Over the last few weeks, AT&T crews have blocked off Anderson Circle in downtown St. Augustine so that they could stretch a long fiber optic cable under the Matanzas River to Anastasia Island. This fiber optic cable installation project involved drilling under the bottomlands of the Matanzas River to Anastasia Island to create a hole ending near North St. Augustine Boulevard. The fiber optic cable was pulled all the way from Anderson Circle to Anastasia Island.
This fiber optic cable installation project was initiated because AT&T lost underwater cable when the Bridge of Lions was renovated a few years back. The Bridge of Lions is a historically well-known bridge in St. Augustine that runs over the Matanzas River (Intracoastal Waterway), connecting downtown St. Augustine to Anastasia Island. AT&T has released that part of the new fiber optic cable running underneath the river will be used to connect offices downtown and at St. Augustine Beach, and the rest of the cable will be used for Anastasia Island.
“The new cable is needed because it will carry phone traffic between our Central Offices, which are where all calls are processed, as well as provide support for any increases in phone traffic,” according to Kelly Layne Starling, AT&T public relations manager.
At GeoTel Communications, our fiber optic network maps integrate telecom infrastructure data with geospatial technologies so that cities like St. Augustine, as well as telecom providers like AT&T, can analyze fiber assets in a spatial, map-like environment and make decisions about placing new fiber infrastructure. If you are interested in obtaining telecom GIS data sets for a particular city or metro area, contact GeoTel Communications at (800) 277-2172.
