Equipment huts

If we end up getting NTIA ARRA funds for broadband deployment in California, we may need as many as 16 equipment huts.  I'll keep track of some of our research here.

Prior Experience
We already have experience with Thermo Bond, based on a Palm Desert, CA installation.

Requirements


Space
Climate
Site Requirements

Fiber construction per day

Now that most poles have been set and anchors, strand, and make ready are well underway, average fiber installation per day is expected to be 5,000 feet

How Many 11U Nortel 5200 Fit in a 42U Rack?

AT&T field tech at site S says that only one Nortel 5200, 11U, fits in a 42U rack. This seems weird, so we're going to raise it with the AT&T account team.

Unfortunately (for us) the rack is a non-AT&T rack and each AT&T tech is a king in his own domain, so there may be no recourse. At a minimum we need to find out how equipment in the rack is distributed, which may require a site visit (barf).

Update:

• site provides redundant DC, so no battery
• I'll add a photo (taken by AT&T tech, so don't blame me for quality)

Hand Dug Poles: Rate of Placement

One crew can place 2 hand dug poles/day under good conditions

NTIA ARRA Infrastructure Estimates

Estimated costs of diverse service entrance: $10K, 30A breaker: $2K; Exhaust blower in IDF: $5K

Update: this turns out not to be diverse. The $10K estimate is based on using existing duct.

Using Google Maps to Estimate Distances Along Roads

The "My Maps" personal maps feature of Google Maps can be used to estimate distances along roads. Here's the discussion from a recent blog post.

We've also added a new tool that lets you draw lines along a road to get from point to point. This is accessed via a drop-down menu in the line tool by clicking and holding briefly anywhere on the button.

The tool calculates the best driving route between your line's vertices and automatically snaps your line to the appropriate road.

Who owns the project?

It seems obvious to me that when we deliver a service under contract to the IT organization, that the project is owned by the customer's IT organization.  At a site where we're trying to put in a diverse fiber path, however, there's contention at the customer site whether IT or Facilities owns the project.

We deal with an intermediary group at the customer's corporate level that is supposed to intercede in this sort of stuff and get to a (rational) decision, but it hasn't happened.

Net result is that the project start date is delayed.  Again.

Next step is to have Yet Another Conference Call to make sure that we're not missing some underlying context and to try to move the corporate office ot get IT to take responsibility.

If that doesn't work, maybe we can get the customer site CIO to make the decision.