That still doesn't let the final customer make the demands that 'pretzel logic' demands. You still have one company in control of the deign, construction and maintenance of the distribution system. If it doesn't make economic sense, it isn't put underground. Some neighborhoods are old enough that electricity was installed after the area was built up. Many residential areas have been upgraded more than once. That's a lot easier to do with overhead service than underground.
they install snow baffles, use multiple vents, monitor temperatures and they install a freakin' fan. just like everyone else that knows what they're doing. c'mon dude - it's not like this is hard or hasn't been done before for over 100 years in countless other cities and installations all over the freakin' planet.
question: have you been to manhatten?
as above, inspection cover number is not an obstacle to utility installation.
there is no right of way restriction that would prevent any urban electrical service from being buried. just like there is no restriction on gas, water and sewerage utilities getting buried.
i only need two if it creates actual competition for prices and service.
"right of way" is already granted for water, sewerage and gas. there is absolutely no obstacle in this regard.
i think that if i have to explain how competitive pricing works, there's not much of a conversation to be had.
it "doesn't work" for cable and phone because cable and phone have political blocks in place, not because competitors don't want in. you're probably too young to remember the break-up of at&t, the substantial tariff competition that opened up in the 90's, and the subsequent politically assisted re-assemblage of at&t that's kept america stagnant with no real improvement in phone/data in the last 10+ years. all while the rest of the world has leaped ahead of us by orders of magnitude.
this is why you're having a problem with the concept - you don't understand the math. it costs /more/ to bury so it /never/ makes "economic sense". lines get buried because it's safer for the public in urban areas [no lines to fall on homes or businesses], there are fewer outages [buried lines aren't subject to high winds or falling trees] and because that is what many municipalities stipulate as a condition of letting the monopoly operate in their area.
you mean "cheaper", not "easier". because the municipality is either clueless or like many political "business operators", they got bought off and thus declined to make sure the public's end of the social contract with the monopoly supplier was upheld.
Problem is, in some things they create a Duopoly that isn't much better than a Monopoly for actual 'free and fair competition'.
They did a Cable TV Overbuild in areas out here, where "GTE Media Ventures" buried or strung their second set of wires and (allegedly) went head to head against Comcast and Time Warner in their former Single-source franchise areas.
FWICT (I'm on DirecTV, so a pox on both their houses...) it helped a little, but they didn't work all that hard at cutting prices and increasing service - they know exactly who their competition is and only dropped a penny or two lower. Lots of Teaser Rates, and then they'd hope inertia would keep them from switching back.
You've already ceded the entire street and sidewalk area in front of your house to the City or County, and/or "granted" a Utility Easement for the same thing along the back/side property line, and they rent off pieces of it as Right-of-way for utilities "on your behalf".
As long as they don't go digging up each other's underground lines, or the poles don't start snapping off from the sheer weight of all the cable or creating an eclipse, I don't care if they overbuild with two or three competing services.
Matter of fact, I would LOVE to have a Fiber To The Home overbuild and get Verizon FIOS service here to compete with the Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier AT&T, and Incumbent Cable Co. Time-Warner for Broadband and Media services - I'm too far out for DSL without repeaters or a Remote DSLAM on the corner.
Just as long as at least one phone line stays POTS Copper. Emergency reliability is key there.
The Political Blocks are Franchise Areas, where they promise certain levels of service and price caps for the right to build - and they usually have to toss in bones like a free City Access channel that carries the City Council meetings and various other propaganda the City deems you should see.
Even if it's a Duopoly it isn't much better. Which is why there is opposition brewing to the merger of at&t and T-Mobile - it would take a viable alternative away.
It's up to the carrier to decide whether they could pick up enough subscribers to pay for the overbuild. In dense urban areas like New York City they can make money at it - but in the spread out suburbs with mini-ranches and single-family homes that's not nearly a sure thing...
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Whether the lines are placed Underground or Overhead is a local zoning issue. The City decides that an area is going to be Underground, and all new work in that area has to be done underground.
Existing subdivisions the old poles and lines get grandfathered, but they make you bury any new lines from their homes or businesses to the base of the poles.
Unless someone pays the utility for the work, they aren't going to underground existing pole lines and transformers. It's expensive.
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ups and fed-ex have a virtual duopoly, but they're halfway competitive relative to service, not stiffing people for under-serving the way the telco's are. for another example of effective duopolies, look at the price of cell phone and data services in other countries, then look at costs here under supposed "four-way competition". we're getting over-charged up the sphing-sphing.
for data provision to commercial buildings, providers often pay the owner for the privilege of making sure there's no competitor in that building. they then take advantage of this monopoly to "farm" the tenants of the building with high data fees. a buddy of mine in san francisco got dinged for setting up a microwave link to another building and provider because he was being charged $1000 a month for sub-dsl standard bandwidth - the building management came in and took his dish down because it was in breach of their "no-compete" contract with the monopoly provider they'd signed with.
same for new-build developments - there's going to be a provider, and whoever gets it gets to farm the users. so, it's not a question of "high costs" of overlay or anything like that, it's a matter of farm protection and who's been paid to protect it. all the bleating about "costs" is just smoke-screen b.s. to protect the monopoly.
