Joint use in the utility sector began as a simple resource-sharing proposition between electric utilities and telephone companies. It’s no longer so simple.
New technologies have since emerged, introducing new demands on infrastructure. Leaps in...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
At Alden, we understand that joint use professionals work better when everyone works together. Since 1995, we have centered our software and services around this concept. Our newest initiative to help professionals collaborate is our...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
By the middle of the 20th century, many Americans likely felt they had reached the pinnacle of high-tech living. In electric-powered homes equipped with telephones, radios, and TV sets, they were connected to the world in ways unlike any...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
If you’ve been reading our latest blog series, you know that the FCC issued a Report and Order in August for the new policy One Touch Make Ready.
Similar to the “Dig Once” policy for overhead attachments, the OTMR order seeks to streamline make...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management,
Broadband Deployment
Across the United States, the joint use community is busy transitioning to the new rules and timetables established by the FCC in the August 2018 One Touch Make Ready order.
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management,
Broadband Deployment
With numerous cybersecurity threats discussed in the four previous posts, it is no wonder some leaders in the joint use space are questioning centralized, online systems.
Keeping up with evolving cyber threats is a struggle, but it is possible to...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
Distributed antenna systems (DAS) were the original small cells. First used more than 30 years ago, DAS began as a solution to provide wireless coverage in areas where there was none. Today’s DAS networks help fill in holes where wireless...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management,
Small Cell Technology
The Internet of Things (IoT) is ushering in a new era of connected homes, smart appliances, and other developments beyond our imagination. Technology companies and government organizations are working to enable the necessary infrastructure for...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management,
Small Cell Technology
New players in the joint use arena are racing to deploy services. Utility poles once stood tall under the weight of power and telephone lines alone, but today’s joint use infrastructure now must also support dozens of competing broadband...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
What Pole Owners & Attachers Need to Know
In 2015, we published an in-depth blog series about the
top ten violations in the joint use world. We want to take a fresh look at that list and talk about what has changed and what remains the same.
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
Many joint use asset owners and attachers/renters use homegrown, legacy applications to manage their assets. Some use Excel spreadsheets, or use a combination of applications such as Sharepoint, Maximo, and others. As needs change, systems must...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
When a utility pole needs to be replaced, the pole owner will schedule the required equipment transfers. Many utility poles are joint use assets, where several different companies typically have attached equipment on the same pole. This means...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
What is Joint Use, and How Does It Work?
Imagine a street lined with several sets of utility poles running up both sides, each owned by different companies. One set is owned by an electric utility, another set of poles is owned by a...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
Most asset owners today hold 100 percent of the liability for their field assets, such as utility poles, towers and conduit. As asset owners know all too well, this means they are fully responsible for all of their assets' safety and compliance,...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
As the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to gain momentum, more and more assets will be connected in the field. Advances in technology mean that internet-aware devices—such as sensors and other data capture technology—are becoming increasingly...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
If you haven't yet been captivated by the complex and exciting potential of “The Internet of Things,” I imagine you soon will. At its most basic level, the Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the ability for any devices to be connected to the...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management,
Outside Plant Services
2016 may be the year of the double utility pole.
Consult your favorite search engine's news section and you will find an increasing number of stories about everyone's (least) favorite double wood situation. Cities are now openly "tired of double...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
In our everyday lives, as well as in business, the quality of our partnerships often hinges on the personalities involved. People are characters and certain job tasks require particular aptitudes and attitudes. In your best friends, you seek...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
With election season in full swing and the appointment of the next leader of the United States a mere six months away, our nation’s attention is tuned to television and social media, dissecting the views and every move of the field of hopefuls....
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management,
Infrastructure Asset Management
We are now a month into 2016, and while a lot of resolutions have been made, we know that it is difficult to keep them as the year goes on. January is the proving ground for turning great end-of-year ideas into year-long habits, but if you have...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management,
Infrastructure Asset Management
"Utility poles are like snowflakes: no two are alike." – Barry Wise, Alden Project Manager
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management,
Infrastructure Asset Management
It has been a banner couple of years for the construction industry. According to the American Institute of Architects, nationally, housing starts passed a million units in 2014 – the first time they have been at that rate since before the bubble...
Topics:
Field Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management
Regular, thorough field inspections are the best path to complete visibility of the current status and condition of your plant. From pinpointing pole location, verifying asset health and identifying potential unauthorized (bootleg) attachers,...
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management
As business-critical decisions go, when the work gets heavy and resources get thin, this question is often heard: Should we use in-house staff or outsource?
Topics:
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management
Large-scale growth. A boom in the housing market that requires many poles be erected or cable laid. Disaster. Weather. That day when all the utility poles in the field seem to age into maintenance issues at once.
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management
In the world of joint use management, there is always another task on your to-do list. If it is not requests to attach, it is requests to disconnect. If poles do not need maintenance, they need replacement.As you may guess, each of these actions...
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management,
Pole Transfers
As fall’s crisp days begin in most places in the U.S. and the celebratory among us start thinking about overstuffed birds, starchy vegetables, and miles of sweet treats, we have been thinking of a joint use recipe that is very popular year round:
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management,
Pole Transfers
Backlogs – a buildup of overdue and incomplete joint use and other work requests – come in all varieties, from pole transfer backlogs to pileups of permits to attach, from unremedied NESC violations to mountains of detach notices. Think this...
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management,
Pole Transfers
As we previously discussed, it is possible for a company to assume ownership of "bad" utility poles. These "bad" assets are poles that have been decommissioned but are still standing alongside their replacements. This generally happens as a...
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management,
Pole Transfers
Pole transfer requests are business as usual for attachers and utility pole owners. A pole is damaged, ages beyond its usefulness or is upgraded from wood to another material. Pole owners move their equipment to a new pole and request attachers...
