Fiber’s Right-of-Way Train Wreck: Part 1 – The Service Provider’s View

America’s fiber deployments face many challenges, with permitting and accessing rights-of-way among the long-lead items service providers and construction firms face. Of the many types of rights of way network operator UTOPIA Fiber has faced, there’s one that’s the “cream of the crop” in terms of needed lead time and preparation when compared to getting access to build around or under state roads and canals and obtaining pole attachments, tasks which typically take anywhere from two to six weeks.

UTOPIA is no novice in building networks, with 23 completed city-wide projects, three more under construction, and some fiber operations in 70 cities across the country through operation of middle-mile and long-haul networks. And it’s the train tracks that are the biggest headache. 

“Railways can be an enormous obstacle,” said Roger Timmerman, CEO, UTOPIA Fiber. “You try to design your network to avoid as many obstacles [as possible], you want the path of least resistance. When we’ve got a railroad permit that’s required, there are multiple stages involved. Your first pass, everything has to be engineered to a different standard than any other [build process] and each individual railroad [company] is different. You can’t standardize it. The design specs are a little challenging to deal with and because of that you’re more likely to get rejected and have to go back and forth. You might end up with weeks of time between each pass, back and forth through to get through this process.  

“When you get through that and paid your permit fees, there’s another set of work for the build process, it’s another project of just getting it on the schedule to be able to perform the work. You have to schedule when you can build, you must have an approved vendor for flagging and schedule with the flagging company, so that’s another month or longer.”

Source: Microsoft Designer AI

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) asserts that the broadband and utility crossing permit process may take anywhere from four to eight weeks, but Timmerman says that assumes a clean design with a basic crossing request and getting everything right on the first pass. Multiple passes translate to multiple cycles at four to eight weeks per cycle trying to get things correct. 

“When we’re doing a build, if there’s a railroad to cross, we’re planning on six months to a year to get where we need to go,” stated Timmerman. “All these processes of back and forth are a nightmare to deal with.”

Compounding matters are a variable and somewhat arbitrary fee schedule for permitting and having to conduct the same process on all railway designed land, even those that haven’t seen a train in decades or don’t have tracks on them. “Cost wise we’re facing one [build] in Montana where they want to charge us $130,000 for a permit,” said Timmerman. “It’s a footage-based [fee] structure that makes things difficult. At this point, the money is an actual obstacle. We’re trying to redesign it somewhere else just to go into a more reasonable fee structure.” 

Could federal regulation fix the programs with the current situation? Timmerman is doubtful. “You’re hearing more people talk about this than you ever have before,” he said. “The frustration of the general public with how the need for broadband is not being met, gives the opportunity for legislators to step up. But you have the Association of American Railroads taking a defensive position that, ‘We’re not the problem, we’re great, we’re wonderful.’”