not be obsoleted or abandoned just because of problems associated with power. There are simple, practical and easily applied solutions to these problems. Properly designed wire-line facilities are economical today and for the foreseeable future and they will give the customer the quality of service that he desires and deserves.”