Research

Eric Kuhnke’s World Telecommunications Infrastructure GIS Data Set

This data set contains placemarks and descriptions for telecommunications infrastructure sites worldwide. The greatest level of detail is in North America, specifically the Pacific Northwest region of BC and WA. Within WA state, the data set is primarily focused on strategic locations for high capacity (500 to 2000 Mbps) point-to-point microwave radio links and the integration of high capacity microwave with terrestrial fiber based IP networks.

Download the latest version of the data set here – 1.7MB .KMZ file
Updated 2016-05-24

This data set is released to the public under the terms of the Kuhnke BSD license.

Public Data Sources:

Eric’s personal observations, visiting sites in person. Certain sites with manually gathered high precision GPS elevation data are described in the notes field.
Eric’s sites discovered via analysis of publicly available overhead satellite imagery (IMINT), eg: hills and mountains with roads built to the top.
Public FCC Universal Licensing System Part 101 licensed links (active and expired/cancelled).
Public FCC license data for licensed Tx/Rx satellite earth stations, AM and FM radio tower sites, VHF and UHF radio repeaters sites, public safety repeater sites, etc.
Public tower ownership data from the FCC ASR (Antenna Structure Registration) database.
Public data from FCC International Bureau submarine cable landing station applications and licenses, combined with Eric’s personal observations (eg: subsea cables to Alaska, transpacific, well known NY / NJ area transatlantic beach sites).
Public data for currently operational FAA hilltop/mountaintop radar sites (and NOAA).
Public WA state WSDOT radio site information and DNR (Department of Natural Resources) hilltop land and tower sites.
Public WA state DNR forestry/logging road information and US Federal national park & forest roads.
Public data from state, county and municipal level governments related to right-of-way, construction permits, re-zoning, etc.
Historical cold war era military files related to defunct hilltop and mountaintop radar sites, Nike missile sites, etc, some of which have been repurposed by private owners as telecom sites.
Historical cold war era telecommunications infrastructure sites and data, eg: AT&T Long Lines and 4/6 GHz microwave links, Western Union microwave, AUTOVON/AUTODIN, GWEN, etc.
Public dark fiber and tower site data previously published on the websites of regional infrastructure providers such as Blackrock Cable (now Wave Business), Zayo, Day Wireless Systems, and others.
Public data published by commercial tower-owning companies such as SBA, American Tower, Crown Castle, etc.
Public data published by major ISPs (primarily POP & on-net node lists).
Public data published by regional datacenters/colocation/hosting infrastructure providers such as Sabey, Vantage, etc and wholly-owned datacenter operations such as the facilities in Quincy, WA.
Miscellaneous hilltop sites which are occasionally colocated with wireless telecom infrastructure including water tanks and reservoirs, electrical substations, astronomical observatories, forest fire lookout towers, ski areas.

The map does not include:

Information previously provided to Eric under NDA, or learned by Eric while working for an employer under NDA. Everything on the map is publicly discoverable. Individual NDA-protected data sets are available to authorized employees of certain organizations. NDA protected data includes indivdidual ISPs’ MDU POPs, notations on layer 1/2 topology of those POPs as they relate to specific ISPs’ network topology, etc.
Extensive dark fiber maps of wholly owned/facilities-based and lease/IRU based ISPs. Some dark fiber data is presented but this is not the focus of the map.
Extensive data for every small cellular monopole or small tower in WA. While the map includes many individual cellular sector sites, it is focused towards notable hilltop infrastructure sites, high buildings’ rooftop sites, significant IP traffic interexchange points, hilltop broadcast sites and similar. If you are searching for maps of all available monopoles and small metro area towers I recommend consulting the sales-engineering department of major tower-owning/leasing companies such as American Tower, Crown Castle, SBA, Vertical Bridge, etc.
Extensive data for sites outside of WA state. Some detail is presented for the neighboring states of ID and OR, but the primary focus of this map is WA. In general, the number of placemarks and level of detail decreases proportionally with distance from the center of Seattle.
Unlicensed FCC Part 15 (5.10 to 5.85 GHz) point-to-point and point-to-multipoint radio systems, unlicensed 24 GHz, 60 GHz and other links which do not require FCC registration. In some cases these links may be described at a particular site, usually as a result of direct visual observation of notable equipment (Example: AirFiber24 radios, Cambium PTP600 radios, etc). This data set may also not include every “light licensed” 3.5 or 3.65 GHz band PTP or PtMP site operated by small to medium sized WISPs.

How to make the most effective use of this file:

This file is in Google Earth XML (KML) text format. It’s intended for direct use with the latest version of the free Google Earth client on Windows, OSX or Linux.
Alternatively you can import the placemarks into your favorite 3rd party GIS software. Because the KML text format has become a near defacto industry standard, the hierarchical organization and placemarks in this file should work with almost any modern GIS system. The organization and metadata structure is kept intentionally simple for the widest possible cross platform compatibility.

By default every placemark in every county is enabled for viewing.

Viewing the entire WA state data set when every subfolder is enabled will result in significant placemark overlap on the map. If you are interested in a particular area of WA state, I highly recommend unchecking most of the counties and enabling placemark visibility only for the counties you are examining. The map is best viewed when zoomed in to a county level scale, or for densely placemark populated areas such as King County, zoomed in to a local city/municipality level.

It is best viewed on a 27″ or larger display and 2560×1440 resolution or higher. Additional viewing recommendations include setting terrain exaggeration in Google Earth to 1.4 and unchecking the option for “automatically tilt view while zooming”.

Data fields in the file consist of:

Hierarchically sorted folders, containing:

Placemark name, sorted by county code (US), state name (two letters), county and city name.
Placemark latitude and longitude in comma separated decimal degrees, WGS84 datum.
Description field, this is the larger text box in the Google Earth GUI
Icon type using the default Google Earth icon set, this is the <stylrUrl> tag

The following is an example of a single placemark:

<Placemark>
<name>Zayo ILA #060399</name>
<open>1</open>
<description>2750 E Rome Dr, Meridian ID</description>
<LookAt>
<longitude>-116.3570783671446</longitude>
<latitude>43.57221017614991</latitude>
<altitude>0</altitude>
<heading>0.001255710213076172</heading>
<tilt>0</tilt>
<range>237.518716868331</range>
<gx:altitudeMode>relativeToSeaFloor</gx:altitudeMode>
</LookAt>
<styleUrl>#msn_ylw-pushpin7</styleUrl>
<Point>
<gx:drawOrder>1</gx:drawOrder>
<coordinates>-116.3572866069111,43.57224004019039,0</coordinates>
</Point>
</Placemark>

The <name> field is used for the text displayed next to the icon on the map and should be kept to less than 100 characters.

The <description> field corresponds with the larger text entry field in the extended info GUI of a Google Earth placemark, vieweed only when a placemark is manually selected, and can contain several paragraphs of data or even as much as 8KB of text description per site.

The <open> tag defines whether the placemark is enabled for viewing in Google Earth. This is a binary choice of 0 or 1 and corresponds with the Googl Earth GUI’s checkmark box next to the placemark name.

<altitude> of zero means that the placemark is “clamped” to the ground elevation when displayed in Google Earth. By default this utilizes Google Earth’s elevation data set which is primarily sourced from the public, free SRTM1/3, SRTM1 and SRTM3 space radar data sets.

Tilt, heading and range XML tags can be disregarded if importing placemarks into 3rd party (non-Google Earth) GIS software. These are used for three-dimensional angled/tilted viewing in the Google Earth client.

CHANGELOG

2016-06-15
US / CA Added new Equinix facility to be built near 9 and 11 Great Oaks
US / VA Added CyrusOne 21111 Ridgetop Circle datacenter
US / IL Added CyrusOne 1850 Springer Drive datacenter

2016-06-02
US / CA Added Infomart (Fortune) data center San Jose
US / CA Added Vantage Data Centers facility Santa Clara

2016-05-24
US / WA Added FCC Part 101 licensed links on Kitsap peninsula
US / WA Added FCC Part 101 licensed links on Olympic peninsula
US / WA / King added several rooftop cellular sites (camouflaged)

2016-05-11
US / CT Added Cervalis 10 Norden Place datacenter
US / NJ Added Sprint NAP Merchantville
US / NJ Added TelX 100 Delawanna Ave datacenter
US / NJ Added Sungard Carlstadt NJ datacenter
US / NJ Added NYI 999 Frontier Rd datacenter
US / NY Added Telehouse Staten Island datacenter
US / NY Added defunct AT&T Staten Island teleport (earth station antennas removed)
US / NY Added Merril Lynch State Island datacenter
US / VA Added historical MAE-East site 1919 Gallows Rd, Vienna VA
US / VA Added historical MAE-East site 8100 Boone Blvd, Vienna VA

2016-05-10
US / WA / Clark County added county government part 101 links
US / WA / Clark County added Speelyai Mountain tower site
US / WA / Spokane County added EcliptixNet part 101 links
US / WA / Gray Harbor County added county government part 101 links

