Microtrench is generally only done in asphalt that has curb and gutter. If you can get off to the side, best to plow.
I had a customer microtrench 11,505’ in one day with one crew with one saw last week. Try that with a drill. From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Chris Fabien Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2025 2:09 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] BEAD You can vibratory plow 3ft deep right down or across gravel roads too for that matter. Haven't seen any use of Microtrenching in Michigan. I can see benefit for super congested areas where you are avoiding that by going extra shallow. I can't really see the advantage over drilling and we've had contractors drill in some pretty congested areas for well under $10/ft. Maybe microtrenching makes more sense where the ground conditions also make drilling quite difficult? Is this generally done more in heavy rock areas? On Tue, Mar 25, 2025 at 11:01 AM <ch...@go-mtc.com <mailto:ch...@go-mtc.com> > wrote: You can do it in gravel and chip seal, also in dirt. But if dirt, just plow. Much faster and cheaper. -----Original Message----- From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2025 7:21 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] BEAD Meanwhile our illustrious state senate has a bill to eliminate all townships under 5000 population and absorb them into the county. So the county would be responsible for road maintenance and snow plowing. And ROW issues? I'm told right now when someone wants to bury fiber along a township road the township basically says sure, whatever. I don't know if the land next to the road belongs to the township or the homeowners. As fa as microtrenching, we have a lot of gravel and chip-and-seal roads, I don't think you microtrench those. Or maybe you can, but people would question why you are putting it under the road when you can put it next to the road in the dirt. You're going to have to put handholes there anyway. -----Original Message----- From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of Mike Hammett Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2025 7:39 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] BEAD I don't have any court history to prove one way or the other, but the state and the IL Farm Bureau both say that there are no public easements on township roads. A prescriptive easement or Right of way is probably limited to whomever has placed it and not the public at large. Around here, each of the utilities does have a private easement alongside public roads. -- Mike Hammett ----- Original Message ----- From: ch...@go-mtc.com <mailto:ch...@go-mtc.com> To: "AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group" <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Sent: Monday, March 24, 2025 6:08:45 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] BEAD If the road and shoulders have been open to the public and used by the public for a number of years, like 20+ years, there exists a prescriptive public right of way that you can use. It is generally an adverse possession doctrine. Best Regards, Chuck McCown McCown Technology Corporation 8401 N Commerce Drive Lake Point, Utah 84074 801-250-9503 Office www.microtrench-blades.com <http://www.microtrench-blades.com> www.mccowntech.com <http://www.mccowntech.com> www.terabitnetworks.com <http://www.terabitnetworks.com> From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of Chris Fabien Sent: Monday, March 24, 2025 11:47 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] BEAD "Rural side roads in IL are a bitch because the government doesn't own the underlying asset, so you still have to get an easement from every landowner along the way." This seems like insanity to me... how does anything ever get ran underground? Back 10 years ago when I thought ROW permitting was hard I tried to get private easements for a very small fiber project. It only took me about 6 homeowners to get to Mrs. "My daddy was a lawyer and told me never sign an easement" and that's where the project stopped until we figured out ROW permitting. How is it that the road exists but there's no really a right of way for it to be there? I know this situation exists in some states or there are states where ROW ownership/width is practically lost to history. It's just impossible to wrap my head around coming from a state with a very clear and well defined public ROW law. I suppose I am grateful for that! On Mon, Mar 24, 2025 at 1:15 PM < ch...@go-mtc.com <mailto:ch...@go-mtc.com> > wrote: OK so frost heave will what? Displace conduits placed 16” below the asphalt, but not the gasline at 24”? From: AF < af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of Adam Moffett Sent: Monday, March 24, 2025 7:51 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' < af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] BEAD It's not generally done around here. There's a common belief that frost heave will be an issue. I think you've disagreed with that, but I don't know enough to argue either side of it. From: AF on behalf of Chuck McCown Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2025 5:45 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' Subject: Re: [AFMUG] BEAD Microtrenching is much faster and cheaper than HDD. From: AF [ mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> ] On Behalf Of Adam Moffett Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2025 12:57 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' < af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] BEAD $15-20/splice was normal in the past. Volume went way up, and the contractors are in high demand. An NY specific issue that compounded the problem was a new rule that you have to pay prevailing wage anytime you're doing work in a ROW where a permit was required. That drove up even the non-PW work because they'd rather do the PW work and there's enough volume that they can be choosy about it. Check out the numbers below from a contractor. This chart makes me want to buy a splice truck and quit this whole "engineer" thing. If you want to send a crew to NY we'll put them to work and they'll get rates like these all day long. PW Non PW per location ct Splice Loc Rate ct Splice Loc Rate OFDC/ Wall Panel 0 $72.00 0 $45.00 450B 0 $60.00 0 $37.50 450D 0 $52.00 0 $32.50 600D 0 $48.00 0 $30.00 Underground is a separate nightmare. We do it for make-ready avoidance or in neighborhoods without existing aerial. Almost everything needs HDD, and the per foot rates would make your eyes water. Or maybe make your mouth water if you have a crew that will travel to NY for work. We do have internal crews, and they are absolutely less costly than the contractors, but scaling requires more hands. We also need to be able to ramp up and down, and it's bad optics to hire a bunch of people for construction work and then have to lay them off when the projects are finished and you're waiting to get your next build areas approved by the board. This is the much-vaunted efficiency of corporations. The secret is they're not efficient at all -they just have lots of capital to make things happen. Where your ROI is 10% theirs might be 5%, but 5% of $100 billion is more than 10% of whatever you have. -Adam From: AF on behalf of Chuck McCown Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2025 2:07 PM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' Subject: Re: [AFMUG] BEAD I learned my lesson on make ready years ago, so I am 100% underground now. And frankly, I only splice what I need on the large count cables. We splice them ourselves so not much cost there. I have never seen $41/burn before. Most of the time when we were burning for money we were happy to get $16. BTW, I hate splicing ribbon. Seems almost impossible to get 12 perfect splices. From: AF [ mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> ] On Behalf Of Adam Moffett Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2025 11:59 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' < af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] BEAD Yeah, city and county permits aren't usually bad. People mean different things when they say "permit", though. The elco technically is licensing us to make an attachment to a pole, but people often call it a "pole permit". We have to complete all the make ready before we're licensed to attach and make ready is usually the killer. Pole attachment application fees have been north of $150/pole in NY since about 2015 when the Elco's outsourced the engineering work. NYDOT permits need engineer stamped drawings, and the details they require are time consuming. RR crossings can be ridiculous. Overall, the cable and placement of the cable makes up about 1/3 of the cost. So we do spend twice as much on all the crap it takes to get there. In that light it's very tempting to say that placing a 288 vs a 96 isn't that big of a deal, but it does start to look like a big deal once you add everything up. Contractors charge per splice. Butt splicing a 288 is like $12,000....more if it's prevailing wage. Your reel length is constrained by the size and weight of reel that your equipment can handle. Corning ALTOS 288F weighs twice as much as their 96F, so your doing 3x the splices twice as often for ultimately 6x the splicing cost. It also means bigger closures everywhere you're tapping into that cable. It does all add up. -Adam From: AF on behalf of Chuck McCown Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2025 11:29 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' Subject: Re: [AFMUG] BEAD I have not found permitting, engineering or fees to be all the expensive as long as you are not dealing with federal lands. Most cities are very reasonable. -----Original Message----- From: AF [ mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> ] On Behalf Of Mark Radabaugh Sent: Friday, March 21, 2025 5:54 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group < af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] BEAD The extra fiber needed to do AE isn’t a big deal when you are building centralized split architecture in mid to dense population areas, but it becomes pretty cost prohibitive quickly in low density and with NG2-PON on the horizon with the capability of delivering 10G/10G over a 40G capacity PON I don’t see much need for AE anytime soon. Why is is so expensive? Fiber isn’t expensive - it’s the permitting, engineering, fees to every government entity, paperwork, etc. that you have to pay. Mark > On Mar 21, 2025, at 4:49 PM, dbernardi < dberna...