Salisbury's FTTH Blog

I got a call from Tanya today saying her irrigation system had been cut. AEG had been in her neighborhood a week or so ago but she didn’t realize her irrigation system wasn’t working until she turned it on over the weekend. When she did, she noticed a gush of water coming out of the ground. She was asking did she have to have the system repaired and cover the cost or was the city still responsible since a couple of weeks had gone by. So I thought I would try to explain why irrigation gets cut, along with phone and cable.

The NC Legislature passed a law known as the Underground Damage Prevention Act that requires contractors planning on installing underground pipe or cable to call for location services. There is an organization named the NC One-Call Center (http://www.ncocc.org) that provides these services for contractors and homeowners. So once AEG determines which neighborhoods they will be working in the following week, they call and ask for existing cable and pipes to be located. The One-Call Center has a list of all the existing utilities in each area and they then call and report that work is going to occur and gives the addresses for that work. Then each provider has the responsibility to go out and mark their lines. You can see these markings all around town for previous work done. If you see various colors of paint on the ground running along the road or street with a mark about every three feet, this is a result of the location services.

When a contractor installs cable or pipe, they make sure that there is some form of metal that runs along with the pipe or cable. In the case of plastic pipe or conduit, a copper wire is placed alongside the pipe. When the pipe or cable needs to be located, a box is attached that sends a signal down the wire that can be heard by a special device, sort of like a metal detector. As the signal is heard, a mark is place on the ground. Each type of service is identified by a different color. For example, electrical service is identified by red paint, water lines by blue, and communication cables by orange. You can see a chart of all the colors at  http://www2.ncocc.org/ncocc/colorcodechart.htm.

Once AEG gets on-site, they determine where they can install the city fiber without disturbing any existing cables or pipes. They are required to stay within the city’s right of way, which varies street to street. If this system worked perfectly each time, then existing cables would not be cut. However, no system is perfect and this one is no different. What happens is sometimes the various providers fail to send someone out within the required time to locate and AEG then incorrectly assumes no existing lines exist. Or when the service is located, they mark the lines incorrectly and then AEG incorrectly assumes the lines are in one place but later find they were actually in another place. Sometimes, the right of way is just so crowded with existing cable that there is very little room to install more.  In all these instances, the existing lines stand a chance of getting cut through no fault of AEG. If a line is cut, then AEG has to notify the appropriate provider and they are then required to come out and fix the problem.

The locater system also has another inherent flaw in that drop cables, cables running to the individual homes/businesses aren’t required to be located. Also, irrigation systems aren’t required to have copper wire installed along with the pipes and so can’t be located.  Therefore when AEG is installing the fiber, it is relatively easy to cut these drop cables and irrigation systems. The crews carry various supplies to fix these problems when they occur but sometimes that don’t have the correct piece and so they have to call the appropriate provider to correct the problem. For irrigation systems, they sometimes don’t realize they have cut the pipes until sometime later when the homeowner turns the system on. Once they have been notified, they will come back and correct the problem. At no point is the homeowner or business owner required to pay to have any of these problems fixed. Unfortunately, it may take a  little time to arrange for these problems to be fixed, but they are always fixed as soon as possible.

I hope this has explained how existing services can be cut and what happens if they are cut. If you have questions, or you need to report a cut, then call Mark Parr with AEG or me. Mark’s number is (678) 897-0105 and my office number is 704-216-7574. If you get either of our voice mail, please leave a mesage with your contact info and your address and someone will get right back with you.

If you are planning on doing some work around your home, especially in the right of way and are going to be digging a hole using some type of powered equipment, maybe a small backhoe you rented, you are also required to call for location services. The number to call is 1-800-632-4949 or you can just dial 811.

Thanks.