Yawn. I remember when the 'Carterphone' decision was announced, and I worked in Cable TV almost four decades ago at a US Army base when a 12 channel system was the gold standard. Later, I maintained & built CATV headends. Cable systems work under a franchise, granted by the local government or governments. There is no limit to what they will grant, if you can show that you have the money & expertise to build & operate a system.
I know the construction costs for a 36 channel plant was $18,000 a mile for overhead trunkline in 1982. That is the 3/4" hardline, line amps & power supplies, plus construction hardware. We had to have at least 50 homes per mile to pay off the hardware, maintenance and make any money before the equipment had to be replaced. A 36 channel head end was well over a million dollars to equip. A lot of MSOs set that figure at 68 to 85 per mile.
To provide a good signal on every channel required a full time tech or engineer. Then there was the lease & utility expenses, taxes and insurance. You also have franchise fees for any system that isn't owned by the local government, and pole lease fees for overhead systems. You have no clue what it takes to build and operate a CATV system from scratch. If you have 35 million dollars (or more) on hand, go find a n available franchise and build one. St. Louis had seven systems, each serving part of the city. When Chicago RFB went out, they wanted the winning bidder to agree not to disconnect the lowlifes when they didn't pay their bill.
I don't have AT&T for phone service, and I use Earthlink over the Road Runner fiber optic backbone for broadband.
With competing systems the Franchise fees drop, since they are based on the number of paying customers. The systems I worked with operated on less than 5% profit margin, and some of that went into building extensions for new areas within their franchise area.
Good luck with that. I doubt you have copper to the CO right now. Fiber from the CO to the area, then copper the last mile is common these days.
Not here. They will provide the wire for a drop to the meter, but if you want underground you have to pay for the Sch80 conduit, wire and labor costs to install them before the utility comes to connect you to their plant. I set the pole for a new house next door, a couple years ago.
I never have liked flying, but I didn't let them know it.My first Helicopter ride, I was sitting on the floor with a safety belt around my waist, the belt was connected to a metal ring in the Helicopter floor, my legs dangling out the door.Those Hueys had to get altitude as fast as possible because the Vietcong just loved to shoot at them.My brother was a Helicopter mechanic at Vung Tau, the same year I was in Vietnam. cuhulin
Yawn. Keep freakin' out, for all I care. concversions aren't the same as designing for underground sevice in new buildings. I spoent a year in Alsaka where most utilities were underground, but only on the new base. The old base still had overhead service for everyting except the steam lines.
No, and I've never been to hell. What does Manhatten have to do with existing buildings? Those have transformer vaults inside the buildings, like the schools I went to, 50 years ago. The place I was talking about only had one spot for the transformer, right next to a loading dock. Anything added would have blocked the tractor trailers, or been hit by one.
I know they can keep track of numbers. Do you want one in front of evey pair of homes on your street? Or to have them dig up the road every time they need to repair something? How about areas with high water tables, like coastal areas where there is water two feet below the road at all times?
Sigh. I spent years building & troubleshooting logic harware including the controller in a communications system on the ISS. It's you who don't think. Hell, you can't even use capitals in the proper places in your drivel.
Maybe on your planet. Some areas weren't laid out for it, and the right of way is fully utilized.
And this applies to changing tires with a hammer..... how?
It is that sledgehammer, knocking this thread adrift. I once loaned my sledgehammer to a woman who used to live next door to me.It was a perfectly good sledgehammer.She broke it.Later on she went to the Lowe's store for a few things, she also bought a new sledgehammer handle for me.I told her to put the handle on it, it is yours.I bought myself a new sledgehammer. cuhulin
You left out the part where you hit her over the head with the sledgehammer.Did you finally marry her.I thought so.
dsi1 on Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:19:32
-1000 typed >>
Ever try to find your wire frame glasses, in the morning, before you have your glasses on? I can't even find the flash light to start looking!
-- pyotr Go not to the Net for answers, for it will tell you Yes and no. And you are a bloody fool, only an ignorant cretin would even ask the question, forty two, 47, the second door, and how many blonde lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb.
This is not a problem if you're neat and organized. Unfortunately, I'm messy, disorganized, and forgetful so I know exactly what you mean. (-:
I used to keep all my tools very organized. Not lately. Flashlights are in 2 place in the house in plain sight. I always notice pretty soon if they are missing. Car keys are always on a cup hook. Which might be a good idea for a flashlight with lanyard. If that one is always there you can find it in the dark, then use it to find the other flashlights.
--Vic
No problem finding mine. They are all over the house, in about any place I'll need one. One is just inches from my hand, right now. Another is by my bed, by the lamp on my night stand. One on each desk, and by the outside doors.
There's an electrical easement on the side of my garage. And the garage across the street. Wires go over the street. It's like that all over the town. To get below ground service the streets would have to be trenched. Then more trenches from easement to houses. What's the payback? I've only lost power a few times for short periods.
--Vic
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