# OSP Design Contractor Maryland: How Buyers Screen ROW Readiness and Kickoff Control **Title tag:** OSP Design Contractor Maryland Guide 2026 **Meta description:** OSP design contractor Maryland buyers: SHA vs county ROW, survey inputs, HLD-to-LLD packages, revision control, permit responses, plus as-built handoff. **Author:** Devin Martinez **Published:** September 17, 2026 **Last updated:** September 17, 2026 **Category:** Construction Management **URL:** https://draftech.com/blog/osp-design-contractor-maryland **Primary keyword:** osp design contractor maryland **Word count:** 3094 **Read time:** 12 minutes ![Rear-view OSP field crew measures a suburban roadside route with a wheel and blank clipboard.](../../blog/img_osp_design_contractor_maryland.webp) --- A Maryland broadband buyer often awards OSP design on a slide deck, then discovers the first construction-issue sheets cannot be filed because the route was drawn as one authority. SHA state ROW is not a county road. A municipal street is not a railroad crossing. A private easement is not any of those. The delay shows up as a permit comment, not as a missing logo on the proposal. This article is a commercial-investigation method for selecting an OSP design contractor in Maryland. It is not a substitute for SHA rules. Other Maryland authorities stay on their own clocks. We walk the evidence that should exist before kickoff, starting with the ROW split and the survey control, then HLD-to-LLD identity plus pole bounds plus revision control. Permit responses and as-built handoff sit on the same freeze. ## OSP Design Contractor Maryland Screening Gates An OSP design contractor Maryland buyers can actually kick off is a named design team that can split MDOT SHA state ROW from other Maryland authorities and hold HLD-to-LLD revision identity through permit comments. We screen that team on 7 evidence gates before the first construction-issue sheet. Seven is Draftech selection guidance, not a Maryland license count. The person who can draw a pretty feeder map is doing production. The contractor you can kick off is the one who can freeze a sheet when the SHA district is wrong or the locate basis is a designer ticket. A proposal page count cannot prove that freeze. If you hire a production drafter and call them an OSP design contractor, you still have nobody who can refuse an unready authority package. MDOT SHA's Utility Center is the SHA surface for utility accommodation on Maryland highways, including telecommunications. SHA authorization criteria on the Utility Permit Documents page apply to the utility occupying SHA rights of way. They include a Utility Master Agreement and a 2-hour highway-emergency response. Those criteria do not create an OSP design-contractor license. Our general [OSP engineering partner screen](/blog/how-to-choose-osp-engineering-partner-fiber) still applies. This page is the Maryland evidence layer that screen has to carry before kickoff. We do not start sourcing until the authority split is written down. - **Authority map:** Name SHA state ROW versus every other Maryland authority on the same route. One color on a map is not a map. - **SHA district:** Name which of the 7 SHA districts will receive the package. Filing District 3 work in District 4 is a reject. - **Legal right:** Ask whether the permittee claims a statutory right under RSA-PGM-2019-01 or must run resource sharing. - **Survey basis:** Require coordinates, owner records, and Title 12 designer-ticket identity separate from any later excavation ticket. - **Revision identity:** Require one current HLD-to-LLD revision that permit comments can attach to. - **Pole bounds:** Where aerial work exists, name pole-owner identity and the make-ready limit the design is allowed to assume. - **Comment owner:** Name who answers SHA comments and who answers other authorities, plus who owns as-built identity. ## Separate SHA State ROW from Other Maryland Authorities Maryland buyers lose weeks when a designer treats SHA as a generic state DOT. SHA is one authority. County roads stay another. Municipal streets stay another. Railroad occupancy and private land stay outside SHA even when the fiber continues in a straight line. Our [state DOT permit process map](/blog/state-dot-permit-process-for-fiber-deployment) is the national companion. This section is the Maryland split that map cannot carry. **Table: Maryland authorities an OSP design package must split** | Authority | What it controls | Design package must show | Typical failure | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | MDOT SHA state ROW | SHA highways and SHA right of way | SHA route number, from/to, county, TCP class | Treating a county road as SHA | | SHA District (7) | District Engineer final DO-permit authority | Correct district office and county path | Filing District 3 work in District 4 | | County or municipal ROW | Local streets and local permits | Local owner, local TCP, local restoration | Reusing SHA sheets on a city street | | Railroad | Crossing or occupancy | Railroad-specific exhibits and owner