Arizona's broadband infrastructure project demonstrates how fiber based smart highways help bridge the digital divide
By Gayla Arrindell
Published: August 1, 2024
Ongoing investment in our country’s infrastructure presents a unique opportunity to utilize fiber optic connectivity in new ways and bring high-speed internet to underserved populations.
As part of the U.S. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the federal government will invest $350 billion over five years in various infrastructure projects, including projects designed to upgrade our roadway infrastructure. This significant investment has granted the opportunity to future proof our roadways and interstate highways and establish high-speed broadband connectivity to rural areas—in an effort to close the gap in the digital divide.
An example of this can be found on Arizona’s I-19 roadway — running from Valencia just south of Tucson to Nogales on the Mexican border. A first-of-its-kind project for the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT), ADOT installed fiber optic cables along 63 miles of roadway as part of their long-term strategic plan to make interstate travel more efficient and bring internet to rural communities — serving as the backbone of the state’s new Middle-Mile Network. This project is a prime example of how we can modernize our highways while connecting the unconnected.
Connecting the Unconnected
The need in Arizona is clear. According to a report by the Arizona Commerce Authority, 31% of Arizona households are either underserved (utilizing dial-up or satellite connectivity) or do not have access to internet. However, 80% of Arizona’s unserved and underserved households can be served by a middle-mile network along the interstate highways and select state routes.
In addition to bringing high-speed internet to rural communities, ADOT also sought to future-proof their operations, laying the groundwork for a connectivity solution that can support their intelligent transportation systems and services like automated toll roads, intelligent stop lights, traffic monitoring and more.
For such a project, fiber was their best long-term choice. Not only is it more durable for long distance data transfer, but it also enables virtually unlimited bandwidth, and is resistant to electromagnetic interference, vibration, moisture, and temperature. Fiber’s ability to support more connected devices that require higher bandwidth over longer distances is key to that vision.
But the project wasn’t without its challenges. It was an ambitious broadband infrastructure project involving multiple vendors and miles of cable — with pull boxes every 3,000 feet. In addition to logistical concerns like disruption to traffic and existing networks, there were also environmental ones – like vegetation surveying, high humidity, and dust.
And one of the biggest challenges: space optimization. Cable installers had to make the most of the limited space along the roadway while building in room for future capacity needs. Complicating matters further, planners had to create separate fiber optic cabling pathways for multiple entities planning to utilize the same network architecture, including several broadband carriers and the Sun Corridor Network, Arizona’s research and education network.
That is where MicroTechnology becomes extremely helpful. Using Dura-Line’s sleek miniaturized FuturePath® MicroDucts and Corning’s MiniXtend® outside plant MicroCables, installers could quickly and easily install fiber by air jetting or pushing fiber cables through the plastic MicroDucts—reducing the cost of labor and increasing the speed of deployment compared to traditional methods. The ease of installation also supported using smaller crews with less specialized training or equipment.
MicroTechnology allows operators to optimize the square footage within each duct, increase network density by up to 864 fibers per cable, lay the fiber foundation for fiber to the home deployments, and establish an agile network that allows you to easily upgrade fiber network infrastructure without re-digging or major construction costs.
As part of the deployment, Corning supplied several cables within our MiniXtend® cable portfolio. Designed for installation in MicroDuct systems using air-assisted installation methods, MiniXtend MicroCables are available with up to 50% smaller outer diameters compared to standard loose tube cables and offer high fiber counts in a small cable diameter footprint.
This is critical to achieve the “dig once” mindset which enables future infrastructure projects to upgrade networks for future capacity without having to uproot systems and obtain additional construction permits — saving time, financial resources, and labor. It also allows project managers to share build costs or create a multitenant network.
Fiber can be a platform for the smart highways of the future
In addition to the opportunity to run dark fiber — dormant fiber that can be “lit up” in the future to bring high-speed connectivity to underserved communities — these projects can also enable new technologies on the roads themselves. Part of the federal DOT funding includes $100 million for the SMART program, a program established to provide grants to eligible public sector agencies to conduct demonstration projects focused on advanced smart community technologies and systems in order to improve transportation efficiency and safety.
This includes fiber fed smart highways that can enable a wide variety of use cases, including enhanced GPS services, support for autonomous vehicles, communications resources for emergency responders, real-time data collection and storage, automated tolling, and more. Fiber along highways can also enable wireless tech, like Wi-Fi access points or small cell cellular radios.
Some DOTs have also used the fiber cable itself as a sensor network using powerful distributed fiber optic sensing technology. For example, the Utah Department of Transportation uses its extensive network of fiber buried along the roadways to detect events like crashes, rockslides and more. Learn more about this technology and how Corning can support your DOT telecommunications project in our “The Smart Solution for Intelligent Transportation System Challenges” e-book.
Fiber will be critical for helping intelligent transportation systems scale, enabling higher-quality cameras for visual intelligence applications like traffic and speed enforcement, and compute capacity for artificial intelligence-driven, data-intensive programs that will help smart highway technology move beyond monitoring and data collection to real-time, predictive capabilities.
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