Wiring Highways for 5G?

[thenetwork]

With 5G technology on the rise, what are the ways they are installing it in your area.

From what I've read, unlike regular cellular/4G towers which can be spaced wide apart, 5G has to have more access points/reception points in a much shorter distance.

Out along I-70 in Western Colorado and Eastern Utah, crews are busy laying cable conduits along the highway within the ROW.  I'm assuming this is prepwork for 5G along at least the more rural areas of highway.

Can someone confirm my suspicions, and if so, is this wifi network be available to anyone with wifi capabilities, regardless of carrier?

Id be curious to hear how 5G access is being i stalled elsewhere as well.

[kphoger]

I assumed that, from the sound of it, they were merely laying conduit for fiber optic cables.  A quick Google search shows that's correct, with the purpose being CCTV cameras and "communication equipment".

https://www.codot.gov/projects/i70-fiberoptic-installation

[Rothman]

Utilities can raise FHWA's ire.  I think it's the Wantagh Parkway that is no longer eligible for federal funding because of some accommodation NYSDOT made for an underground line of some sort.

(personal opinion expressed)

[ilpt4u]

Utilities can raise FHWA's ire.  I think it's the Wantagh Parkway that is no longer eligible for federal funding because of some accommodation NYSDOT made for an underground line of some sort.

(personal opinion expressed)

Am I missing something? Why should utilities not use Public ROW along a highway for underground lines?

A great deal of the transcontinental fiber optic routes run along RR ROW, because that is already transcon and the telecoms only have to deal with (mostly) one owner to negotiate ROW: The railway.

Highways have a public ROW to them, also. Perfect place to deploy communications routes! Not great for "last mile"  ie connectivity directly to end users and businesses, but great for "middle mile"  ie point-to-point transit, or even "first mile"  between POPs and Data Centers

FHWA and State DOTs and Toll Agencies should be requiring communications conduit and access points, if not high-strand-count Dark Fiber cables themselves, be installed along public highways when they are built/rebuilt

Regarding "5G"  it really depends on which band(s) the signals are transmitting. The high bands need transmitters every few hundred feet, especially to penetrate cars (or buildings or houses, etc). That wavelength can carry a lot of data, but it is very short and does not penetrate surfaces very well. Low band has many of the same properties as the low band 4G/LTE waves, and covers longer distances from the standard cell tower site, and 5G can carry higher bitrates than LTE, but not the Gigabit speeds that are seen on high band 5G

That said, especially if it is a roadway with lighting – that is actually a pretty good deployment case, if one of the Network Operators would get access to the ROW to place fiber and also light poles to place transmitters on them, as each transmitter basically needs: power and backhaul (typically fiber-optic) connectivity

[Rothman]

I think the argument was something like giving a particular private utility an unfair advantage. 

Can't remember exactly, but it was definitely some sort of utility work that FHWA objected to.  We're talking more than a decade ago, though.

(personal opinion expressed)

[kphoger]

So is thenetwork correct to assume the "pole installations" and "communication equipment" will host the 5G network?

[ilpt4u]

So is thenetwork correct to assume the "pole installations" and "communication equipment" will host the 5G network?

Transmitters will need to be on poles/towers - whether light poles, power poles, telephone poles, etc. Related to roadways, I guess sign gantries and overpasses on Freeways could also work. Traffic Light poles on surface roads could also be used

Communications equipment can mean a host of things, but generally speaking, those transmitters need to be connected to a Fiber Optic Network back to the carrier's aggregation point to then connect to the greater internet and world. Fiber can be buried in-ground or hung aerial along poles, just as other telecom wiring (copper, coax) has been for over a century

[hbelkins]

Wow, how foolish can they be? After all, everybody knows that 5G causes or spreads the coronavirus.

Utilities can raise FHWA's ire.  I think it's the Wantagh Parkway that is no longer eligible for federal funding because of some accommodation NYSDOT made for an underground line of some sort.

(personal opinion expressed)

It's pretty common around here for utilities to be buried in ditchlines along state highways. The problem is, utility companies don't bury them deep enough, and routine ditching operations often result in waterline ruptures or communications outages when a crew digs into one. And it's been our experience that if you call 511 prior to digging, often the 511 people incorrectly mark the location of utility lines.

In recent years, an electricity substation has been built along I-64 between Shelbyville and Louisville, with access coming via a dedicated entrance off the westbound lanes.

[STLmapboy]

The conspiracy folks would go apeshit. In all honesty, though, it's just another utility, and should be treated as such when burying cables. The NYSDOT example for Wantagh Pkwy mentioned upthread is the type of immature grudge-holding I expect from a 9 year old, not the FHWA. Then again, what do I know? I'm 15. These things may run very deep (no pun intended).
Unrelated: apparently aaroads has a birthday cake icon in the profile?

[GenExpwy]

And it's been our experience that if you call 511 prior to digging, often the 511 people incorrectly mark the location of utility lines.

