On 60 minutes, Andy voiced a complaint.

Andy Rooney on America Going Wireless.

I thought he had a good use for the old poles, though.

With winter approaching, I can compare down utility-time in my old home in the East (with poles) and my present home (with buried cables).
I say burying is not only safer, it eliminates wires down in storms, presenting not only a danger but a hardship on consumers and a bunch of money spent on repairs by the utility companies and loss of revenue for business consumers.

My neighborhood is wired, but around the libraries, more of the cables are buried.


I have to say, as a photographer, most of the time I prefer to shoot landscapes (especially sunrises & sunsets) without telephone poles in the way.

i live in an old, old neighborhood...freakin' wires everywhere.

Bagh, still wired here unfortunately. The power, phone, and cable companies think its cheaper to repair phone and power lines everytime they go down rather than invest the money to dig underground cables, sigh. Yet they have no qualms about raising my power rates/phone rates ,slimy bastages that they are.

I don't think I've ever seen a "wireless" neighbourhood. Anyways I am thankful for the wires myself. The few utilities that are underground are such a hassle, because they have to dig up the street to get to them.

My neighbourhood's got 'em buried, but what we need is more optical fibres really!!!!!!

I thought you we're talking about wireless internet...

Only high-voltage powerlines are overground here, and maybe some other in very remote places.

Patrik

i'm with aaron on this one...i know the water company that goes underground wreaks havoc for days!

although i've also seen terrible storms tear down wires.

*sigh* i don't usually think about such things, thanks, trudes.

Our evil neighbor, who has been evicted since March and STILL manages to cause us grief, never cut down a tree that died in their yard. A few months ago I came home to lines and tree all over my driveway! If the car had been there, oy! My point, lines are ugly and scary overhead, and yet, there they are. *

~m

*except the ones that came down. They went to the evicted house, so the company just rolled up the wires and left them on the ground by the pole. Yeah... That's safe.

wireless.

just about completely, i think.

come to think of it, i don't know if there are any wires above ground in my city... though i'm sure that there must be, somewhere...

hm...

Aaron and Jessyka,
My neighborhood is totally wireless and new neighborhoods that may crop up get everything buried as well. Usually if a repair is needed they go to a 'sort-of junction box' (above ground) situated every few blocks or so. I think the system is designed that if adjustments, additions or repairs need to happen most of the work can be done at this box. I would think undisturbed cables rarely need attention except if new ones need to be added and even that can happen without extensive digging. (I think most of them run through conduit).
Re: water and natural gas pipes...I can't imagine them being anywhere OTHER than underground and they might be more vulnerable to damage regardless.
In addition to safety and convenience, I guess I also just value the asthetic beauty of a wireless skyline.

you know, i don't know! i just moved here and i guess i haven't looked that closely yet.

at my mom's house, where i grew up, the wires are all above ground. thanks for opening my eyes, trudes, to both my new neighborhood AND to how a "wireless" community works!

Personally, I find overhead wires ugly, outdated and not as safe/efficient when compared to underground.
The thing with underground is that it's costly. Way costly.
If you go overhead - it's the utility company who comes in, set's the poles, runs the wire and supply power from the pole to the building.
If you go underground - the trenching, conduit, wire to the transformer (junction box trudy mentioned) concrete encasement (depending on where you live this may or may not be code) comes out of your pocketbook.

I've bid countless jobs engineered for underground - neighborhoods, apartments, commercial buildings, blahblah, and it's rare for me not to separate the Site work cost cause a lot of the time developers will change their mind when they see the cost. That's why I like the really rich developers - they know what they want it to look like in the end, not what was "cost savings".

Well, Portland has urban growth boundaries in place, thus new neighbourhoods don't really happen that much. the ones that do are usually in the burbs, and I never get out that way. It would be interesting to look at though, next time I do.