Underground Construction - June 2019 - 23
role in the turn-of-the-century crash.
Long-builds of fiber networks across
America's landscape brought promise
of speed and bandwidth to the fledgling
internet services. Fiber was going to
put communications at light-speed and
bring unheard-of economic, educational
and social opportunities to homes and
communities across the country. To
paraphrase a famous movie line, "Build
it and they will come" was the attitude
of the late '90s as more and more fiber
backbones spread around the country.
The problem was, they didn't come.
Private customers were not prepared
for the expensive jump to fiber service,
especially when it came time to pay for
installations at their homes. In most
areas, fiber backbones were miles away,
making it economically unfeasible for
homeowners to import the service to
their houses. The telecoms themselves
were also not prepared at that time
to absorb the financial burden of
fiber-to-the-premises. There were
no workable plans to reach a critical
mass of subscribers, both residential
and commercial, that could justify
the massive cross-country network
construction activities. Subsequently,
without enough cash flow to support
the backbone buildouts, the market
crashed-and HDD along with it.
"We had jumped big into installing
fiber," recalled an established contractor
in the Midwest. "When the bottom
dropped out, we were left with a lot of idle
HDD rigs and equipment. At that time, we
didn't know how to use HDD for anything
else and those other markets were
underdeveloped anyway. Fortunately, we
were able to fall back on our traditional
utility work and we survived."
Diversification
Today, the market dynamic is much
different. Over the past 18 years,
HDD has been embraced broadly by
virtually every market involved in
underground installations. While telecom
is still a leading driver and user of HDD
equipment and services, the same can be
said to a lesser degree for gas and electric
distribution, oil and gas pipelines, water
distribution/transmission and even
sewer force mains.
The survey revealed that while telecom
still represents the largest market
segment for HDD applications at 24.7
percent, following closely are water
installations (19.8 percent) and gas
Rig size (% of market)
2016
2017
2018
60
51.6 51.9
2019*
*Estimated
55.3 54.2
50
40
31.0 30.6
29.1 30.2
30
20
12.3 12.5 12.3 12.5
10
5.1 5.0
3.3 3.1
Jumbo
(more than 300,000
pounds/pullback)
Large
Mid
(100-300,000
pounds/pullback)
(40,000-100,000
pounds/pullback)
Mini
(under 40,000
pounds/pullback)
Age of HDD Fleet
50
40
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
36.8
31.7 31.9
30
31.0
29.3
31.3
33.0
34.6
26.2 26.2
25.0 26.0
20
22.8 23.2
20.3
18.7
14.0
12.8
14.3
13.2
10
10 years or greater
5-10 years
2-5 years
< 2 years
UConOnline.com | JUNE 2019
23
http://www.UConOnline.com
Underground Construction - June 2019
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Underground Construction - June 2019
Contents
Underground Construction - June 2019 - FC
Underground Construction - June 2019 - IFC
Underground Construction - June 2019 - Contents
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 4
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 5
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 6
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 7
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 8
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 9
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 10
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 11
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 12
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 13
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 14
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 15
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 16
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 17
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 18
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 19
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 20
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 21
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 22
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 23
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 24
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 25
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 26
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 27
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 28
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 29
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 30
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 31
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 32
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 33
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Underground Construction - June 2019 - 38
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Underground Construction - June 2019 - 40
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 41
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 42
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 43
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 44
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 45
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 46
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Underground Construction - June 2019 - IBC
Underground Construction - June 2019 - BC
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