Demarc Power

[sohtnax]

My company is currently occupying an office building with with other tenants. The demarc is in a common area, and houses all our voice and data T1's as well as the other tenants.

One of the tenants is currently undergoing a renovation in their space, and as a result we have had several occasions where the power for wahtever reason was lost in the demarc.

The local carrier, Verizon, has indicated that they are no longer responsible for providing battery backup to their equipment. Therefore, is the building owner responsible for ensuring the availability of all facilities inthe demarc room? Has anyone ever heard of separting demarc's for multiple tenants?

 

[pansophic]

You can generally pay to have the DEMARC moved to a different part of the building, or an additional DEMARC created, but in many cases, they will run fiber to the MPOP and put their electronics there, then send a copper trunk to your DEMARC.

It technically moves your DEMARC, but it gains you nothing. It is probably cheaper to buy the UPS yourself, and have the building people install it at the Telco DEMARC the next time that the equipment is out because they are working on the other tenant's buildout. I am surprised that the telco didn't require dedicated power for their service. We always supplied a dedicated circuit to the DEMARC. That way, no one else's stuff can impact your DEMARC unless the Main fails, and then you have much bigger problems.

I worked with the Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) installers to get them to use our UPSs on several of our building upgrades to fiber. The UPS is cheap compared to the cost of wasted time during an outage that you were unprepared for. It is ideal if the UPS that you use has generator backup (most of ours did).


pansophic

 

[sohtnax]

We did not run a dedicated circuit because the cabinet that houses all the T1 cards is shared with circuits from other tenants. At this point in time, could we go to the building manager to resolve this?

 

[bkrike]

You could always try the building management, but they typically don’t have anything to do with Telco stuff (at least where I am from.) You may have better luck with them by explaining how the other tenants remodeling is negatively impacting your business.

Are you sure the T-1 box has an actual power cord that plugs into an outlet? Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. I agree with pansophic, in that an option is just to install your own UPS at the demarc. If you are talking about momentary outages you could just use a normal computer style UPS (75-500 dollars,) as opposed to something with a generator backup.

FYI- having a shared demarc and a shared device that holds all the tenants T1 cards is very common.

 

[sohtnax]

Yes, the equipmetn definately plugs into an outlet.

It's not really a matter of cost. I would install a UPS on my own, but if there is ever a problem with it, I wouldn't want to be held responsible by other tenants. Iwill go to Building Management.

Thank you everyone for your input!

 

[aarenot]

I would speak with your building management. Often a dmarc is close to, or in same room as the electrical room, and a dedicated electrical circuit may even be only a 10 foot run. If so, I would recomend to the building management that this would put their building higher on the list of possible future ocupancies by your company. Explain to them that while you understand remodeling is important to retaining and gaining tenants, so are good references by current tenants. If they were willing to accomodate, you would be willing to offer references to them. Try the carrot, and the stick.
They may simply tell the contractors, power outs on that circuit are restricted to 5PM to 8 AM.
If they will not put in the circuit, pay for it yourself, or split cost with other T1 users, if not too expensive. UPS could be done the same way.

You do not always get what you pay for, but you never get what you do not pay for.