[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] Cable laying permit...

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Sun, Mar 12, 2006 at 10:09:33AM -0800, plug_0 at robinson-west.com wrote:
> 
> I'm curious what it costs to get the necessary permits to run your
> own cables along city streets?  Not that I can afford this now, but
> I am curious.  

You are thinking "building permit" when this is more like "bill in
Congress".  To run a cable through the city, you need active approval
from misc. agencies advising the city council.

In the early 1990's IIRC, Electric Lightwave asked the Beaverton City
Council for permission to run their fiber optic cables through 
Beaverton and into Washington County using the existing telephone
poles on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway.  The Beaverton Planning
Commission had mandated that "all new utilities" were required
to go in underground vaulting, costing about $100 per foot at the
time.  Once the vaulting was constructed, other utilities could
use it, but ELI could not afford to do this, especially as
stapling their fiber optic cable to a pole would cost "merely"
$3 per foot.  Underground cabling with a Ditch Witch, which cuts
a narrow 3 foot deep trench for cables, is not an option in heavily
built-up Beaverton.  So ELI petitioned the council for a variance
from the city plan.

Obviously, General Telephone, the precursor of Verizon, was against
it, as it would cut into their monopoly business voice/data services.
So it was a couple of guys from ELI against a bigger crew from
GTE, the nimbys, and the bureaucrats.  The first vote of the
Beaverton City Council was 4 against, one abstention.

This was badly reported in the Oregonian (what isn't?) but it was
enough to inform the growing collection of computer hackers in
the area that competition in data services was at hand, but being
thwarted by politics.  We organized, and the Beaverton City Council
got hundreds of letters, and a few dozen of us showed up at the next
City Council meeting to express our support for Electric Lightwave
and open competition for data services.

This was just before the council elections in May;  we were the only
waves on the pond.  The council immediately reversed course, and
granted ELI their variance by a vote of 4 in favor, 1 abstaining.
The GTE reps looked like someone had run over their puppy.  The ELI
guys were flabbergasted, and *very* happy.  They asked if they could
give us free data service or some other reward;  we said "just
consider the lowly hacker in your business service offerings".  
Perhaps they have.

That is the level of effort that a major commercial entity needs
to run a cable through a city in Oregon.  Your chances of running
a cable through town as an individual approach mathematical zero.

If you need to move megabit data over distances of ten miles or 
less, you should consider a microwave link.  You can get sneaky
with 802.11b and a couple of high-gain dish antennas, but you 
will be flouting the FCC on effective radiated power.  Oh dear
me, we would NEVER do that!

Otherwise, this is a game for the big boys and girls, and all we
can do as individuals is promote competition, so prices stay low
and service offerings are varied.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs