High Speed Cable & P.O.T. Separation?

redzthredz

Here's a head scratcher for yuz. I order high speed cable to be installed in my home. ( High Speed Internet and Digital Phone ). A Time Warner Cable Company guy shows up and proceeds to install. He surface mounts the cable to my newly remodeled home. Needless to say I'm somewhat ticked off when I see this ugly black cable on my stucco wall and ask him if he can get rid of this hideous looking installation and run the cable approximately 15 feet over to the existing Plain Old Telephone ( P.O.T. ) weather head, and then down the conduit into the demarcation box for a more professional looking install. He says, " No I cannot because the High speed cable and your existing Telephone wire (P.O.T.) need a minimum 24 inch separation.
I can't put it into that conduit."
Guys, you got to help me out me here. Both wires are low voltage, the P.O.T. may be upwards of 30 VDC or so, which is still considered low voltage. What gives? I know that line voltage (120v) neeeds a 12 inch separation form low voltage cabling.

What say you?

Synacom

I don't believe that is where you have to worry about separation. We always have data, phone and video sharing raceway or conduit with 120 vac. We don't do that on a new install but I have never seen it cause problems. The only place I know of separation requirements are on the poles and coming into the building so the power line doesn't short to the phone and cable wires when you get wind or ice loads.

GregS

You have met an installer who does not understand what he is installing.

No such separation is required for LOW-VOLTAGE cabling. He may have thought that there was electrical going through there, but that doesn't make sense why he would have said telephone..

He may have been on piecework, meaning he gets only a few bucks to run the cable into the house. Running it up, over and down through a conduit would have required more work than he is willing to do for what he gets paid for. That's a pretty common scenario with the installers around here.

Tinstaafl

That would be it. Years ago when my wife and I were nearly as poor as we are now, she had cable installed in our rented house while I was away. I came home to find that the installer had drilled a hole directly through the center of a windowsill to bring it inside.

That was the last time any installer was ever allowed into our home.

MALCO.New.York

The installer gets paid "X" for the install, regardless of the difficulty in doing so. So of course the easiest route will always be taken.

And Nominal phone Voltage is 48VDC. Ringing is 88VDC. Not that this has ANY effect on the install.

__________________
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ChillaWatt

Wow, the POTS has it's own conduit and weatherhead? Sounds like the installer doesn't know what he's talking about. He's probably new and confused a service entrance conduit with the POTS conduit. Call the company back up and demand a less conspicuous install or you're switching providers, I'm positive they'll comply.

cnis

Its a CYA issue. He touches it, he buys it. Who are you going to call if that weather head starts leaking in the winter? When the phone company service guy sees that cable in his piece of real estate guess who is going to get the blame for any phone issues? Not to mention one conduit fries all in the case of lightening. The installer is probably siting a suit and tie company reg not an NEC reg.

GregS

I was working alongside a cable-sub today at a house that I pulled. He asked if I pulled a line outside the house to connect to the service.. I said no, not in my contract. He said, "Great! 6 more dollars for me!"

He only gets SIX DOLLARS for measuring out, drilling, supplying and feeding the cable to get into the house.

He only gets $15 per point around the house too.

So at the most he was going to get about $45 for this house today. Rediculous.

Security101

I think that's the norm around here too. Our Satellite installers make a whopping $55 per install including dish install and running up to 4 cables to their locations and programming.

That's why the installs look like they do, no ones getting paid

Jim

Synacom

I just looked over some pricing for Time Warner cable installation in the Buffalo, NY area and it's about the same - low. For the most part we stay away from anything that doesn't pay well enough for us to do a proper install.

golfer

hello .... newbie here.

Came across this older thread and thought to throw in 2 cents worth.


In most cases ... at least around here ... you'll see the cable feeds strung along the Telco on outside poles. Bottom line .... that installer is full of BS.



Not trying to ruffle any feathers .... rather a couple of points for clarification.

AC lines have magnetic fields emanating from them which cause electromagnetic interference ( EMI ) for voice , data , video ..... which is why you shouldn't run them together in close proximity along the same path .... and the reason why you are supposed to go 90 degrees when crossing AC lines.

This is also one of the main reason why the separation from the pole to the building.

Telco ( POT ) line voltages are in the neighborhood of 48 volts DC ( ideally ) .... ring voltages are AC not DC . They range from about 45 - 90 VAC - 20 hz with 75 VAC being average. the reason for the AC ring voltage was to energize the the transformer windings for the bell ringer in older phones.
This is a moot point since it shouldn't affect the install.

As was said here already .... sounds like the installer was a lazy hack..... no surprise.

ICC Marco

I had a similair experiance where I had to insist to the Dish Network installer to run the cabling around the side of the house otherwise I would have had a dish sticking out right smack on the front of my house!! I figuered that they were under paid you see so many of them these days with beat up trucks and no uniform showing up at your house at all hours of the day. I remember one guy call multiple times to reschedule to pickup a receiver (Comcast)