Bankhead Tunnel Build

Written by Uniti Fiber

January 25, 2022


So, do you guys know why it’s called the Bankhead Tunnel?

Mr. Bankhead. It is named for John H. Bankhead, an Alabama Politician and US Senator. You’re welcome.

So, we just finished up our Bankhead Tunnel project, which was a long time in the making. We’re really proud of it. Took a lot of different people from a lot of different departments in the company and we’re just glad to see it through. So historically, our network traffic from Mobile traversed a cable through leased duct from downtown Mobile all the way to the eastern shore along the causeway. So, this stretch of network is a key component to our network’s backbone. And moving forward, we wanted to make sure that we had complete ownership of this path and we weren’t leasing it from anyone else. So, once we finished the causeway piece of the path, we’ve moved on to the Bankhead Tunnel, which we knew was going to be the most challenging and intense pieces of the project.

So, this is one of the most difficult projects I ever managed with the company. We had to shut down the Bankhead Tunnel for 10 nights. Also, the Bankhead Tunnel’s one of the major arteries between Mobile County and Baldwin County. We were on a very strict schedule. We had to be in and out at certain times. We had to install a six inch conduit, about 2000 feet worth, inside the tunnel, on the tunnel wall. Then we had to go back through and put in three seven-way micro ducts through that six inch conduit, which gives us 21 pass from end to end. So, from Mardi Gras Park to Addsco Road. So, then we installed two 288 microfibers, which gives us our continuity from Mobile to Baldwin County.

And that was just the construction side. So, once all the cables were in place, it was time to move on to moving all of that traffic over from that 20 year old path to the new path. And luckily at Uniti we have a team of world class splicers, so we work tirelessly for about eight weeks cutting all this traffic over. We worked with many different departments, change management, the NOC, FOCAC, fiber documentation, and I love to see how we all came together and really knocked this one out of the park.

This project was a wild ride. I think I speak for the both of us when I say we’re proud of securing our footprint for the future and enhancing the security and reliability for our customers.

 

*The testimonial transcript has been edited from the original video content to provide an improved reading experience.

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