What's under your dirt?

[Burnham]

After many years of working farther and farther out from town, our local (and sole) phone and internet service provider is now pushing underground fiber optic lines down our road. Out my way, each property is on acreage; some large ones, and some small. Ours is one of the little ones, at 5 acres. My house is about 250 feet from the road, but some have private drives that are 1/4 mile and more. Each house is getting a buried plastic pipe run to their foundation, more or less. It's all done by directional drilling, which is a pretty amazing tech all in itself.

Anyway, by the time it is all said and done, I have buried power, buried copper phone, buried private power, buried private water, buried septic line and tank and a ton of drain field pipe. Plus the new fiber optic line. A map of these lines would look like a plate of spaghetti .

I have been taking pics and will try to map everything out after all the locates have been done.

You look at my place and it seems pretty undisturbed, but the infrastructure underground is startlingly dense.

 

[Altissimus]

For Incident Investigation work at the Ski Area we mapped by triangle , lineal measure with two fixed objects. Just like gunning Trees

 

[Ed L]

Our family farm (where my shop is) has everything underground as well.
Dad and grandpa ran underground power to 2 outbuildings....buried it in a plow furrow. Be danm carefull where you stick a shovel.

Ed

 

[Kaveman]

B, I'd have a service like Blue Stake come out and mark everything, everywhere, then I'd have drone photos taken from above. Thus you'd have a pretty comprehensive map of where things are.

 

[lumberjack]

They’re boring fiber, not plowing it? That seems very expensive. We got fiber out here in October 2022, a glorious day.

When possible I take video of triangulated measurements to keep track of things plus a depth measurement from a fixed point (laser). Pictures/video if there’s not good measuring points.

We’ve been doing a bit of work over the last year getting ready to build a shop this spring. Measurements and pictures galore.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Did a "10 year plan" on our underground. Conduit, water and low voltage. The low voltage wire can be used to locate all else.
On the main service and phone, shaded with sand, common trench 3' deep, caution tape 6" above phone, phone 1' above conduit housing 200 amp copper feed.
Things like septic have triangulated measurements placed on the plot plan in a file

 

[Burnham]

They’re boring fiber, not plowing it? That seems very expensive. We got fiber out here in October 2022, a glorious day.

When possible I take video of triangulated measurements to keep track of things plus a depth measurement from a fixed point (laser). Pictures/video if there’s not good measuring points.

We’ve been doing a bit of work over the last year getting ready to build a shop this spring. Measurements and pictures galore.

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There are so many trees that plowing a line would be next to impossible. They are directional boring everything out here these days. I like it, keeps the disruption and mess to a tiny amount.

 

[Burnham]

I understand that many would consider it, as Carl says, "a glorious day", but it really doesn't budge my needle at all.

I have no need for faster speeds; I know most folks would differ in that view . So, the increased costs don't bear fruit I value much. Maybe I'd change my mind once accustomed to it.

In one way, I see the advent of fiber optic service a step backwards for us. That being, on that system there is no power to the voice device through the tele line. You need power to the ONT for phone service to function, and when the power is out, you have no phone. There is a battery backup, but its life is very short...4 to 8 hours depending on usage. That would often be less than our usual power outages last, and we have quite a number of those per year...like 8 to 12 on average. We basically never lose phone service now...I think it has happened once in 45 years.

Also, I will have to have the ONT plugged into my home AC power and pay the power company for that additional usage. Another increase in cost that the phone/internet provider does not make a point of informing customers.

Fortunately, I don't have to switch to fiber optic service...yet. But the phone/internet provider warns that the day is coming sooner than later when there will be no option as they will quit doing service and repairs to the old copper lines.

That's the current report from Grumpy Old Man Land .

 

[Dave Shepard]

We got fiber in 2016. Before that, I had nothing here. No cell, no landlines available, no satellite. Nothing. It's expensive, $110 per month, but we (the town) own it, and when we've paid it off, it will drop substantially. $79 per month is the loan payment.

 

[Burnham]

How long will that debt take to retire?

 

[Dave Shepard]

I'm not sure. The town was approved to borrow $1.8 to build the network, but I don't know how much of that they used. What I do know is that we won't get screwed over by Spectrum and the other predatory providers, who wouldn't talk to us anyway.

 

[Nutball]

I understand that many would consider it, as Carl says, "a glorious day", but it really doesn't budge my needle at all.

I have no need for faster speeds; I know most folks would differ in that view . So, the increased costs don't bear fruit I value much. Maybe I'd change my mind once accustomed to it.

