Telecommunications cables accounted for more than half of the underground utility damage reports analyzed by the Common Ground Alliance for 2025. The findings reveal a problem that fiber network operators cannot solve simply by purchasing better cable or submitting more locate requests.

The challenge is coordinating everyone involved in underground construction: network owners, excavators, utility locators, contractors, municipalities, and other infrastructure operators.

An 811 notification is an essential starting point, but a damage-prevention process must also verify that affected utilities have responded, resolve unclear markings, identify uncovered infrastructure, and preserve accurate construction records.

For broadband providers expanding fiber networks, the 2025 damage data offers a practical opportunity to review how projects move from design approval to excavation and final documentation.

Telecom Infrastructure Accounted for 51% of Reported Utility Damage

The Common Ground Alliance (CGA) published its 2025 Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT) summary in July 2026.

The analysis covered 221,717 unique damage reports submitted for 2025. Telecommunications and cable television facilities represented 51% of the reported damaged facilities, compared with 36% for natural gas infrastructure, 8% for electric facilities, and 5% for water and sewer systems.

The findings were summarized in Trenchless Technology’s July 20 report on the 2025 DIRT findings.

One detail is particularly important for telecom construction managers.

Work categorized as telecommunications or cable television construction accounted for 30% of reported damage to telecommunications and cable television facilities. Water and sewer work accounted for another 22%.

This does not establish that individual telecommunications companies damaged their own assets. The categories describe the type of work associated with reported incidents, not necessarily the ownership of every damaged facility.

Nevertheless, the figures show why fiber network expansion creates risks for existing communications infrastructure.

A contractor installing a new underground connection may be operating near previously installed fiber routes belonging to another carrier, a municipality, an enterprise, or the same network operator.

The CGA also found that the ten most frequently reported root causes accounted for 86% of damage reports. Failure to notify the appropriate 811 center before excavation remained the leading identified cause.

These are findings from the submitted DIRT dataset, not a complete census of every underground utility incident in North America. The percentages should not be interpreted as each industry’s probability of experiencing damage, because the data does not provide a common exposure denominator for all types of infrastructure and excavation activity.

The operational lesson is stronger than a simple industry ranking: telecom construction projects need reliable communication between those planning new infrastructure and those responsible for protecting existing facilities.

What an 811 Ticket Actually Does

In the United States, 811 connects people planning excavation with the relevant regional utility notification system.

An excavator provides information about the intended work. The notification center then communicates with participating underground facility operators that may have infrastructure in the affected area.

Those operators are responsible for responding according to applicable state requirements, including identifying or marking relevant underground facilities.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) explains the importance of this process in its official 811 damage-prevention guidance.

The system helps protect underground infrastructure, including telecommunications networks, electricity facilities, pipelines, and other utilities.

However, submitting a locate request does not establish that every buried facility has been identified.

An 811 notification does not automatically provide a complete engineering survey, prove the exact depth of every cable, or resolve discrepancies between old construction records and current ground conditions.

It also does not replace applicable excavation permits, professional safety assessments, or approved construction procedures.

For telecom project managers, this means the locate request must remain connected to the actual field work.

The organization should know which request applies to the work area, whether the required responses have been received, whether the request remains valid, and what unresolved conditions require further investigation.

The specific notification periods, ticket validity rules, excavation restrictions, and required responses vary by jurisdiction.

Private Fiber Facilities Can Be Missing From Ordinary Locates

One frequently overlooked problem is the difference between underground infrastructure covered by a participating public utility operator and privately owned facilities.

An enterprise campus might have private fiber connecting several buildings.

A communications provider may encounter customer-owned ducts or cables inside an industrial property.

An organization might also maintain infrastructure that is not covered by the ordinary utility locating arrangements for the surrounding public right-of-way.

These facilities should not automatically be assumed to appear in standard 811 markings.

For example, Nebraska 811’s official guidance states that privately owned utility lines are not located and marked through its ordinary utility marking process. The property owner is responsible for determining their locations.

Nebraska also requires ordinary locate requests at least two full business days before excavation under its state rules. That deadline is a Nebraska requirement, not a nationwide waiting period.

The private-facility distinction has a direct consequence for telecom construction.

A contractor may receive responses from participating utilities while an undocumented customer-owned fiber connection remains within the project area.

A more complete preconstruction review should therefore establish whether private networks, campus facilities, legacy conduits, or other infrastructure require separate investigation by appropriately qualified parties.

A completed 811 process should never be represented as proof that every possible underground utility has been found.

The Missing Link Is Often Between the Office and the Field

Broadband construction requires information to move between multiple organizations.

A network design team selects the route.

A permitting team works with public authorities.

A contractor schedules excavation.

A utility locator responds to the notification.

A field supervisor evaluates conditions at the worksite.

A network operations team may monitor existing services that could be affected.

These groups do not always use the same drawings, scheduling systems, or project identifiers.

A route may change after the initial locate request.

A utility response may be delayed.

A field crew may discover infrastructure that was not clearly represented in the available plans.

If these developments are recorded in separate systems, the people responsible for making the next decision may not have the same information.

This is where telecom operators can improve damage prevention without assuming that new technology alone will solve the problem.

The first improvement is to make the handoffs explicit.

A construction package should identify the approved work scope, responsible organizations, applicable notification records, important utility responses, unresolved discrepancies, and the person authorized to resolve them.

The second improvement is to establish a process for recording changes.

If work moves outside the area described in the original notification, the responsible team must reassess the applicable locating and notification requirements before proceeding.

If underground conditions differ from the approved plan, an authorized decision-maker must review the discrepancy rather than leave individual workers to improvise a solution.

Qualified field personnel and applicable safety procedures remain essential.

