Geospatial Holdings, Inc., a developer and producer of technologies and services for managing underground pipeline assets, is featured in an article in the March 8 edition of TIME magazine. The article, written by Coeli Carr, describes the critical contributions that Geospatial's Smart Probe' technology could make to the rebuilding of the nation's underground infrastructure.

In the story, titled 'What Lies Beneath,' Geospatial CEO Mark Smith estimates that in the US, utilities and state agencies collectively spend more than $3.5 billion annually to locate subterranean infrastructure'oil, gas, water and sewer pipes and electric and telecommunications cables'and that Geospatial's technology offers a cheaper and more accurate alternative to existing methods. 'There's a spaghetti bowl of cables and pipes below the earth. Our clients are beginning to understand the value of mapping out their entire underground system,' Smith says in the article.

Ms. Carr notes that most companies and municipalities have no idea exactly where their conduits are located. Geospatial's rapid growth, she writes, comes from the increasingly critical need of its clients'including Comcast, Qwest, Sunoco, and various federal and local government agencies'to accurately identify the positions of their underground pipe and cable assets. The article reports that the irregular placement of old pipes has come back to haunt many firms whose contractors have unwittingly hacked into their own'or other companies''pipelines during repair work.

The article also describes Geospatial's Smart Probe', which maps infrastructure in 3-D while coursing through a pipe at 6 feet per second. The probe's cylinder contains measuring devices that perform 800 calculations per second to create an accurate rendering of the conduit. At both ends of the cylinder are wheel sets equipped with odometers. Geospatial customizes the final data for client viewing on different geographic information system (GIS) platforms. 'Underground data management is the next frontier [for Geospatial],' writes Carr. 'For an annual fee, clients can see the 3-D maps of their subterranean assets on a secure Web-based GIS portal called GeoUnderground, which can be easily accessed on a netbook or smart phone.'

The full article may be viewed online at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1968094,00.html?artId=1968094?contType=article?chn=bizTech