In one way, I see the advent of fiber optic service a step backwards for us. That being, on that system there is no power to the voice device through the tele line. You need power to the ONT for phone service to function, and when the power is out, you have no phone. There is a battery backup, but its life is very short...4 to 8 hours depending on usage. That would often be less than our usual power outages last, and we have quite a number of those per year...like 8 to 12 on average. We basically never lose phone service now...I think it has happened once in 45 years.

Also, I will have to have the ONT plugged into my home AC power and pay the power company for that additional usage. Another increase in cost that the phone/internet provider does not make a point of informing customers.

Fortunately, I don't have to switch to fiber optic service...yet. But the phone/internet provider warns that the day is coming sooner than later when there will be no option as they will quit doing service and repairs to the old copper lines.

That's the current report from Grumpy Old Man Land .

They'll just find a way to add more baggage to browsing to make it slow again. The swarm of ads slows internet enough, we don't need AI analyzing our every move.

 

[vharrison]

Burn, do you still have a land line? Anybody else?

Also, are you being charged an impact fee?

 

[Mrs.B]

We still have a landline. We keep it for the sake of business. We dropped AT&T years ago and get phone service thru our (local) internet provider. Our phone, our internet, and the business domain come to us for $79 a month. Not a bad deal. Our internet is owned by the high school in Mendocino. It's part of their education in internet technology. They've been in business since the mid 90's and we've never had a stitch of problems with it. We locals are quite proud of our local internet and the school has made a fortune. But all that is about to change. Fiber optics are coming our way.

 

[Burnham]

@vharrison We have a landline. Without it, we would have no reliable telephone service as the cell coverage is next to non-existent at our house.

What is an impact fee? I'm not familiar with the term.

 

[Dave Shepard]

You know, you exist, therefore you are making an impact, and should be penalized.

 

[vharrison]

Impact fee may not be the best term to use. Here, when you want to build a house, you pay an impact fee. I guess because you are impacting the infrastructure you must pay a fee.
Basically, I was asking if they are charging you anything to do what they are doing?
Also, anything cool turn up in the dirt that they turning up?

 

[vharrison]

Mrs. B, 79.00$ would be a steal here. That is awesome. I’ll be curious what the company putting in the fiber optics in will charge.

 

[Burnham]

OK, I get it Gigi. There are no charges for the infrastructure upgrade being done by this private company. I expect that will be hidden in the fees charged for service afterward.

I don't know if new construction is getting hit with fees like that nearer to town...easily could be so. It is very hard to get permits to build new in my area due to land use planning laws from the 1970's requiring quite large acreage for a new house, currently it is 80 acres, and zoning for agriculture and/or forestry use only.

 

[Dave Shepard]

Wow! It's 2.5 acres, or one hectare¹, and that's considered a large lot around here.


¹Irrelevant and or useless data.

 

[Burnham]

Well, it is not a part of the county planned for residential use. Farms and timberlands are the desired condition, and it mostly is.

Oregon has strong land use planning laws, and while some find the controls onerous and intrusive, others value the way it keeps urban/suburban sprawl pretty well in check. I'm definitely in the latter camp.

 

[vharrison]

Wow, a 80 acre track, that is amazing. Amazing and very cool, keep that suburban sprawl at bay. Shoot, I am looking at 2 acres on the outskirts of Lake Placid, Fl and to me, that is kinda big. The land that I am looking at is zoned agricultural but a house is allowed also.

John would love 80 acres but to find it affordable, to us at least, we would have to look farther up in Florida. The problem there is he is not fond of the cold. Like in the 40’s it might be to cold. 😂

 

[Nutball]

Well, it is not a part of the county planned for residential use. Farms and timberlands are the desired condition, and it mostly is.

Oregon has strong land use planning laws, and while some find the controls onerous and intrusive, others value the way it keeps urban/suburban sprawl pretty well in check. I'm definitely in the latter camp.

They're going nuts around here finding whatever way they can to cram as many houses into tight spaces as they can fit. They don't widen roads in the cities where they build lots of new apartments, but they make plenty of 4 lane roads through farmland with dead end intersections, because they know someday they'll get it and develop the crap out of it. I can't stand it.

 

[Kaveman]

Wow, a 80 acre track, that is amazing. Amazing and very cool, keep that suburban sprawl at bay. Shoot, I am looking at 2 acres on the outskirts of Lake Placid, Fl and to me, that is kinda big. The land that I am looking at is zoned agricultural but a house is allowed also.

John would love 80 acres but to find it affordable, to us at least, we would have to look farther up in Florida. The problem there is he is not fond of the cold. Like in the 40’s it might be to cold. 😂

Arizona? Ever heard of it? Very warm down south, year round, though you will get snow on cactus from time to time. Land is pretty cheap, cost of living is fairly reasonable, etc.

Expand your horizons, perhaps...

Also, no hurricanes.