2016-05-08
US / VA Added correct street addresses for Amazon IAD area facilities
US / VA Added DBT Data datacenters/powered shell spaces located near Equinix
US / VA Added DBT Data Harrisonburg datacenter
US / VA Added Microsoft Boydton datacenters
US / VA Added Digital Realty Trust Ashburn datacenters
US / VA Added correct placemark locations for older Equinix DC-area datacenters
US / NC Added Apple Malden datacenter

2016-05-06
US / AZ Added IO Datacenters Phoenix location
US / AZ Added 120 E. Van Buren datacenter
US / AZ Added 3402 E. University Phoenix NAP datacenter
US / CA Added CoreSite 2972 Stender datacenter
US / CA Added Equinix 1735 Lundy datacenter
US / CA Added XO 5771 Copley Drive San Diego datacenter
US / CA Added 800 S. Hope Los Angeles datacenter
US / CA Added 1920 East Maple Equinix Los Angeles datacenter
US / CO Added CoreSite 910 15th St. Denver datacenter
US / FL Added Level3 380 S. Lake Destiny Orlando datacenter
US / NY / NYC Added 85 10th Avenue Telehouse datacenter
US / VA Added CoreSite Reston datacenter
US / VA Added Dupont Fabros ACC4 datacenter

2016-05-03
World / Moved datacenter and colocation facilities in Europe into properly sorted hierarchical categories sorted by two letter country code

2016-04-27
US / TX / Added Aligned Datacenters Plano datacenter
US / TX / Added Digital Realty Trust Carrolton datacenters
US / TX / Added Facebook Alliance Airport datacenter
US / TX / Added RagingWire TX1 Garland datacenter
US / TX / Added Skybox Houston datacenter
US / VA / Added o3b VA earth station
US / WA / Island County added WhidbeyTel C-Band Rx earth station
US / WA / King County added Boeing Field 4.6 meter Ku-band earth station
US / American Samoa added o3b earth station

2016-04-21
US / MT / Added Beef Trail tower site
US / MT / Added Butte mountaintop tower site
US / MT / Added Macdonald Pass tower sites
US / MT / Added Pauly Mtn. tower sites
US / MT / Added Rumsey Mountain tower site
UT / MT / Added Anaconda Hilltop tower sites
US / WA / Douglas County added two tower sites NW of Coulee City, near Zayo ILA site
US / WA / Douglas County added Waterville grain silos
US / WA / Douglas County added Withrow grain silos

2016-04-19
US / WA / Cowlitz County added Cascade Networks new 11, 18 and 23 GHz FCC Part 101 links
US / WA / Klickitat County verified locations of Sawtooth Technologies new FCC Part 101 links
US / WA / Stevens County added EcliptixNet hilltop POP
US / WA / Spokane County added several EcliptixNet FCC Part 101 links

2016-04-13
US / WA / King County added several Accel Net FCC Part 101 links
US / WA / King County added Seattle’s Best Internet (WaveG) FCC Part 101 link
US / WA / Spokane County added EcliptixNet FCC Part 101 links
US / WA / Stevens County added EcliptixNet FCC Part 101 links
US / WA / Yakima County added Washington Broadband FCC Part 101 links
US / ID / Nez Perce County added Inland Cellular FCC Part 101 links and tower sites
US / ID / Idaho County added Inland Cellular FCC Part 101 links
US / OR / Baker County added Lime Hill tower site
US / OR / Baker County added Brownlee Hill tower site
US / OR / Baker County added Lone Pine tower site
US / OR / Baker County added Randal Hill tower site
US / OR / Baker County added Richland Hill tower site
US / OR / Union County added Mt. Emily tower sites
US / OR / Union County added Mt. Fanny tower sites

2016-04-12
FR / Tahiti added Papenoo cable landing station
UK / Added Hibernia Atlantic Southport cable landing station
US / CA Added correct street address and exact location for PC-1 Grover Beach cable landing station
US / CA Added AT&T San Luis Obispo cable landing station
US / OR Added Verizon Hillsboro facility servicing TPE (Trans Pacific Express) cable landing station
US / VI Added Level3-Global Crossing MAC + PAC cable landing station
US / WA / Snohomish County added correct street address and location for PC-1 Mukilteo cable landing station

2016-04-02
UK Added CyrusOne Woking datacenter
US / CO Added Zayo 393 Inverness Pkwy datacenter
US / CO Added Zayo 1500 Champa St datacenter
US / CO Added Zayo 6900 South Peoria datacenter
US / ID / Benewah County added Tensed grain silos
US / ID / Latah County added Genesee grain silos
US / NY Added CyrusOne Wappinger Falls datacenter
US / TX Added Clearview (now Zayo) Dallas datacenter
US / TX Added Clearview (now Zayo) Waco datacenter
US / TX Added Zayo Dallas datacenter
US / WA / Whitman County added Tekoa grain silos

