Sean Donelan wrote:
"For competitive reasons we can't tell you the location of our fiber."
- An anonymous representative of a very large telco
Ask them for a map.
Yeah, I know a lot of folks have resorted to calling OneCall, getting the street painted orange, and making their own maps.
Yeah, had that experience here (refusal to provide a map). Indeed, a little FOIA research got the official explanation that they won't even provide the city with a map. The city only has the generic plans listed when they apply for permits to tear up specific streets or cross city property. On the MCI lay that I personally watched, I compared the actual to the plan, and the actual is at least 40 feet away from where it is listed as going thru a city park. I watched the contractor carefully note location and depth measurements, but those as-builts were never filed with the city. In the ensuing years, there have been several more lays along the same general route (a lot of relocation of power and phone for an upcoming bridge replacement where the power and phone ducts were embedded in the bridge deck), and the city also added ducts for traffic controls. The orange MCI poles have long since been run over by later equipment, and markings have been haphazard at best. The result: Edison hit the MCI ducts last spring, and they had to dig 40-50 feet down near/under the river for the repair. An amazing crater, with a lot of pumping and dams to avoid diverting the river. Weeks of traffic disruption and inconvenience for neighbors. I've come to the conclusion that a lot of these problems could be avoided with a bit of enforced cooperation. Recent ordinances require competing cell providers to licence or share existing towers before new tower permits are allowed. We don't allow multiple rows of telephone poles in the same easement. Why do we allow unconstrained underground work? The rampant "competition" just isn't tenable. WSimpson@UMich.edu Key fingerprint = 17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26 DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32