Ask Slashdot: Resources For Identifying Telecom Right-of-Way Locations? 107
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?"
Why ask slashdot when you can ask google. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.dot.state.mn.us/maps/gisweb/row/
most of telecom RoWs in USA are not public lands (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Do it and it will be classified (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of utility information is now [openstreetmap.org] in OpenStreetMap. Are they going to classify that, too?
Re:Each county. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Not that I'm aware of, and I've tried. (Score:2, Informative)
not Dumb, but rather astute: Paint on the ground may be in a logical "best guess" location... maybe not. The telco guys just don't know! The paint is for the construction crews to tell them to be careful when they dig in that location, nothing more. Actual locations are seldom noted when constructed, and easements are often described as "along a line of poles to be constructed".
Been in the land boundary business for a few weeks short of 40 years... it ain't simple like that.
Re:Not that I'm aware of, and I've tried. (Score:2, Informative)
You've never called a call before you dig service then, because you really don't seem to know what you're talking about. They come out, they hook a signal generator up to the ground shielding of the cables, and they walk around with a meter to find their location and paint them on the ground. They are actually quite accurate in both location and depth.
Re:Each county. (Score:4, Informative)
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.