Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Resources For Identifying Telecom Right-of-Way Locations?
An anonymous reader writes "With threats to network neutrality, such as Verizon's recent lawsuit, I've been thinking of creating a map plotting all the locations where telecommunications companies currently use public lands via right-of-way laws. It seems that this would convey just how much telecommunications depends on public infrastructure. However, it's been difficult identifying where these locations are. Short of crowdsourcing, does anyone know of resources that could be used to create such a map?"
Sounds like the information a terrorist would be looking for -- I'd watch your cornhole, bud.
A while back, a PhD candidate at George Mason University collected a lot of this information from public records. He create a large database/map of all the utility routes in the US. His thesis was classified:
http://www.portlandphoenix.com/features/technophilia/documents/03028866.asp
http://www.dot.state.mn.us/maps/gisweb/row/
The bikini - security through obscurity since 1943
Most of the long-lines right of ways (RoWs) are along railroads, not public lands. The 2nd largest amount of RoWs crosscut underneath private property, such as underneath high-voltage electric transmission lines where the legal-infrastructure for the RoW was already in place for the electric grid.
This isn't, unfortunately for you, a 'just fucking google it' sort of project; but the data should exist in some form.
Most municipalities have, as some appendage of their government(whether zoning and planning, some independent office, some weird outgrowth of the IT shop, whatever) a GIS service of some flavor(Newark, NJ purely for example. What you can get online varies widely, and may or may not be utter shit; but it can generally put you in touch with somebody who actually knows something about the available GIS records for the area. No guarantee that they won't assume that anybody who cares about utility locations is a terrorist, or that inquiries are billed at $.25/poorly photocopied page; but it exists.
Similarly clunky; but also sometimes useful, would be the utility easement information that is(sometimes) recorded on property deeds, which are also a matter of (not necessarily well cataloged and easily searchable) public record.
Another option, in the states that they cover, would be to have a friendly chat with the folks at http://www.digsafe.com/ . This is some sort of public/private industry consortium thing designed to keep backhoes away from their natural food sources, namely fiber lines and gas mains. Since their entire purpose in life is locating vulnerable underground utility fixtures before somebody fucks them up, they should have a decent idea of where (underground only) utility lines run. I don't know how much persuading they would require to release information to somebody who doesn't fit their usual "Hi, I want to dig a big hole at 123 main St, is that a problem?" customer profile, though...
Indeed, one major telecom company is named for its railroad easements: SPRINT, the Southern Pacific Railroad Intercontinental Network of Telecommunications, although the latter 3 letters are likely :-) a backronym after Southern Pacific Communications Corporation (SPCC) changed its name to SPRINT.
Quite a while ago for work I was asked to verify where the circuits we're using come into our buildings to verify diverse entry - basically to reduce the chances of a 'backhoe day'. Even tho we were paying for the DS3s, the BEST I could get out of the major carriers was "Well, they go from your site, to (city X), to (city Y)."
The carriers just figure "It's need to know. And even tho you're paying $massive, you don't need to know."
Sorry, but this is dumb. All you need to do is call the "call before you dig" number and say you are planning on putting some very deep fenceposts all the way around the property. Within 72 hours you will have nice spray-painted, color-coded lines marking all underground utilities. Follow the lines to the building, then identify what wires are on the inside of the building for each entry point. If the telco guy shows up and only sprays one line, you know you have a problem.
Plat maps won't help. Nor will most of the info available publicly online. I've worked for a civil engineer for 10 years, and the bottom line is that the information is so spread out, and in some cases nonexistant, that you would never be able to do this.
The first problem is that in many cases the easements are so old, and the deeds so difficult to read, you could spend hours piecing together the right of way over one parcel of land. Many times there are multiple easements as they were added-on over the years. They are also shared by different utilities.
So for example you'd find one document that grants Verizon the use of a railroad's right of way. Then you have to pull all of the deeds for the railroad (hundreds or thousand per county) and try to put them together. Those old railroad deeds will say something like "the east 99 feet of Farmer Smith's property, in so-and-so a section." Then you have to go pull Smith's old deed, which says "40 acres, lying south of the river, and east of Farmer Johnson's land, and north of some other guy's property." And no, those are not exaggerations at all. In short, you'll be putting together the puzzle pieces for weeks, and then you might have a single line along a railroad done for your county.
Add on top of that, many street right-of-ways are just assumed. Sure, maybe there are some old deeds that grant the right-of-way for each road over each parcel of land, but again, you'll be putting together a giant puzzle with pieces that don't fit together well.
In short, good luck. You'd be better off just taking a map and hi-lighting all of the roads, assuming that at least some communication lines follow each road.
Lighten up, Mrs Romney.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This guy is spot on. I deal with this for a living. Every once in a while you'll see an easement into property they actually own or lease going into buildings or up to cell towers, but other than that nearly all of a given telecom's outside plant is in public right-of-way.
There is a war going on for your mind.