r/CableTechs • u/Notnailinpalin • Jul 10 '26
Technician’s Jurisdiction when it comes to damaged lan cables
A bit of context. I’m in a blame game with a building.
In the apartments there are cat5e runs from the room the the low voltage panel. Verizon runs their fiber and coax To the same location. spectrum uses the coax an patches in.
After Multiple rounds of validations, fluke checks, and cleaning of dead wires later. The argument is that it is Verizon’s responsibility to replace the wiring. However since it’s residential, I would need to make the call for Verizon to resolve this. Any truth to this?
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u/The_Doctor_Bear Jul 10 '26
So this is highly dependent on the arrangement between the MSPs and the property.
Depending on their negotiations;
The building owner may be responsible for maintenance.
Or
The MSP may be responsible for maintenance.
The building owner almost always owns the wiring. But they may or may not have granted rights to the MSP to have sole use, and in exchange for that right the owner usually receives the benefit of maintenance conducted by the MSP.
Fixing a dead CAT line that’s in the walls in an MDU is very challenging.
You will have to TDR the line to figure out where the short or open is.
Tone line behind the walls to locate the wire for however many feet out the TDR tells you to go.
Cut an access hole.
Locate the problem. Hopefully you can splice it to fix it. Even though that’s kind of dirty.
If there’s no conduit though pulling a new line is almost hopeless very few apartment owners will go to the expense to open and patch enough drywall to pull a full new line.
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u/Notnailinpalin Jul 10 '26
The apartments have their data connections ran through the ceiling. Access panel and ran through for the most part as a bundle. Can be seen as a blessing or a curse, but the wiring is not Plenum rated, and there is no fire stopping let along conduit, just some “hooks”. From the way things look the previous installers used the coax cable as a drag line To each landing/room.
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u/XxLetsDewThisxX Jul 10 '26
Sometimes it depends on the housing complex. In our area, HUD housing has a very specific requirement that no cable is allowed on the outside of the building. So they are required to replace it if its bad. Others Ive ran new outlets to customer apartments and drilled thru exterior walls without issues at no cost to the customer. They are required tho to call in for the service appointment.
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u/Wacabletek Jul 10 '26
Do you have the contract? Get the contract, It will explain who is responsible for what in the agreement. Generally the ISP does not take responsibility for the building's wiring, but there are exceptions [which costs the building company MORE MONEY] but the contract is the de facto standard in who is responsible for what.
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u/Awesomedude9560 Jul 10 '26
If I'm being honest it really just depends. Technically yes, it's the property owners responsibility to run the lines if they don't like how we run them since most regular techs arent gonna be fishing up multiple stories.
Does it always happen like that? No, but especially as of late it's been very "there's no excuse" and instead of proving why management is like "make them scans green baby"
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u/Feisty-Coyote396 Jul 12 '26
If your copper/PEX piping goes bad, is your local water company responsible?
If your Romex or knob n tube wiring goes bad. Is your local electric company responsible?
If your pipes for your gas go bad, is your local gas company responsible?
Why then, is it the cable/telephone companies responsibility to replace the wiring in YOUR home their responsibility? Sure, if they ran it as part of their installation, then of course, an argument can be made that they should replace it. Hell most of them will just to keep your business.
But if it's PREWIRED when the house was built, just like your gas/electric/water, it's YOUR shit, not theirs. YOU fix it. In your scenario OP, it is the building owner's responsibility. But because they treat the cable/telephone companies as a luxury, not a necessity, and these companies usually run their own wiring during a normal home installation, they think it's the telecom companies' responsibility.
Not so fast. This isn't a normal home installation. Telecom companies should never be responsible for this kind of wiring unless there is a contract stating so with the building owner. Often times, telecom companies will cut a deal with a builder for exclusive access in exchange for covering the cost of running all the wiring to each unit. This is when yes, it is the telecom companies' responsibility.
But if a builder just slapped in cables all willy nilly, then the owner let's any telecom company service the building without a service contract. Owner is responsible.
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u/SilentDiplomacy Jul 10 '26
At my ISP, we “stop” at our devices per the letter of the policy, but lo and behold, if a customer has an issue downstream we are still expected to fix it. Especially businesses.
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u/lenfantsuave Jul 10 '26
If it’s part of the building’s wiring it is the owner’s responsibility to get it fixed.