CASE STUDY:
AT&T WIRELESS
(COLUMBIA, MD)
Project:
PPL Telcom (Pennsylvania Power & Light – Telcom
Division) hired MCG to design, engineer, construct and
splice a 3-mile fiber optic cable in the city of Columbia
in Howard County, Maryland, a tightly-planned, high-tech
metropolis with a population of 97,000. The project completion
deadline was eight months.
Challenge:
Strict county regulations prohibited MCG from stringing
the cable from aerial poles, so an underground route was
chosen. But the area required for the cable run was already
congested with existing underground utilities, making
design and construction difficult.
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Implementation:
Using its arsenal of high-tech, GPS-driven mapping tools,
MCG established a safe route for the underground cable,
a process which took four weeks. It then requested permission
from the county for a subsurface directional bore.
The county, however, insisted that additional
stipulations between PPL Telecom and Howard County would
have to be agreed to before construction could begin.
MCG acted as liaison between PPL and county officials,
a process which took three months to complete.
At the conclusion of these negotiations,
and with less than four months before the contract deadline,
MCG received another surprise from the County when it
reported that MCG's initial design for the cable run
conflicted with Columbia's existing underground infrastructure.
MCG quickly redesigned the cable route
to satisfy the County's engineer in just one week, and
construction of the cable began.
Result:
Even with all the unexpected delays,
MGG completed the design, construction and splicing
of the 3-mile underground cable within the eight-month
deadline. The project was also completed at a cost 30
percent below what was called for in PPL’s contract.
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