News : Just a Boring Article: 832 Where are you?

Newsitorial

I have never been one to understand abstract ideas. Come to think of it, I don't like abstract art (this could like down so many rabbit trails).

When I first sat in so many of the VMEU meetings, the meetings were in English, I know that because I understood the words. I had no idea for a very long time exactly what it all meant. Even at the last meeting, I heard the word "ducts" being used. Hold the phone! They had never used that term before so I had to ask, "Is that the same as conduit?" and I was assured that it was. (I see all of you guys rolling your eyes...)

In all the hours of discussion and all the details that it takes to make this happen, there is one thing that I wanted to see and knew that I wouldn't see it in a meeting. They could explain it to me all day but seeing it in action is much more fun than talking about it.

I wanted to see how you build a fiber network.

So I started stalking the cable company that is installing our fiber. I found the machines...at lunchtime. I had to run out of town to replace a camera lens and I thought I'd catch them later...but then they were done for the day.

Today I made it a point to find these hard-working men and women, yes, I talked to a really nice lady that was out there, with the biggest truck in the group I might add, (I just wanted to make that clear that there is girl power in the cable company) to ask her the questions about how all of this works.

I was so unreporter-like. I sat in my car and watched mesmerized as I saw the various activities happening. I waited until the nice lady had a break from what she was doing and then jumped in to ask, "How does this work?" and "What is your truck doing?"

I'll start at the top.

The white truck above is the one that the lady drives, she told me that it weighs MORE than a semi (...and I know from my dad that a semi weights 80,000 pounds, so whatever you do, don't get your toes in the way!) The truck has a long arm that is used to suction out the dirt and debris that might be causing any trouble for the drill as it pushes through the ground. The long arm fills the tank with the dirt that is in excess. Along with suction the truck also has a power washer to make the ground soft where it might be too hard.

As I watched her work, a smaller truck pulled up and her truck also sucked the dirt out of that truck so that it could go back to where it was working.

The machine above sits at the end of the block feeding the drill "bits" into the ground. In other words, it does the boring stuff (you see what I did there right?). The drill "bits" are stacked on the side of of the machine and as one slips under the ground, another slides into place behind it. As I looked at the angle of the drill going into the ground it reminded me of a giant needle trying to find the utility vein below the surface.

The men above are using a handheld device to track the drill as well as the other utilities running under the ground. When the operator sees that the drill is headed in the wrong direction or if it needs to turn left, right, go higher or lower the worker will use his radio to talk to the operator of the drill and direct him. The drill bits are flexible he explained so they can turn as they move forward.

The drill can go as far as 750 feet before...

...it sees daylight. When it does reach the end of the section that they are working on, they will bring the truck in that has the orange conduit/duct alongside and hook the end of the drill onto one end of the large spools of conduit/duct and pull the conduit/duct back through the path that it just made...

As you drive around you will see these tails of conduit/duct sticking out of the ground. The worker explained that as the fiber arrives they will simply feed it into the orange conduit/ductwork.

I know this sounds so simple and it's much more complicated than that, but it satisfied my need to know how this works.

(Reminder, when this crew is done and they leave town, it will be too late to get this hooked up to your house as a free deal...you need to sign up here to have that done before the crews leave town!)

On another note, if you know someone that is NOT online, encourage them to have this run to their home as well. Internet capability is just like any other utility, it will be important to have that ability on the property at some point in time, and they'd much rather add it free of charge rather than have to pay for it later! If your neighbor doesn't have internet, take your phone over and help them sign up online.

At the last meeting, they reported that we have reached the goal that was set...for us, four years from now. As of tonight, we are at 1,388 people who have registered to have their home hooked up! That is an incredible number, and more than anyone expected at this stage, well, at least the people from out of town didn't expect that. Those of us that have been dealing with lame internet probably aren't surprised!

There are an estimated 2,220 residential homes and businesses in town, so we're still short around *832 that need to sign up. (Hey, we want to give Curtis nightmares, he's the guy that has to worry about getting the surveys done, and I don't think he was sweating it too much before...we don't want to make the job TOO easy now do we?) So let's see if we can find the last 832 property owners and get them signed up!

Hopefully, I didn't bore you too much with the boring details of installing our brand spanking new internet service...

*the number might be a little less because at one point they were keeping a separate list of landlords who had signed up but had multiple properties, so those were not part of the final count.