Since the late 1990’s, consumers seemingly insatiable demand for bandwidth has driven wired and wireless telecom carriers, network operators and municipalities to spend billions of dollars to upgrade their networks to fiber. Since that time, TrueNet Communications has been involved in numerous FTTX projects and has provided its expertise in all project phases from network design to construction. While many of the early network upgrade initiatives only brought fiber to the node, in 2004 one of America’s largest telecom carriers announced its intent to build the world’s most advanced fiber-optic network. Given the size and scope of the project, the carrier chose to outsource key functions of the project. After a lengthy RFP process, TrueNet Communications was selected to provide fiber design and engineering services to the carrier’s Mid-Atlantic Region. As one of the few engineering contractors to have worked on every phase of the ambitious $23.0 billion fiber to the premise (FTTP) project since its beginning, TrueNet Communications is unique – of the original 14 contractors selected to perform fiber network design in the carrier’s Mid-Atlantic Region, only TrueNet and two others survived the initial startup, worked on every phase of the project and currently perform business-as-usual (BAU) OSP design and engineering for the carrier.
Scope of Work
To serve a premise, the carrier’s network design extended optical fibers from the serving central office out to a neighborhood hub serving approximately 300 locations. The project’s initial Scope of Work (SOW) called for TrueNet to design and engineer the fiber plant required to pass the neighborhood premises served by a hub, identifying the pathway from the hub to the premise and document that work in the carrier’s proprietary CAD software platform and database. As the project’s focus moved from residential neighborhoods to multiple dwelling units (MDUs) in Phase 2, the SOW was modified to incorporate MDU ISP fiber pathway design and construction, securing Premise Access License (PAL) Agreements with the MDU and marketing and lease negotiation with the MDU.
Results
Since the project’s inception, TrueNet Communications has:
- Designed and engineered fiber outside plant serving over 1.5 million premises representing hundreds of millions of feet of fiber in the states of Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The work has encompassed aerial, underground and buried plant serving both dense urban areas such as Jersey City and Baltimore and suburban areas such as Columbia, Maryland.
- Designed, engineered and constructed MDU ISP fiber pathways for tens of thousands of MDUs in New Jersey, Maryland and Washington DC. The work has included both large and small high-rise and mid-rise apartments and condos complexes of all types.
Today, TrueNet Communications continues to provide world-class fiber infrastructure design and engineering services in support of the carrier’s 100% fiber network and its legacy copper telecommunications network.
