How to locate a telephone co demark box
September 27, 2012 2:42 PM Subscribe
How do I find the telephone companies demarcation box? The telephone wire comes off the street, into a conduit on the roof and then back out the conduit pipe and under the roof. The cable box and electrical meter are both right there, the tech and I were surprised the demark box was not. Is it possible my house doesn't have a demark box?
The house is 20 years old, no renovations have ever been done, (I don't think). I don't have any blue prints for the house. Perhaps city hall has some on file?
How do I go about locating a phantom demarcation box?
The phone company is Telus.
The house is 20 years old, no renovations have ever been done, (I don't think). I don't have any blue prints for the house. Perhaps city hall has some on file?
How do I go about locating a phantom demarcation box?
The phone company is Telus.
This here is what it's going to look like.
In my house, it's in the garage, because now that we have Uverse, we need a/c power to run the damn thing.
It might be in the attic (Unusual, but not unheard of) or in the basement/crawl space.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 3:38 PM on September 27, 2012
In my house, it's in the garage, because now that we have Uverse, we need a/c power to run the damn thing.
It might be in the attic (Unusual, but not unheard of) or in the basement/crawl space.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 3:38 PM on September 27, 2012
It's going to be there somewhere but it may not look exactly like the one Ruthless Bunny posted (mine doesn't have the Bell logo etc).
If you call Telus they may be able to send someone out to find it, depending on why you want to locate it.
posted by unSane at 3:42 PM on September 27, 2012
If you call Telus they may be able to send someone out to find it, depending on why you want to locate it.
posted by unSane at 3:42 PM on September 27, 2012
(BTW house blueprints will not typically show the location of the demark box -- it tends to go wherever the Bell tech damn well feels like it).
posted by unSane at 3:43 PM on September 27, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by unSane at 3:43 PM on September 27, 2012 [1 favorite]
Can you follow the wire from where it presumably runs down along the side of the house somewhere and then into your basement and up to the wall jacks? If you can follow the run and there isn't a box, then it doesn't exist. There certainly are older houses without boxes (I live in a 50s house without one and I have Telus DSL), so I'm sure Telus has procedures to deal with this.
posted by ssg at 4:02 PM on September 27, 2012
posted by ssg at 4:02 PM on September 27, 2012
Old school demarc boxes aren't always boxes. My parents (US/Pac Bell) just had a bunch of screw terminals (more or less like this) on the other side of the ground floor from where the wires came into the house. The terminals are just mounted on a stud in the wall and a later remodeling covered them with a small metal access door.
Keep following the wires as best you can after they come into the house. They have to connect to something somewhere! Can you access the attic/crawlspace where they come back in under the roof?
posted by zachlipton at 4:31 PM on September 27, 2012
Keep following the wires as best you can after they come into the house. They have to connect to something somewhere! Can you access the attic/crawlspace where they come back in under the roof?
posted by zachlipton at 4:31 PM on September 27, 2012
Response by poster: Found it. In the garage. The telus installer had approx. zero interest in locating it nor any procedures for looking. To be fair he had very little interest in doing his job today. Maybe he was having a bad day. Fair enough we all have jobs that some days we don't perform at peak levels at.
posted by Keith Talent at 4:52 PM on September 27, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Keith Talent at 4:52 PM on September 27, 2012 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:51 PM on September 27, 2012