ID | SHA package used as railroad proof | | Private land or easement | Recorded private rights | Instrument identity or a documented gap | Design over unmarked private plant | | Pole or joint-use owner | Attachment space and make-ready | Owner identity and make-ready bound | Reciting FCC timelines for every pole | The September 2020 Manual for District Office Permits states that permits are required for all activities along state highways and within MDOT SHA right of way, and that the District Engineer has final approving authority of all District Office permits. The same manual lists 7 SHA districts. District 1 covers the Eastern Shore counties from Salisbury. District 2 covers the Upper Shore counties from Chestertown. District 3 covers Montgomery and Prince George's from Greenbelt. District 4 covers Baltimore and Harford from Hunt Valley. District 5 covers Southern Maryland counties from Annapolis. District 6 covers Allegany plus Garrett plus Washington from LaVale. District 7 covers Carroll plus Frederick plus Howard from Frederick. We route the first package to the district that actually owns the SHA miles. SHA's Utility Permit Application (OOC113 Rev. 11/3/21) is a 2-page form. It is not the design. Section IV states that traffic-control permits are required for all work performed on MDOT SHA rights-of-ways. Notes on page 2 require proof that the Traffic Manager listed on the application is certified, and they assign the applicant the duty to obtain additional permits from other agencies. Required attachments include the application plus a vicinity map at a scale no smaller than 1 inch equals 2000 feet plus plans showing the work in relation to the roadway plus a traffic-control plan or applicable standard. A designer who cannot fill those fields from issued sheets is not permit-ready. As of May 18, 2026, SHA's District Utility Permit System (DUPTS) requires a valid work-location ZIP code and publishes a public status portal searchable by UPA number or permit number. The portal does not replace the issued plan set. ### Statutory Right versus Resource Sharing DoIT's RSA-PGM-2019-01 (August 13, 2019), Private Industry Installation and Use of Fiber Optic Cable in State Rights-of-Way, is the Maryland policy split most buyers skip. Where an applicant has a statutory right to install telecommunications lines in State rights-of-way, the permitting agency is not required to send that application to DoIT for additional Resource Sharing Law review and valuation. The memo cites Public Utilities Article 5-410 and 8-103 for telephone companies and Local Government Article 1-708 for cable franchisees. The agency must still validate the claimed legal right, including supporting documentation. Where that right does not exist, or where additional services create an increased burden on State resources as determined by DoIT, the request is processed as a resource-sharing proposal. SHA's Utility Permit Documents page sends telecommunication facilities such as fiber optic lines to Communication Resource Sharing. That instruction sits beside the SHA-authorized utility criteria. We ask the candidate which path the permittee is actually on. A designer who answers "SHA permit" for every fiber mile has not read RSA-PGM-2019-01. FHWA utility principal documents still matter on federal-aid highways. 23 USC 109(l) addresses accommodation of utilities. 23 USC 123 addresses relocation reimbursement. 23 CFR 645 Subpart B addresses accommodation. 23 CFR 645 Subpart C, Broadband Infrastructure Deployment, was published December 3, 2021. Those federal rules do not issue the SHA district permit. We keep them as the federal overlay, not as a substitute Maryland package. > **Authority test.** If the candidate describes Maryland as one DOT package, they are not ready to issue your first SHA sheet. ## Demand Survey Control and Utility Evidence Before HLD HLD drawn on a basemap without survey control is a picture. We require a coordinate basis the LLD and the permit exhibits can share. Owner records and field measurements belong in that same basis. A later CAD cleanup cannot invent a control that was never collected. Maryland's Title XII damage-prevention law took effect March 12, 2021. Miss Utility Maryland is the one-call surface. Public Utilities Article 12-124 requires a person, before excavation or demolition, to initiate a ticket and select a start-work date not sooner than 3 business days and not later than 12 business days after the ticket is initiated. The notice must say whether the work is in rights-of-way owned or controlled by the Department of Transportation, an administration of that Department, or the Maryland Transportation Authority, and if so must carry the permit number or authorization number from that entity. Ticket Check is mandatory for Maryland owner-members. A designer ticket is a real Miss Utility header. It is not an excavation ticket. OSHA 29 CFR 1926.651 is the construction excavation standard. 1926.651(b)(1) requires estimated locations of utility installations before opening an excavation. 