Effective Dig Once Policies

I know a number of counties and cities that have adopted dig once policies that require that every major road project includes burying empty conduit along new or reworked roads. A lot of them have found out that dig once is more complicated than they imagined. It’s a common misconception that dig once just means laying conduit in the ground while roads are dug up for repaving. It’s not that easy. It turns out that most contractors who are fulfilling road construction projects are not sympathetic to any activities that delay the roadwork, so they are not particularly accommodating to a fiber construction crew. The other primary issue with a dig once policy is placing access points—places where a carrier can get access to the conduit and fiber. Without the right access points, buried conduit can be nearly worthless. For a dig once policy to be effective, there also has to be a way to let the world know where conduit is available. Dig once sounds like a great idea, but unless conduit is placed in ways that are useful to internet service providers, it will never be used. Finally, a local government that mandate dig once has to be patient. ISPs will not be rushing to incorporate random short conduit runs into their network design. Dig once only gets attractive when there are enough routes built to be of interest.