2016-04-01
US / TX / Dallas area added Carrier-1 datacenter near Love Field
US / WA / Chelan County added Jumpoff Road hilltop tower site
US / WA / Chelan County added KRKT-AM hilltop tower site and adjacent other hilltop site
US / WA / Douglas County corrected name and address for Sabey Intergate Columbia datacenter facility
US / WA / King County revised precision of placemark for Sabey building #1 and #3 at Tukwila datacenter facility
US / WA / Yakima County added correct named for Umtanum Ridge tower site
US / WA / Yakima County added manually gathered high precision GPS elevation for tower sites at Eagle Peak

2016-03-29
US / WA / Yakima County added ownership details and ASR numbers for various cellular monopoles & towers
US / WA / Yakima County added US Cellular monopoles and hilltop sites
US / WA / Yakima County added T-Mobile monopoles
US / WA / Yakima County added AT&T Wireless monopoles
US / WA / Yakima County added Verizon monopoles
US / WA / Yakima County added AM and FM broadcast ASRs
US / WA / Yakima County added municipal electrical utility & irrigation district hilltop tower sites

2016-03-28
US and Canada / Integration of satellite earth station (Tx/Rx) sites in progress, various commercial and government/military 3.5m and larger size C band, Ku, extended Ku and Ka band sites.
US / AZ / Digital Realty Trust 2121 South Price Rd Chandler site added
US / CA / Digital Realty Trust 720 2nd St Oakland site added
US / NV / SwitchNAP “SuperNAP” Las Vegas added with correct street address
US / VA / Digital Realty Trust 4030 Lafayette Center Chantilly site added

2016-03-22
US / OR / Harney County added Hines Butte North site (adjacent to old AT&T Long Lines site)

2016-03-21
CA / BC Merged Eric’s data set for Fraser Valley area telecom infrastructure
CA / BC Merged Eric’s data set for metro Vancouver area tower sites and telecom infrastructure
CA / BC Merged Eric’s data set for North Vancouver and north shore mountains telecom infrastructure
CA / BC Merged Eric’s data set for rest-of-BC (not Vancouver) rural and miscellaneous telecom infrastructure
CA / BC Merged Eric’s data set for southern gulf islands telecom infrastructure
CA / BC Merged Eric’s data set for Vancouver Island telecom infrastructure
CA / Misc Merged Eric’s data set for Canadian cold-war era telecom & radar infrastructure (Pinetree line, Mid Canada Line, DEW line)
CA / Misc Merged Eric’s data set for telecommunications infrastructure in Nunavut, Yukon and Northwest Territories (60 degrees north latitude+)
US / AK Merged Eric’s data set for teleports/satellite earth station (Tx/Rx)
US / ID / Ada County added three Cinder Cone Butte tower sites
US / Misc Merged Eric’s data set for television and video broadcast teleports/satellite earth stations (Tx/Rx)
US / Misc Merged Eric’s data set for US federal government teleports/satellite earth stations (Tx/Rx), military and civilian
US / OR / Baker County added Big Lookout Mountain site
US / OR / Douglas County added Roman Nose Mountain tower site
US / OR / Grant County added Snow Mountain tower site
US / OR / Harney County added Steens Mountain tower site
US / OR / Josephine County added King Mountain tower site
US / OR / Klamath County added Bald Mountain lookout site
US / OR / Klamath County added Hamaker Mountain FAA radar site
US / OR / Klamath County added Odell Butte mountaintop tower site
US / OR / Klamath County added Stukel Mountain mountaintop tower site
US / OR / Klamath County added Swan Lake Point hilltop tower site
US / OR / Klamath County added Yainax Butte mountaintop tower site
US / OR / Malheur County added Blue Mountain site
US / WA / Columbia added Table Rock mountain top forest fire lookout tower
US / WA / Klickitat County added Lone Pine Butte west tower sites
US / WA / Okanogan County added Armstrong Mountain tower site
US / WA / Skamanaia County added Biddle Butte hilltop tower site
US / WA / Walla Walla Added additional tower site on Pike’s Peak

