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posted by on Monday March 27 2017, @06:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the dogs-and-cats-living-together,-mass-hysteria dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Years in the making, a proposal to mandate the installation of fiber conduits during federally funded highway projects might be gaining some new momentum.

If the US adopts a "dig once" policy, construction workers would install conduits just about any time they build new roads and sidewalks or upgrade existing ones. These conduits are plastic pipes that can house fiber cables. The conduits might be empty when installed, but their presence makes it a lot cheaper and easier to install fiber later, after the road construction is finished.

The idea is an old one. US Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) has been proposing dig once legislation since 2009, and it has widespread support from broadband-focused consumer advocacy groups. It has never made it all the way through Congress, but it has bipartisan backing from lawmakers who often disagree on the most controversial broadband policy questions, such as net neutrality and municipal broadband. It even got a boost from Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who has frequently clashed with Democrats and consumer advocacy groups over broadband—her "Internet Freedom Act" would wipe out the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules, and she supports state laws that restrict growth of municipal broadband.

Blackburn, chair of the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee, put Eshoo's dig once legislation on the agenda for a hearing she held yesterday on broadband deployment and infrastructure. Blackburn's opening statement said that dig once is among the policies she's considering to "facilitate the deployment of communications infrastructure." But her statement did not specifically endorse Eshoo's dig once proposal, which was presented only as a discussion draft with no vote scheduled. The subcommittee also considered a discussion draft that would "creat[e] an inventory of federal assets that can be used to attach or install broadband infrastructure."

Source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/nationwide-fiber-proposed-law-could-add-broadband-to-road-projects/


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @01:40PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @01:40PM (#485135)

    As I thought, you don't understand. Let's try a different approach.

    The response wasn't to "Governemt ... ". That is pure flame bait and not worth a response. I responded to your assertion in the subject that a private company would spend money on something completely unrelated to its primary task of building a road. The empty pipe is an added expense that does not contribute to the road in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @02:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 28 2017, @02:01PM (#485148)
    • As buried infrastructure runs along the roads, and must be dug up multiple times, clearly installing a conduit does relate to the task of building a road.
    • Moreover, the assertion is that there is a private road industry, so maybe you misunderstand: The scenario involves not just private companies building roads, but also managing them thereafter; clearly, that conduit is an asset to this business.
  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 28 2017, @05:27PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 28 2017, @05:27PM (#485318) Journal

    I responded to your assertion in the subject that a private company would spend money on something completely unrelated to its primary task of building a road.

    It's not completely unrelated to its primary task. This activity can add value to the road. And their primary task is not to build a road, but the revenue that they can earn from selling the road or collecting toll on that road.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 28 2017, @05:51PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 28 2017, @05:51PM (#485341) Journal
    I didn't write the original post that kicked off this flamefest. I even posted my own rebuttal [soylentnews.org] to that.

    A private business might care more, but that doesn't mean they won't do multiple diggings. The real problem with this scheme is that it's top down. Someone decides that adding conduit to every road is valuable and they just do it without any consideration for whether it adds value in the situation or not.