Peter, you gave a longer and better answer than I did but I must stress once again that while "PUBLIC UTILITIES" are not subject to the provisions of the National Electrical Code in the USA and the Canadian Electrical Code in Canada, for all the reasons you gave (true or not), there are one hell of a lot of organizations around today that may look, smell and feel like telephone companies, but are not "PUBLIC UTILITIES".
Hence, from a manufacturing perspective, unless you know for sure that the product goes to a public utility (which must be using the equipment on it's contiguous property), the equipment does need regulatory approval and the Bellcore Specs will not do. Ciao, Vic