I'd expect the Travel Info people to get that wrong. Maybe next time, try the Call-before-you-dig people at 811. 

[hbelkins]

And it's been our experience that if you call 511 prior to digging, often the 511 people incorrectly mark the location of utility lines.

I'd expect the Travel Info people to get that wrong. Maybe next time, try the Call-before-you-dig people at 811. 

Yes, 811, and they often get it wrong too. 

[Pink Jazz]

From what I've read, unlike regular cellular/4G towers which can be spaced wide apart, 5G has to have more access points/reception points in a much shorter distance.

That's the case for millimeter wave 5G, which is the fastest version of 5G.  Low-band and mid-band 5G can go farther, but is slower.  Current low-band 5G deployments are T-Mobile's 600MHz 5G and AT&T's 850MHz CLR band 5G (the latter mostly from refarmed 3G spectrum).  There is an auction for the 3.5GHz mid-band for 5G, and AT&T plans to use some of its 1900MHz PCS band spectrum for 5G as well.

[MCRoads]

It's pretty common around here for utilities to be buried in ditchlines along state highways. The problem is, utility companies don't bury them deep enough, and routine ditching operations often result in waterline ruptures or communications outages when a crew digs into one. And it's been our experience that if you call 511 prior to digging, often the 511 people incorrectly mark the location of utility lines.

Ha! Your small utility outages pale in comparison to what happened in Colorado Springs a bit ago: contractors were building a road for a private residence, and the scraper operator scraped a little bit to much... right through a big fiber optic cable. Took out the internet for a big chunk of western Colorado Springs, and Manitou Springs.

And even that pales in comparison to an old lady who took out the internet for most of Arminia while, somewhat comedically, was looking for copper to scrap and sell.

[CtrlAltDel]

In recent years, an electricity substation has been built along I-64 between Shelbyville and Louisville, with access coming via a dedicated entrance off the westbound lanes.

It looks like it used to be a rest area?

[Roadgeekteen]

Dude didn't you know 5G was invented by Bill Gates to control us

[kphoger]

It's pretty common around here for utilities to be buried in ditchlines along state highways. The problem is, utility companies don't bury them deep enough, and routine ditching operations often result in waterline ruptures or communications outages when a crew digs into one. And it's been our experience that if you call 511 prior to digging, often the 511 people incorrectly mark the location of utility lines.

Ha! Your small utility outages pale in comparison to what happened in Colorado Springs a bit ago: contractors were building a road for a private residence, and the scraper operator scraped a little bit to much... right through a big fiber optic cable. Took out the internet for a big chunk of western Colorado Springs, and Manitou Springs.

And even that pales in comparison to an old lady who took out the internet for most of Arminia while, somewhat comedically, was looking for copper to scrap and sell.

And that pales in comparison to when a little old lady knocked out the internet in 90% of Armenia, plus parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan, for twelve hours in 2011.  While scavenging with a spade for copper along the railroad to sell it later as scrap, 75-year-old Aishtan Shakarian unwittingly cut through a buried fiber optic cable owned by the Georgian railway, which had become partially exposed by heavy rain and landslides.  This cable happened to be the West—East service backbone, which stretches from Bulgaria through Georgia on its way to Armenia and Azerbaijan.  The affected area was home to more than 3 million people.  She was soon arrested by police but later release because–well, come on now.



Aaaaaaaaaaaand........ I see now that I missed reading the last sentence of your post, in which you specifically referred to this incident.  Ha!  Oh well, now people can read a few more details.

[STLmapboy]

It's pretty common around here for utilities to be buried in ditchlines along state highways. The problem is, utility companies don't bury them deep enough, and routine ditching operations often result in waterline ruptures or communications outages when a crew digs into one. And it's been our experience that if you call 511 prior to digging, often the 511 people incorrectly mark the location of utility lines.

Ha! Your small utility outages pale in comparison to what happened in Colorado Springs a bit ago: contractors were building a road for a private residence, and the scraper operator scraped a little bit to much... right through a big fiber optic cable. Took out the internet for a big chunk of western Colorado Springs, and Manitou Springs.

And even that pales in comparison to an old lady who took out the internet for most of Arminia while, somewhat comedically, was looking for copper to scrap and sell.

And that pales in comparison to when a little old lady knocked out the internet in 90% of Armenia, plus parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan, for twelve hours in 2011.  While scavenging with a spade for copper along the railroad to sell it later as scrap, 75-year-old Aishtan Shakarian unwittingly cut through a buried fiber optic cable owned by the Georgian railway, which had become partially exposed by heavy rain and landslides.  This cable happened to be the West—East service backbone, which stretches from Bulgaria through Georgia on its way to Armenia and Azerbaijan.  The affected area was home to more than 3 million people.  She was soon arrested by police but later release because–well, come on now.



Aaaaaaaaaaaand........ I see now that I missed reading the last sentence of your post, in which you specifically referred to this incident.  Ha!  Oh well, now people can read a few more details.

Maybe Georgia should get an 811 number equivalent.