TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: $47,000 per Line Installation Cost

Re: $47,000 per Line Installation Cost

Fred Atkinson (fatkinson@mishmash.com)
Tue, 01 Feb 2005 01:56:59 GMT

Years ago, I was working for a company that had a radio transmitter on
the top of a mountain somewhere in Hawaii. I never visited the site
(or even the state), but we normally monitored and managed our sites
by dialup lines.

The unfortunate thing was that though there were a great number of
radio transmitters on that mountain site, the local Telco had never
run a cable up there.

Not immediately knowing this fact, I called to find out what it was
going to cost to have a line dropped on the site. I was quoted a
price of ten thousand dollars just for the installation of a cable up
to the site (they wanted us to incur the entire cost despite the fact
that there were a large number of other companies needing phone lines
to control their equipment).

Of course, there was no way any manager at our company was going to
sign off for that. So, we had to have our local people frequently
stop by and check the site to make sure it was running in optimum
condition. I had found a device that connected to a cell phone and
provided an RJ-11 to plug a telephone device into. But, we decided
that there would be so much intermodulation on that site that it
wouldn't work effectively. And this was when cellular was still in
its infancy.

After several years on that site, telco decided that there was
enough of a market there to make it profitable for them to provide a
cable up the mountain. So we very quickly ordered a line on that
cable (to keep a pair reserved for us as we figured those pairs would
go fast). When they finally got it in, they divided the cost of
installing the cable among everyone that got a line on that cable. I
never saw the bill or was told what the numbers turned out to be. But
I was told that what we actualy paid wasn't all that bad considering
what all was involved.

We had a similar problem in Puerto Rico. But as far as I know there
was never a cable run up to that site.

Sometimes patience pays off. Sometimes not.

Fred

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