1926.651(b)(2) requires contacting utility companies or owners within established or customary local response times. 1926.651(c)(2) requires a safe means of egress in trench excavations 4 feet or more in depth, with no more than 25 feet of lateral travel. 1926.651(k) requires daily inspections by a competent person when employee exposure can be reasonably anticipated. Those duties sit with the construction employer. Design should leave room for them. Design should not pretend OSHA is a Maryland permit. The SHA District Office Permit Manual requires the permittee to notify MDOT SHA 48 hours prior to beginning any work so inspection can be scheduled. That notice is not Miss Utility. The design kickoff should already name who gives it. If nobody is named, construction will invent a caller under pressure. ## Hold HLD-to-LLD Deliverables and Revision Identity HLD decides whether the route can exist. LLD decides whether a crew can build the sheet in the authority that actually owns the ground. Our [HLD versus LLD split](/blog/difference-between-hld-and-lld-fiber-design) is the engineering companion. Here the test is whether the Maryland package keeps one revision identity from that split through permit comments. We require the construction-issue set to name the current revision on every sheet that SHA or another authority will stamp as received. A DWG folder named "FINAL" is not that identity. Permit comments have to point at a sheet number and a revision. If they cannot, the designer will answer the wrong drawing and the field will build the older one. CAD and GIS have to share asset identity. A pole number that exists only in a spreadsheet will not survive SHA comments or as-built closeout. We want the same ID on the survey plus the LLD plus the permit exhibit plus the later as-built. That is a Draftech kickoff rule. It is not a Maryland statute. Aerial work needs an honest make-ready bound. Pole-owner identity comes first. The design may assume only the make-ready the owner process has actually released. Reciting federal pole-attachment timelines does not make a cooperative or a municipal pole owner into an FCC utility. Where the route is underground, the bound is pathway readiness and restoration detail, not strand hardware. Constructability is a freeze, not a vibe. If the LLD places a handhole in a SHA paved shoulder that the application marked "no pavement cuts," the sheet is not constructible. If the TCP class on the application does not match the posted speed and highway type on the plan, SHA already has a reason to bounce it. One thing I have always found too easy to over-weight is a Maryland PE stamp when the candidate cannot walk a SHA utility-permit revision set. A PE license is a real credential where sealed engineering is actually required. We still see buyers treat it as if it substituted for a district-correct SHA package. We don't recommend treating a PE license as Maryland OSP proof. Treat it as supporting evidence, never as a substitute for SHA and Title 12 artifacts. > **Stamp test.** If the best artifact is a PE seal with no SHA district identity, keep looking. I still catch myself asking for a company brochure before asking which SHA district the last package was filed in. The brochure cannot file DUPTS. The district can reject the sheet. ## Kickoff QA Through Permit Responses and As-Built Handoff QA/QC on a Maryland OSP design contract is revision control plus authority control. We review whether the issued revision matches the application, whether the SHA district is correct, whether non-SHA miles are on their own sheets, and whether locate evidence is identified without being passed off as an excavation ticket. A redline that changes alignment without updating the vicinity map is a QA miss. So is a TCP typical dropped onto an expressway application. Permit responses need a named owner before the first comment arrives. SHA comments stay with the SHA package. County comments stay with the county package. Railroad comments stay with the railroad package. The designer who "will handle comments" without naming which authority is volunteering to lose the thread. We want a comment log that joins comment identity to sheet and revision. Route-level email is not that log. Engineering stays 100% in-house at Draftech. Construction, when included in a full turnkey program, is delivered by [Draftech-managed subcontract crews](/vendors) under Draftech's QA/QC and safety oversight. We do not describe those crews as in-house construction. We are not the SHA approver. We are not a licensed contractor standing in for the permittee. The owner and the public authority retain the approvals assigned to them by law and by permit and contract. As-built handoff has to start as a field in the design kickoff, not as a reconstruction after demobilization. The accepted record should keep the issued condition plus the approved change plus the installed result. Photographs and native files need the same asset IDs the LLD used. Waiting until the last splice converts as-built into archaeology. The SHA manual also