telephone system grounding & surge protection

[JCROCCO]

Should phone lines coming from a dmark and connecting to an office phone system be protected with surge suppressors prior to connecting to the phone system?

The phone system also has a grounding screw. How to ground it?

I do plan on using surge protection for the power.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[bruceb]

Yes, it needs to be grounded and surge arrestors are usually installed at the point where the telco
brings their wire into your building .. It is a matter of safety for both the User, User Eq & the Telephone
Network .. it is also required per the National Electric Code section 800 .. subsection 800-31 deals
with grounding

 

[JCROCCO]

how do I ground it? I have two pieces of equipment that have grounding screws each. These are the phone system, inside our space after the telco equipment. I can run copper wire from these two screws but to where?

 

[bruceb]

Depending on what you have available, either to a Cold Water Pipe ... clean it first and use
a grounding clamp available at any plumbing or electrical hardware store ... or if you are locaated
near your Electrical Service Panel, you can get a good ground from there .. The metal case of
the service panel is grounded and if you open it, you will see a bus which is mounted directly
to the metal case ..... if your home has ROMEX or Nonmetallic Sheathed Cable, the Bare Wire
from that cable will be attached to the Ground Block .. there may also be some GREEN wires
as that is the industry standard color for GROUND

 

[skyking]

A typical installation is bare #6 copper wire bonded to a known ground, for example the water pipe mentioned by Bruce.
You need to verify that the pipe is a continous path to ground.
Ground the phone system, the voicemail if seperate, and any paging amplifiers.
Install a UPS rather than a surge supressor. It is quite handy to have a few minutes of working phone system after a power failure.

 

[JCROCCO]

Should it go thru a UPS "AND" a surge protector? I have a UPS on my rack next to the phone system.

 

[bruceb]

The UPS is a good idea, but the surge arrestors are usually installed by the local TELCO where the line comes into
your home or office .. They are always used to provide for lightning protection, especially if your telephone is coming
in on Copper WIres or is feed from a Telephone Pole ... some newer businesses & some homes (not many) have actual
Fiber Optics coming into a small MUX .... in that case, a surge arrestor is not used, but you still need to ground the
equipment cases ... Just to clarify, a UPS will keep the phone eq working if you lose ac power and your
Surge Protector, will only Protect Your Eq from Voltage Spiikes on your AC Power L:ine ...
The Telco Side surge Arrestor, protects against Spikes on the Dial Tone Lines

 

[skyking]

Originally posted by: JCROCCO
Should it go thru a UPS "AND" a surge protector? I have a UPS on my rack next to the phone system.

A UPS is plenty for protecting the phone system form power spikes.

but the surge arrestors are usually installed by the local TELCO where the line comes into your home or office

The gas tube supressors are the telco's deal.