Four Records That Help Prevent Coordination Failures

Telecom construction managers can use a simple evidence framework to review how damage-prevention responsibilities are being handled.

Project record	What it should establish	Why it matters
Approved work scope	Where the authorized project is intended to take place	Helps identify whether field changes require further review
Utility notification record	Which locate request applies and its relevant status	Connects excavation planning with the appropriate 811 process
Utility response and discrepancy record	Which facilities were addressed and what remains unresolved	Prevents administrative completion from being mistaken for field clearance
Final infrastructure documentation	What was installed and which approved changes occurred	Supports later maintenance, network planning, and future locating work

These records serve different purposes.

The existence of a ticket number does not prove that utility information was accurate.

A construction drawing does not establish that installation occurred exactly as originally designed.

A field photograph may provide useful context without supplying the engineering detail needed to locate a cable reliably in the future.

The objective is to preserve enough dependable information for the next responsible professional to understand the work.

Project-specific documentation requirements should reflect applicable law, contract conditions, engineering standards, and the actual infrastructure involved.

Dig-Once Planning Can Reduce Repeated Construction, but It Needs Careful Coordination

Telecommunications infrastructure is often installed alongside road construction, utility upgrades, or other underground projects.

The concept commonly called dig once encourages coordination so that suitable broadband conduit or other infrastructure can be installed while an area is already undergoing construction.

An earlier Federal Highway Administration review of dig-once practices examined the opportunities and tradeoffs involved in coordinating broadband work within highway rights-of-way.

The federal background paper, published in December 2012, identified potential benefits from reducing repeated excavation.

It also described limitations, including unused conduit capacity, maintenance responsibilities, administrative costs, and the difficulty of predicting future infrastructure needs.

That document provides historical planning context; it should not be treated as a statement of every state’s current requirements.

For modern broadband projects, the underlying decision remains relevant.

Coordinating construction may reduce repeated road openings, but it can also concentrate multiple utility systems in shared corridors.

That creates practical questions about future maintenance access, infrastructure ownership, route documentation, and the possibility that a later construction incident could affect several services.

Project managers should therefore distinguish reducing repeated excavation from eliminating shared infrastructure risk.

The most suitable arrangement depends on the site, local requirements, approved engineering design, and long-term operational responsibilities.

This relationship between public authorities, infrastructure owners, and contractors is also relevant to NATEWIN’s existing guide to public-private telecommunications partnerships and permitting, which discusses right-of-way planning and coordination across participating organizations.

Measure the Quality of the Process, Not Just the Number of Locate Tickets

An operator trying to reduce utility damage might begin by counting the number of 811 requests submitted by its contractors.

That provides some useful activity information.

It does not, however, establish whether the requests were accurate, whether utilities responded appropriately, or whether unresolved concerns were addressed before work continued.

A stronger internal review could examine several connected measures.

Notification completeness concerns whether the relevant work had the appropriate notification and supporting records.

Response resolution concerns whether required utility responses were received and discrepancies handled according to applicable procedures.

Construction changes concern whether changes in work area or scope triggered the necessary additional review.

Damage and near-miss reporting concerns whether the organization identifies problems, investigates contributing factors, and makes corrective decisions.

Record quality concerns whether completed construction is documented accurately enough to support later infrastructure management.

These are suggested management measures, not official CGA performance indicators or federal reporting requirements.

They also require careful interpretation.

For example, an increase in recorded near misses may initially reflect better reporting rather than worsening field conditions.

A lower number of reported incidents may be encouraging, but it should not automatically be treated as proof of improved safety if excavation activity has also declined.

Where practical, managers should evaluate incidents against relevant exposure measures, such as completed work volume, excavation activity, or an appropriately defined contractor workload.

Any comparison should explain which data is available and which assumptions affect its interpretation.

Build a Construction Review That Includes Every Responsible Party

Telecom damage prevention is not exclusively an excavation contractor’s responsibility.

Infrastructure owners need reliable records.

Utility operators need workable notification and response processes.

Locators require appropriate information and access.

Contractors need clear work instructions and a reliable escalation route for unexpected conditions.

Municipalities and transportation agencies may need to coordinate rights-of-way, construction schedules, and restoration requirements.

Telecommunications providers also have a service-continuity interest: damage to an existing fiber route can interrupt customer connectivity even when the excavation belongs to a separate project.

A practical project review can bring these responsibilities together before work begins.

It should identify how changes are communicated, which party resolves conflicting information, how relevant service risks are assessed, and what documentation is required when work is completed.

The exercise should not attempt to replace site-specific engineering or safety supervision.

Its value is establishing clear accountability before a disagreement or unexpected condition creates pressure to proceed without adequate information.

For organizations managing several contractors, consistent reporting and escalation expectations can also make it easier to compare projects without assuming that each location presents identical risks.

The Real Test Comes After the Cable Is Installed

A fiber construction project is not fully documented simply because the cable has been installed and the service has been activated.

Future contractors may depend on the information produced during today’s work.

If final route records are incomplete, ownership information is unclear, or undocumented changes are not incorporated into the appropriate systems, those weaknesses can affect later maintenance and construction projects.

This is particularly important when networks expand through repeated phases.

A route installed during one phase may become an underground facility that another contractor must identify and protect during the next.

Construction closeout should therefore include appropriate records of the installed infrastructure, approved deviations, relevant utility information, and the parties responsible for maintaining the records.

The 2025 CGA findings make the broader lesson difficult to ignore.

Underground telecommunications damage is not merely an occasional construction inconvenience. It is a recurring infrastructure problem involving communication, documentation, technical judgment, and shared responsibility.

An 811 ticket begins an important safety process. Reliable coordination is what helps carry that process through to the actual work—and leaves better information for the people who work near the infrastructure next.