2016-03-20
US / TX Moved several datacenters into correct categories

2016-03-19
US / ID / Bonner County added Wow-tel Lower Gold and Sunnyside POPs
US / ID / Kootenai County added Wow-tel Blossom POP
US / ID / Shoshone County added Kelogg Peak tower site
US / WA / Benton County added Desert Winds Wireless Chandler Butte POP
US / WA / Clark County added Yacolt hilltop tower site
US / WA / Cowlitz County added Cascade Networks Inc POP
US / WA / Cowlitz County added Union Pacific Railroad hilltop tower site
US / WA / Franklin County added Desert Winds Wireless POP
US / WA / King County added Puget Sound Energy Talbot Hill site
US / WA / Kittitas County added Baldy towers
US / WA / Klickitat added Sawtooth Technologies Roosevelt tower
US / WA / Klickitat County added Sawtooth Technologies POP
US / WA / Pierce County added Puget Sound Energy Electron Heights location
US / WA / San Juan County added two Orcas Power and Light POPs
US / WA / Spokane County added NOAA radar site
US / WA / Spokane County added Tierpoint datacenter/colo, also PTP microwave via Wow-tel to Blossom
US / WA / Stevens County added Eagle Peak tower site
US / WA / Walla Walla County added Columbia Rural Electric Association “Hansen” hilltop site
US / WA / Whatcom County added Pogozone FCC Part 101 links
US / WA / Yakima County added better location of optical regen huts near Zayo POP, east of Yakima

2016-03-18
CA / AB Added historical Pinetree Line radar site: CFS Beaverlodge (Saskatoon Mountain)
CA / AB Added misc Mid-Canada Line doppler radar sites
CA / BC Added historical Pinetree Line radar site: CFS Baldy Hughes
CA / BC Added historical Pinetree Line radar site: Puntzi Mountain
CA / BC Added misc Mid-Canada line doppler radar sites
US / AK / Added Indian Mountain long range radar site
US / AK / Added Oliktok long range radar site
US / ID / Benewah County Corrected description for Plummer Butte tower site name
US / ID / Kootenai County Added Noel Communications Lower Blossom tower site
US / ID / Latah County Added Noel Communications West Twin Peak tower site
US / OR / Gilliam County Added historical Pinetree Line radar site: Condon AFS
US / WA / Adams County added Startouch Washtucna tower site
US / WA / Columbia County added Startouch “Tower 2” site
US / WA / Franklin County Added Noel Communications Kahlotus hilltop tower site
US / WA / Franklin County added Startouch Scootney tower site
US / WA / Garfield County Added Noel Communications Pomeroy tower site
US / WA / Kittitas County Added Noel Communications Stampede Pass hilltop tower site
US / WA / Kittitas County added Startouch Lookout POP and two other misc towers
US / WA / Lincoln County added Startouch Creston Butte hilltop site
US / WA / Skagit County added Startouch Erie Mtn. hilltop site
US / WA / Spokane County added Browne Mountain east misc tower site
US / WA / Spokane County Added Noel Communications Mica Peak tower site
US / WA / Spokane County added Startouch Browne Mountain tower site
US / WA / Stevens County added Deer Lake Mountain tower sites (qty 4)
US / WA / Stevens County added Startouch Stensgar Mountain site
US / WA / Whitman County added Startouch Steptoe site on lower west side of Steptoe Butte
US / WA / Yakima County added Startouch Rattlesnake ridge tower site

2016-03-17
US / CA Properly categorized several carrier-neutral colo/datacenter facilities
US / NC Added T5 Datacenter Kings Mountain (Gastonia)
US / NJ Added AT&T Bedminster
US / NJ Added correct street address for NYSE Mahwah NJ
US / NJ Added Equinix NY5
US / NY Added 1095 Avenue of the Americas
US / NY Added 33 Thomas St and 375 Pearl
US / NY Added 75 Broad St
US / NY Added 811 10th Ave
US / NY Added AT&T Shirley cable landing station on Long Island (Aquacomms cable and others)
US / WA / King County, added reallyfast.net rooftop site in SoDo area, south 6th ave.

2016-03-16
US / GA / Atlanta moved 56 Marietta datanceter/IX into correct category
US / GA Added Google Lithia Springs datacenter
US / IL / Chicago Moved 350 E. Cermak into correct category
US / NJ Added IO Edison datacenter
US / NY Added T5 ex-Sony datacenter in Westchester County
US / OR Added Apple Prineville datacenter
US / OR Added Bend Broadband datacenter
US / OR Added EdgeConnex Hillsboro datacenter
US / PA Added EdgeConnex Pittsburgh area datacenter

2016-03-15
US / NC added one datacenter
US / NJ added several datacenters
US / NY added several datacenters
US / WA / Pierce County, added Benaroya-Centeris SH1 and SH2 Puyallup datacenters

2016-03-14
US / WA / King County, added Clearwire-Sprint cellular site with sectors & PTP radios on rooftop of Best Western on Taylor Ave N in Seattle (roof of Brella’s Restaurant)