Rural Interstate Corridor Communications Study
Report to States
Appendix A
1.0 Introduction
The purpose of this document is to report on the study team's findings with regard to the feasibility and desirability of developing a high-speed telecommunications backbone along the three Corridors that make up the study area. These Corridors include Interstate 20 through Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana; I-90 through South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin (and including Iowa); and I-91 through Massachusetts and Vermont (and including New Hampshire).
The study team met with the States that are subjects of this study in two settings – a Corridor-wide meeting held in a central location along the Corridor where all of the Corridor States could participate and discuss the concepts, and individual meetings where the study team visited each state and gathered additional detail from invited representatives. These meetings all took place between February and May 2007. The States each provided information pertinent to the study that has been used to compile this report.
One of the assignments of the project team was to develop a preliminary backbone alignment for the placement of telecommunications infrastructure along the Corridor right-of-way for all three Corridors. Included in this report is information related to how the preliminary alignments were developed, and how information developed by the study team can be utilized by the Corridor States in the future. It should be noted here that these preliminary alignments were developed for the I-20 and I-90 Corridors only, as the I-91 Corridor States had progressed past the preliminary alignment stage in their development of a shared resource project for I-91 in Vermont and Massachusetts.
Also included in this report is a summary of the various issues that were noted by the Corridor States during the study investigation. These issues relate to the constructability of communications utilities within the Corridors and where difficulties may be encountered; existing utilities and infrastructure in the Corridors that may provide opportunities for cooperation or hinder installations; construction schedules required for the development of a communications backbone along the Corridor; maintenance considerations after installation; environmental issues that need to be addressed before construction can begin or that may be encountered during construction; cost estimates for construction; and policies for the accommodation of utilities that will need to be adhered to in each State.
The report attempts to look forward to a point where a Corridor-wide project could be developed to install a contiguous communication backbone that would serve the needs of each State as well as the communication needs of the communities along that Corridor. It is understood that each State has unique rules and policies that must be adhered to and that those polices will be applicable to any utility work within each State. Therefore, the information presented here looks at each Corridor as a whole while explaining the specific issues unique to each State.
