Apt buildings--where is the demarc box? [telecom]

Those junction boxes would be the end of telephone company wire.

Between the point the wire enters the apartment and the jacks, that wire is a fixture of the apartment. Between the telco box and the apartment is "building wire", a fixture of the building. If the apartment is a condominium, the building wire would be a limited common element.

For all practical purposes, wire maintenance of inside wire and building wire is the subscriber's responsibility, but he may need to give the building owner some notice that he needs access to wiring panels in utility rooms. In a condo, maintenance of building wire will definitely be charged back to the unit owner. In a leased or rented unit, it depends on contract language, but ultimately, the tenant pays.

The ripoff inside wire maintenance plan from the phone company doesn't necessarily cover building wire.

That depends on where. In about 20-25 states, the demark is in the apartment. There was a shim built to fit behind a 2554 wallset. At the bottom, it had a modular jack and plug. THAT was the demark point.

Authoritative answer: "It depends". on -where- the state regulatory authorities said it is.

In a number of jurisdictions, the telco is responsible *ONLY* to the point where their big multi-pair cable terminates inside the _building_. The the building management is responsible for the 'house' wiring to the individual units, and the unit is responsible for the wiring inside their premises. In such situations, when there's a building wire problem, you are at the mercy of whomever the building's "selected contractor" is, for length of time, and price you'll have to pay, to get the problem fixed.

In other jurisdictions, the telco is liable up to the point the wiring enters the unit itself.

Thanks to all who responded.

Our telco says their responsibility ends at their outside junction box on the building wall.

But this is a catch-22 since that junction box is for telco use only and the public can't get into it. If there was a wire problem that could not be resolved within a unit (and many _can_ be fixed within a unit), then the phoneco would have to be paid to fix it.

I was asked to order phone service on behalf of a resident in a nursing home. The nursing home was quite adamant--they said wiring had to be run from a junction box to the patient room and they would only allow the phoneco to do so. (patient phones were all private lines, not part of their system.)

That's to be expected. Both the phone company and nursing home are treating it as building wire, a fixture of the nursing home. They own the building, so they can instruct the resident/patient to use their designated contractor, in this case, the phone company.

I can only speak to California.

1. In an apartment building (rentals) the landlord is responsible for the inside wiring from the telco panel to the apartment jacks.

1. In condos the association is responsible for the wire from the telco panel until it enters the owner's unit. The common area wire is the responsibility of the association. We have a common-area wire maintenance contract with AT&T (Pacific Bell).

I can only answer this from a multi-tennant commercial perspective. When [my employer, which is an agency of our state government] relocated one of our facilities, the wiring planning was all on us, but the building owner ran all of it and maintained it.

In _all_ U.S. jurisdictions, as far as I know, for multi-tenant *commercial* properties, the telco demarc is where their cable enters the building, and the building is responsible for wiring to the tenant spaces. Only for "residential" service, and only in *some* states, is the matter handled 'differently'.