states that existing sidewalks and curb and gutter disturbed by construction shall be replaced in kind, and that sidewalks and sidewalk ramps shall meet MDOT SHA's current ADA standards, with ADA inspection mandatory following installation. We put that check in design QA even when the buyer thinks the job is "just fiber." ## Choose the OSP Design Contractor Maryland Decision Unhedged recommendations follow the authority mix you named at the start. Don't hire a production drafter to repair a missing SHA district split. Don't hire a PE stamp to repair missing Title 12 identity. Staff the actual gap. **Small ISP, one Maryland county, mostly local streets:** keep design in a named team if that team can still produce a correct SHA package for the state-highway miles you do touch. Hire a Maryland-fluent OSP design contractor only if that team cannot split SHA from local ROW. The 7-district map still has to sit in the kickoff file. **Multi-county or SHA-heavy program:** hire the design contractor first on the authority map and the SHA district path, then on HLD-to-LLD identity. The first deliverable is the authority register plus the current revision, not a route-level rendering. If resource sharing is in play under RSA-PGM-2019-01, require the statutory-right file in the same onboarding week. **Design already in flight with a rejected SHA comment:** don't start with a 90-day RFP. Use a named design lead who can reconcile the rejected sheet to the correct district and the current revision immediately, then decide whether a longer contract is still required after the first accepted SHA package exists. Active in 24 states. Available across all 50 U.S. states. Draftech's [fiber construction management and QA oversight](/services/fiber-construction-management) can connect in-house engineering with workfront readiness so the first construction-issue revision already has someone who can refuse an unready Maryland package. Construction stays full turnkey through Draftech-managed subcontract crews. Engineering stays 100% in-house. If you already have a Maryland route and no named authority split, send that set to [info@draftech.com](mailto:info@draftech.com). We'll say whether you need a design fix before anyone else is hired. Start with the SHA district plus the non-SHA authorities plus the current revision identity. > **Talk to our OSP team about the Maryland package you need to issue.** A Maryland buyer who wants the SHA split proven before hiring anyone can hand us the opening segment. We [engineer the first 20,000 linear feet of a qualifying route free](/free-design), through the district package and agency approval, and the authority register comes back with the drawings. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What should Maryland buyers require from an OSP design contractor? Require 1 redacted SHA district package and 1 non-SHA package with matching revision identity. An OSP design contractor Maryland buyers can kick off is the team that can split those authorities. The SHA Utility Permit Application (OOC113 Rev. 11/3/21) is 2 pages and still needs plans plus a vicinity map plus a traffic-control plan. A brochure is not that evidence. ### Does Maryland require a PE license to hire an OSP design contractor? No source we checked creates a statewide OSP design-contractor PE license. MDOT SHA authorization criteria on the Utility Permit Documents page apply to the utility occupying SHA rights of way. Those criteria include a Utility Master Agreement and a 2-hour highway-emergency response. They do not convert a design firm into an SHA-authorized utility. Require a PE stamp only where the owner scope or a controlling document actually requires sealed engineering. ### Is one MDOT SHA utility permit enough for an entire Maryland route? No. SHA permits cover SHA rights of way only. The September 2020 Manual for District Office Permits names 7 SHA districts, and the District Engineer has final approving authority on District Office permits. County streets remain separate. So do municipal ROW plus railroad occupancy plus private land. A route that touches 2 districts still needs the correct district package for each. ### Does a Miss Utility ticket make OSP design ready to excavate? No. Maryland Public Utilities Article 12-124 requires a start-work date not sooner than 3 business days and not later than 12 business days after the ticket is initiated. OSHA 29 CFR 1926.651 still requires estimated utility locations before opening an excavation. A designer ticket is not an excavation ticket. Design should record locate evidence. Construction employers still own excavation duties. ### What should freeze at Maryland OSP design kickoff? Freeze the authority map plus the survey basis. Freeze the current HLD-to-LLD revision and the permit-comment owner too. Name who answers SHA comments and who answers other authorities. SHA's District Office Permit Manual requires 48 hours notice before work begins in SHA ROW. The design kickoff should already name who gives that notice. Unowned comments become field delays.