When They Say Pronto, They Mean It In October 1999 SBC announced Project Pronto, a $6 billion dollar initiative aimed at making DSL service available to 80% of it's customers in less than two years. It sounded like a pretty good-sized construction project and boy was it! The first order of business was to get fiber cable to virtually every neighborhood. A flood of conduit rodding and innerduct placing jobs began in October 1999 and continued through the first quarter of 2000. Jim Webb's crews rose to the occasion, placing over 1,000,000 feet of innerduct in that short time period. Lots of long days and weekend work were required to meet the Pronto due dates. Special thanks to the Equipment Division for quickly retrofitting our old rodder and purchasing a good used one to help us get the work done. The next phase of Pronto required the placement of CEV's, huts or electronic cabinets to change the light waves to DSL signals. Crews led by Mitch Sweet, Allen Lee, Steve Taylor, Mike Jordan, Paolo Shere, Jim Brackenridge and Rich Simi have been busy preparing pad sites, trenching in the conduits and setting the cabinets required to make Pronto work. After the remote terminals are placed, copper cables need to be placed and spliced to new or existing cross-connect boxes to make the new DSL lines available to the customers. Roger Guffee's splicers have met the challenge by quickly splicing the cables and running the jumpers to get the service in place. Although Pronto work kept a lot of crews hopping throughout the year, there was a lot of non Pronto activity as well. Mike Kashack and his crew completed a very challenging Rule 20 job in downtown San Anselmo. In spite of the narrow streets and merchant concerns they completed the project on time and under budget. Mike and his crew are now working on an equally difficult undergrounding project in Boyes Springs. Frank Pena and his crews have been hustling to keep up with the hectic subdivision construction in Sonoma County. As the year draws to its conclusion, the work continues to come in at an amazing rate. All of our crews continue to complete their jobs pronto. Congratulations to all for jobs well done!
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