| reply to Dogfather
Re: What needs to be grounded? Its not so much the fiber connection that NEC is worried about, as the glass is not conductive, however, the FTTH Unit on the side of the house converts the digital light signal to digital electrical signal, which is then delivered to the TVs for FiOS TV via RG-6 Coaxial cable, Telephones Via round 4 pair in older homes, in more recent homes CAT5e is the normal for home phone wiring. Both phone and coaxial drops must be grounded. grounding through the ONT grounds all services offered by FiOS internet, phone and TV. When Verizon comes in and installs there services, they disconnect the cable tv drop and the phones POTS line, and run the wires to the ONT, thus disconnecting any ground from the internal wiring of the house. It might not seem like a huge problem, but not grounding the coaxial alone can turn into a horrible issue. Appliances such as TVs, answering machines, fax machines, computers can all back feed voltage through the respective lines. as a former cable TV tech, I experienced many service calls, that were for "bad/Snowy picture." I would start my trouble shooting checking signal levels through the house, and at the main splitter, and would receive a shock, usually not strong but once it was a good wake up call. Come to find out, a tv in the customers home would have a issue called a hot chassis, and would back feed voltage on the coax, trying to get to ground. One home had no ground and actually did damage to the cable main line tap by feeding ac power back on to the dc powered system, the tap melted like it was solder. They say electricity travels the shortest path to ground, i would say it takes what ever path it can find, with most going the shortest route. Also its safer to ground something that might not need it, then "knock on wood" a fire happens at a home and the fire investigator find that an electrical system "high or low voltage" is not grounded that could screw you out of your home owners insurance. leveling blame on the company that was responsible for verifying there equipment is grounded. |
