One of the most neglected item, and later regretted item by contractors is the failure to run communications conduit to new single housing units.

When it comes to Multiple Dwelling Units, area fiber and cable companies rush to offer conduit, and connectivity due to the higher profit due to the higher density of residents.  The difficulty is that in building a single family residence it is often forgotten in the plans.  The old days of installing phone company copper is a thing of the past.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is greatly discouraging copper phone lines, thus most phone companies are not even budgeting installation of phone lines into new developments.  Also with the federal government making billions available to fiber optic cable companies, mostly into rural areas, the conduit to be installed is mostly for fiber optic cable.

Whether a regional larger cable company, or a locally owned legacy Internet provider, it’s usually a case of calling the local provider to offer access to a trench from the closest power pole to the home. Washington Broadband typically is more responsive, while trying to find someone at the larger company who wants to work with you can be unsuccessful.  Most communication fiber runs along the Right of Way or power pole lines so trenching for fiber is relatively easy.

Once a house is completed, and the new resident is in place, it always looks bad on the contractor when the resident asks where the conduit is so they may get Internet, and they have to dig up their brand new lawn to get it, or worse, their driveway.