Electrical Expert: FiOS Installations Safe > Does Fiber Conduct Electrcity?

Does Fiber Conduct Electrcity?

It's not about the fiber optic cable carrying voltage, its about the grounding of the ONT, which has electronics in it and also connects to the coax in your house, which can have a voltage on it from crappy VCRs, TVs and other AV equipment.
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Drilling for more oil is akin to giving a methhead the keys to the meth lab.

Here's what I don't understand....

I have AT&T U-Verse FTTP. I have your typical setup with a UPS inside the garage and an ONT mounted outside.

Why couldn't they have just mounted the ONT inside the garage and terminated my cat5 there?

It seems they could have put a simple passive enclosure on the outside of the house where the ONT is just to allow for the fiber to bend slowely and then go through the wall through a small conduit pipe.

Then the ONT could have just mounted inside the house like any other piece of CPE with simplified grounding requirements.

Do they really need that much access to the ONT to have it outside?

reply to NetAdmin1
however shouldnt that be handled by the third prong on the plug? not that an earth ground would hurt, can never be oversafe.
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[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports

reply to Enlightener
The usual reason for the ONT, or the SMI for copper pots service being on the outside of the house is to allow the technician access without having to have someone at home to provide access.

This is somewhat different from business locations which, quite frequently have the network demarc located in side the building, as there is usually access to the that location through out the day, as well as off hours if there is trouble.

Having it on the outside allows testing of the facility, while removing the CPE from the equation. Should CPE be found to be the trouble, arrangements can be made to access, or, the customer can do his own CPE maintenance, depending on the individual situation.

reply to Kearnstd
Grounding is a very complex topic, but suffice it to say that while the third prong on a standard electrical plug provides a degree of safety, it does not cure all ills and is not designed to handle lightning which can supply voltages of several hundred kV.

When you take a lightning strike on one part of your house, the electricity has to go somewhere. If one path is grounded and the others are not, you get different electrical potentials and current flow through the house, potentially frying much of the system and anything attached to it. Your computer surge supressor is designed to knock down transient voltage spikes from the electric company; it will not take care of big spike.

The right solution is to take the spike to ground BEFORE it enters the house, not after. If the external installation is properly grounded, that is exactly what happens. In an ideal situation, all sources of aberrant voltages are grounded externally and all ground rods are bonded together (i.e. the ground rods for your main electrical panel, cable, antennas, etc. are tied together).

The issue here is not the fiber optic, it is the other copper conductors in the box.

reply to NetAdmin1

In the previous discussions on this topic, it was noted that the electrical power to the ONT is supplied by a two prong plug.

reply to jacour
Based on the results of some lightning strikes on houses here in recent months, the grounding of the ONT would be the least of the homeowner's worries, rebuilding the house and replacing the contents would be much higher on the priority list.

reply to kdwycha

reply to Austinloop
I understand (see my very last statement) but if the powersupply is on the inside, doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose?

Besides, they (AT&T in my case) have already deployed the remote gateway ( that has the VOIP TA built in ) and STB's for video far into the customer area so I'm kind of wondering if the old pattern of `this is the demarc` isn't just obsolete by now.

reply to knightmb
We have a tower at the back of our building for our wireless network. We use media converters for the network connection to the radios at the tower. We convert from Cat5 at the tower to Fiber and back to Cat5 at the switch that is in our basement. The only reason we use the fiber is to prevent lighting from entering the data center upstairs.

reply to knightmb
The issue that I have, which honestly doesn't affect me at this time, is that while it may be technically safe, ... codes are codes and must be followed.

So, if the city has a set of codes that Verizon must follow, then they need to follow the code as written and not go around them and they must be held to it.

Not to mention, of course by default, anyone Verizon hires is going be pro-Verizon's side, just the same as would AT&T, Comcast, Cox, Charter, Time Warner, Embarq, etc.

reply to Enlightener
No, it hasn't made it obsolete yet.

In your case of the gateway, that is now considered CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) which is no different that a cable box or telephone.

There still has to be a place where their (network provider) and your (customer wires) meet together which is still the DMK point outside.

Your gateway still connects to the plant via your inside wire which is still bridged outside with the plant side. Any and all testing is still done outside the home, not inside.

Just in the case as cable TV, testing is still performed at the ground block (outside) and if they need to get to the cable box (which is the same as your gateway/TA) they'd need you home.

What is happening with the case of AT&T is that they pushed your telephone dial tone inside. That device that gives you dial tone still feeds back outside to the wiring where the testing is still done. In the case of an ONT such as Verizon or other fiber services, your dial tone still terminates outside in that ONT. In the case of VOIP, which is what you have, dial tone is not of their immediate concern since it's not a regulated service. They are more concerned that you have a clean data connectivity outside FOR that gateway to establish connection with.

Make sense?

reply to knightmb
I have seen a lot of Star Trek to know not to mess around with photons.

They should be installing some regenerative shielding to help protect themselves from the ATT DeathStar.
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reply to fiberguy
It makes sense except that I'm not sure the gateway is considered CPE.

The latest TOS I saw says that AT&T owns the gateway, you agree to allow them to manage it, and you return it when you leave.

When I converted from FTTP ala legacy DSL to U-Verse FTTP they took my old gateway. I hadn't even realized they did it until it was too late and my old TOS didn't allow that for what I recalled.

reply to battleop
as far as lightning is concerned, just about anything "can" conduct it. Air, trees, car tires.....if there is enough voltage (lightning) and the object has ANY even remotely conductive properties (maybe the jacket on the fiber is damp?)...current from the lighting will travel...people "do" get struck and "conduct" lightning even with rubber shoes on...even though shoes would not normally be considered a conductor.

reply to r81984
Not needed, they can just modulate their shield harmonics. That always works.

reply to beaups
Yea and I guess there is a remote chance that an asteroid will fall out of the sky and land on our building too. I know it's not 100% impossible that will never happen but I pretty confident that lighting will never make it to the data center via the fiber.

reply to fiberguy
How is fiber suspended from the pole to the ONT? I know that from pole to pole there is a steel cable. Then they hold the fiber with another steel cable that is wrapped around the fiber and steel cable.