Team Fishel Installs Nearly 200 Miles Of New Plant for SEI

Team Fishel is nearing completion of a $5 million project for Southeastern Indiana Telephone (SEI). Located 45 minutes west of Cincinnati, SEI is delivering DSL service to all customers in rural southeastern Indiana.

Established in 1953, SEI serves 6,000 telephone and 8,000 Internet customers in Dearborn, Ripley, Ohio, Jennings, Jefferson and Switzerland counties. Team Fishel has worked for SEI on several projects and is happy to help make it happen!

This project officially kicked off in 2003 and is now in the final phase. When SEI began this build, 100 miles of fiber optic cable and 60 miles of new copper cable were planned. Fishel Teammates are installing 18 remote cabinets and two to three 1 1/4” innerducts to house both the copper and fiber optic cables throughout SEI’s territory. Once the duct is placed, the fiber optic or copper cable is then blown in. When completed, nearly 200 miles of new plant will have been installed across a five-county region.

Supervisor Tom Taulbee, a 23-year Team Fishel veteran, is overseeing crews from Ohio and a rock boring crew from Texas as they trench and plow the duct along the right of way.

According to Area Manager Tim Griffin, rock has been the biggest challenge to production. To counter this, Benjamin Puga, Equipment Operator from the Dallas office, used a Ditch Witch AT directional drill to cut a path for the duct while Gerardo Macias, also from Dallas, performed the locating.

“Having the Dallas Teammates work on the rock bores has been a huge help”, said Griffin. “Our Ohio and Dallas teams work very well together to give the Customer a great product.”

“The outside plant work, done by the crews headed up by Tom Taulbee over the past three years, has resulted in being the best telephone plant this company has ever owned,” said Kenny Watts, SEI Plant Superintendent. “Team Fishel should be very proud of this group of gentlemen.”

This project is on schedule to be completed in 2006.