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>>>They're sticks of wood lol... how about no.... That is such a simplistic view of the infrastructure it is bordering on willful ignorance of the topic

• ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  It's an oversimplification, sure, but the reality is: Most of the poles being fought over are a given company's actual property that they built and have to maintain, and they are entirely right in trying to defend them from a competitor paying government officials to pass laws granting them the ability to tamper with another company's property and disrupt their services. Furthermore, the government isn't paying them for these poles in this case, they're forcing a company to allow it's competitors to tamper with and likely disrupt their customer's service. If the government wants to nationalize "the infrastructure", I'm all for it, but then they'd be paying out a lot of money to buy this equipment from the companies that actually own it. As someone really annoyed when my Internet drops out in the middle of a game, I'm drastically opposed to these sorts of hijinks, I don't need my ISP's competitor taking out my lines at the same time as sending me mailers about how their service is so much more reliable.
  • syshum 8y ago
    >>Furthermore, the government isn't paying them for these poles in this case, ohhh yes they are... They are allowing these companies free use the land those poles are sunk into free of charge from which they force the owners of said properly to allow them to use under the Utility Easement programs. In most instances the government is also giving them some kind of Monopolistic control over the market segment they service. i.e there is only 1 Telephone Provider, or 1 Electrical Company for that area. In exchange for these FREE things the government requires these companies to SELL attachments to their poles at a reasonable fee. I.e when Comcast wants to connect to a Electrical Pole they pay a monthly FEE to the utility companies To believe the utility companies some how being harmed just does not match reality