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management,
Pole Transfers
Pole transfers are an unavoidable part of the joint use universe. This business-as-usual task requires resource allocation, time, thought and consistent record-keeping to keep track of what has been requested, how much time has elapsed, what...
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management,
Pole Transfers
Utility poles are hardly immortal. They age beyond useful life. They rot and are damaged by elements, human activity and nature. Pole owners decide to replace them with structures made of new and different materials, such as swapping a wooden...
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management,
Pole Transfers
From first sight to final inspection, utility pole inspection is a vital part of successful field asset verification. So what really happens out there during assessment of equipment? In this issue, we finish out the chain of inspection events,...
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management
From first observation to final inspection, utility pole inspection is a vital part of successful field management. So what really happens out there during an equipment assessment? In this post, we talk about line inspections, referencing F, for...
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management
From first sight to final inspection, inventories are a vital part of successful field asset management. So what really happens out there during an equipment assessment? Today, we take a look at another step in the process: Defining Asset...
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management
From first sight to final inspection, utility pole inspections are a vital part of successful field asset verification. So what really happens out there during assessment of equipment? Today, we take a look at the third step: Efficiently capture...
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management
From first sight to final inspection, utility pole inspections are a vital part of successful field asset management. So what really happens during inspection? Today, we take a look at the second step: Behold Up Close.
Now that we are a couple...
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management
From first sight to final inspection a thorough utility pole inventory and inspection is a vital part of successful field asset management. But what actually happens during a utility pole inspection? Today we will discuss the first crucial step: ...
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management,
Utility Pole Inspection
From first sight to final inspection, a thorough utility pole inventory and inspection is a vital part of successful field asset management. But what goes into a typical NESC inspection of poles in the field? Today, with the help of Alden’s...
Topics:
Regulatory,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management
Perhaps the trickiest and most difficult aspect of asset management is bringing order to the human aspect of technician accountability.
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
A few months back, major media outlets ran a story on the U.S. Government and the loss of millions of dollars of ammunition in Afghanistan.[1] Before your mind goes to all things political on this topic, it is interesting to note that the story...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
In the Pacific Northwest, something interesting is happening in the world of joint use—collaboration, organization and connection that is finding its way across the country with happy copycat behavior state to state. At the center of it all is a...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
At Alden, we declared November to be “Forget doing it yourself and get help!” month with a series of blogs dedicated to why using third-party administration (TPA) to solve some of your joint use issues might be a good idea. What is third-party...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
At Alden, we are declaring November “Forget doing it yourself and get help!” month with a series of blogs dedicated to why using third-party administration (TPA) to solve some of your joint use issues might be a good idea. What is third-party...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management,
Pole Transfers
RFID (radio-frequency identification) is wireless, non-contact use of radio-frequency electromagnetic fields to transfer data,[1] and it may be the most useful technology many people may not be aware of.
The first patent for RFID, as it is...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
We have already discussed the benefits of having a joint use department, but what if your business is too small to truly support a full “department” dedicated to joint use? Outsourcing joint use management to a third party administrator (TPA) may...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
DAS is a hot button topic for some utility pole owners, and a growing issue in the world of joint use. Short for “distributed antenna system”, DAS is a network of antenna nodes often attached to utility poles to provide wireless service to a...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
Navigating the connections, communications, contracts and other complexities that come with joint use asset management may be one of the most intense aspects of owning utility poles and vaults. From enforcing contract details and communication...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
Joint use does not exist in a vacuum—there are many other departments and divisions within a typical pole-owning utility or municipality’s operations that rely on accurate, timely information regarding the placement and management of attachments...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
After all the homework is done, after you have researched, specified and purchased a joint use management software solution, what’s next? Implementation. It is a scary word: the culmination of all your company’s hard work to make sure you are...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
The common spreadsheet… for many, it seems the perfect solution for tracking utility pole assets. According to research conducted by Financial Director Magazine, 62% of businesses of responders are currently using spreadsheets as the primary...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
When it comes to joint use management, there is a lot to know. From regulatory differences state to state, to the subtleties of contract management, to simply having a good working knowledge of your attachers and their businesses, the management...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
You may not have heard much about it, but in April of 2013, someone slipped into an underground vault near a busy freeway in California and cut a few telephone cables. Half an hour later, snipers began firing on a nearby electrical substation, ...
Topics:
Telecommunications Asset Management,
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management
A sniper opened fire on a California substation on a dark night in April of 2013, however, the story began sometime earlier in an underground vault, where telephone lines were cut hours before the substation was fired upon. While grid security in...
Topics:
Telecommunications Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management,
Conduit Inventory & Inspection
From Smokey the Bear to OSHA to your own mother, “safety first” is a message we have heard over and over again in our personal and professional lives. In addition, safety, as it pertains to power poles, is a huge deal—health, livelihoods and...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
Pencil and paper? Excel spreadsheets? Straight from memory? How do you do joint use management?
What is your process for managing your joint use assets?
Do you have a documented process?
Whether you are responsible for 10 utility poles or...
Topics:
Joint Use Asset Management
Any kind of joint use management, whether it is in utilities, telecommunications, or municipalities, can be a difficult task. You must keep careful track of the use of assets and inventory by a diverse group of companies, and stay abreast of what...
Topics:
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management
Utility poles, much like the trees they are made from, are subject to rot and decay. Even with preservative treatments that are used to protect them against environmental factors, the life a pole ranges from only 25-50 years (depending on its...
Topics:
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management,
Pole Transfers
Alden Systems attended the Florida Utilities Coordinating Committee Summer Educational Conference at the Marco Island Hilton, August 6th - 8th.
Topics:
Utility Asset Management,
Joint Use Asset Management
