Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2018/04/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> I think I need to get the ISP people here and redo everything. In the world of commercial service delivery, there is almost always a formal division between them and you. The water company here is responsible for delivering water to my water meter, and I am responsible for the pipes after that. If a pipe bursts in my basement, it is my problem. If a pipe bursts under my front yard on their side of the water meter, it is their problem. Ditto for electricity. The wires up to the electric meter belong to them. The wires that go from the electric meter to my main fuse box belong to me. Ditto for telephone. The telco people have popularized the phrase "inside wiring" to describe the part that they are not responsible for. There is a gray box on the outside of my house. Their phone wire goes into it, and my phone wires come out of it. Each of these services has what is referred to as a "demarc" (demarcation), but most tradespersons spell it "demark", as does my Scrabble dictionary. Diagnosing whether the service is on the inside or outside of the demarc is how you determine who pays for a repair. Cable TV is slightly different because they want to charge you individually for each television. So they don't put a demarc on the outside of your house. The cable box is the demarc. Usually they own it. If you have two TVs, you need two cable boxes, each of which demarcates their service from your consumption of it. Internet service is normally demarcated at the modem. The wire going in to the modem belongs to the internet company; the wire going from the modem to your router belongs to you. However, since most people have no idea how to hook up stuff inside their houses, most internet companies will do "inside wiring" on the customer side of the demarc, simply because it helps them sell more service. If your internet service doesn't work, you won't consume their product. My guess is that in the early days of Edison and Westinghouse selling electrical service there were similar issues of fuzzy demarcation. Maybe Edison Electric would hook up your lamps for you. I remember the era in which the telephone company owned all of the telephones and I wasn't allowed to take them apart. Around here there are internet "inside wiring" companies that will set up technology on the customer side of the demarc. Best Buy's Geek Squad is the best known, but there are lots of them out there. If there was still such a thing as the Yellow Pages you could find such companies there. Unless your ISP is specifically in the business of inside wiring, they might not be the right people to do this.