July 08, 2004
The final few feet
The Avaya system is working. Actually two separate systems extended from a master switch in San Diego. Each system rides an OC3 to a Cisco 8540 switch to a fiber to the Avaya box. The Avaya Tech installed the purple board, split 50 blocks, ran and terminated the cables from the Avaya box. the block on the left side of the picture. A split-50 block has two lugs for each of 50 pairs. The Avaya cable terminates on the left ("A") Bridging Clips ("B") span the pairs on the left with the pairs on the right. The lugs on the right ("C") hold the cross connect wires that run to my blocks ("C" prime.)
The Bridge clip is the demarcation. In the event of a trouble the clips are lifted and a test set is connected directly to the Avaya side of the block. If the trouble remains, it is Avaya's trouble, not mine. If I have good dial tone at the Avaya block the trouble is on prem and it is my responsibility to fix.
The block on the right is my block, an M66-25. This is the 25 pair un-split version, all four lugs are a single piece giving me four connecting lugs instead of the two of a split-50. My cable ("D") goes to the patch jacks in the data racks. I used the -25's so that IF they want to add a monitoring system such as the Verint trial ("mission impossible") I will have the lugs available to connect to it without having to re-engineer the connections.
Avaya ran 8 cables, each carrying 24 single pair circuits. I ran 8 cables, each terminating on an RJ-11 wired single pair jack. Shown is the test position on Avaya box 24, card 5, port 21. There are three digital cards in each box, each cross-connected pair for pair to my patch panels. Each patch panel is mapped one to one to each card. Since 24A0521 is the 141st port provided by Avaya it is mapped to the 141st jack -- jack 21 on the 6th panel.
Any port can be patched to any desk -- total flexibility. In this case they want this line at a test position. A glance at the floorplan says it is floor jack number 49. The floor jacks are paired, red and blue. The red jack carries the LAN connection. The blue will be used for the Avaya telephone. (For back-up I still have the old 25-pair KTS floor cables available -- on the main backboard which is why I wanted the Avaya and patch blocks on that same wall. Not that they will ever be needed, we tested and fixed any problems when we installed the cables in the first place.)
The pairs of patch jacks in the data racks are cabled to a two-jack biscuit that attaches magnetically to the desk. A standard modular telephone cord connects the jack to the Avaya test set.