Buried Cable Primer

[patric]

AT&T just buried fiber for their U-Verse system in my area -- took all of a week and you can barely tell where the cable is.

They used "Directional Boring" to pull big orange HDPE plastic conduits under streets and driveways and big mature trees, and you can barely tell it's there now.

How they did it:
http://www.directionalboringcentral.com/library/dba/dbapamphlet.htm

[Double A]

Word.

[Chicken Little]

From the above link:

quote: Costs
Directional boring has evolved steadily over the last 20 years and is now the preferred method on many installations due to its low cost and low impact on surroundings. It is generally less expensive than other methods such as microtunneling, jack & bore and open trenching in urban areas. In urban areas it can not only save a considerable amount on installation cost it can provide a tremendous amount of public goodwill.

Emphasis mine.  Too cool.

[Steve]

quote:Originally posted by patric

AT&T just buried fiber for their U-Verse system in my area -- took all of a week and you can barely tell where the cable is.

Is this what they have been doing down Darlington Ave. between 21st & 31st streets for the past year? There have been lots of AT&T trucks and digging activity on Darlington in my neighborhood for well over a year, and I have wondered what was going on.  Took a week in your area, has been going on for months in mine.

[patric]

quote:Originally posted by Steve

Is this what they have been doing down Darlington Ave. between 21st & 31st streets for the past year?

Dont know without seeing it, but it's possible.

AT&T seems to be succeeding with undergrounding because they want to garner good will and get customers to switch to their U-Verse service, while AEP seems to be failing at it because they dont want undergrounding to be the standard (and dont have the competition to spur better performance).