@zitomedia.net > <mailto:dberna...@zitomedia.net> > wrote: > > > > But the expensive/important part (fiber) is in place. If the gubment is going > to piss away tax dollars for unserved/underserved broadband, fiber > construction seems like a decent urinal. > > XGS-PON can co-exist with GPON on the same fiber so eventual upgrades are > fairly easy. Do combo GPON/XGS-PON at the OLT out of the gate so a CPE swap > is the only thing require for an upgrade to a shared 10Gb service. When > XGS-PON isn't enough bandwidth for the 32 subscribers on a PON, I'd rather > replace equipment at either end than deal with another construction project. > Or do a 1:16 split. > > Preparing for AE when doing the construction is probably worthwhile too even > if you only light for PON initially, or mix/match. The cost of deploying high > count fiber cable isn't that significant in the big picture. > > And why does fiber construction have to be so (artificially?) expensive. Buy > America will certainly make broadband deployments more expensive but that's a > good thing if it truly provides jobs and manufacturing investment, but I have > my doubts. > > > > On 3/21/2025 2:04 PM, Josh Luthman wrote: >> Is GPON good enough? That can only do gigabit and each port is 2.5G. Should >> these projects require NGPON? Or maybe every location should have AE so they >> can do 100G to start with. >> On Fri, Mar 21, 2025 at 2:01 PM Steve Jones < thatoneguyst...@gmail.com >> <mailto:thatoneguyst...@gmail.com> < mailto:thatoneguyst...@gmail.com >> <mailto:thatoneguyst...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> Because in X years they won't be. With fiber they will be upon the >> same Infrastructure. >> On Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 10:59 AM Josh Luthman < >> j...@imaginenetworksllc.com <mailto:j...@imaginenetworksllc.com> < >> mailto:j...@imaginenetworksllc.com <mailto:j...@imaginenetworksllc.com> >> >> wrote: >> But people that currently have fixed wireless of 100x20 are >> sufficiently served? How does that make any sense? >> On Fri, Mar 21, 2025 at 11:44 AM Steve Jones < >> thatoneguyst...@gmail.com <mailto:thatoneguyst...@gmail.com> < >> mailto:thatoneguyst...@gmail.com <mailto:thatoneguyst...@gmail.com> >> >> wrote: >> they should not allow fixed wireless, they never should have allowed >> technology with a short shelf life On Thu, Mar 20, 2025 at 9:17 AM >> Adam Moffett < dmmoff...@gmail.com <mailto:dmmoff...@gmail.com> < >> mailto:dmmoff...@gmail.com <mailto:dmmoff...@gmail.com> >> >> wrote: >> Well.... >> https://bsky.app/profile/craigsilverman.bsky.social/ >> post/3lkiye5n2dk2p < https://bsky.app/profile/ >> craigsilverman.bsky.social/post/3lkiye5n2dk2p> >> https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/s/seq3uoU1L5 >> < https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/s/seq3uoU1L5 > The director of >> BEAD quit. He says the previous rules interpreted the bill to mean >> that only FTTH would meet the performance and future-proofing >> requirements. He is claiming that there are proposed rule changes >> that will allow Starlink but not allow fixed wireless. I don't know >> whether the changes /intentionally/ benefit Starlink, but this guy is >> crying foul and felt strongly enough about it to resign over it. >> -Adam >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> --- >> *From:* AF on behalf of Ken Hohhof >> *Sent:* Thursday, March 20, 2025 12:19 AM >> *To:* 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' >> *Subject:* [AFMUG] BEAD >> I’m surprised BEAD hasn’t run into problems because the E stands for >> Equity and DEI is now banned. >> But if they eliminate the E, would it just be BAD? >> -- AF mailing list >> AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> < mailto:AF@af.afmug.com >> <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> > >> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >> < http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > >> -- AF mailing list >> AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> < mailto:AF@af.afmug.com >> <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> > >> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >> < http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > >> -- AF mailing list >> AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> < mailto:AF@af.afmug.com >> <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> > >> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >> <[http://%0b][http://] http:// >> af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >> <http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com> > >> -- AF mailing list >> AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> < mailto:AF@af.afmug.com >> <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> > >> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >> <[http://%0b][http://] http:// >> af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >> <http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com> > > > > -- > AF mailing list > AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
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