4 ms·

The parts of SV that haven't buried their power lines (not too pretty to begin with) have gotten significantly uglier since all of the new cable/fiber/DSL infra

The parts of SV that haven't buried their power lines (not too pretty to begin with) have gotten significantly uglier since all of the new cable/fiber/DSL infrastructure has gone in. There are in many cases multiple of these things on loads of poles: https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31593060-Equip-What-is-this https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31593060-Equip-What-is-thi...

xxpor 6y ago
god forbid infra has some infra on it
mschuster91 6y ago
Here in Germany we bury everything. I don't even want to imagine how long it takes to rebuild all of that when some drunkard crashes his car into one of these poles or a lightning strike hits.
- hangonhn 6y ago
  I grew up in the Florida Keys where the water table is very close to the surface so it's impossible to bury anything. When I was a young teenager, we would lose electricity all the time from tree branches brushing up against the power lines. They finally solved the problem by putting in power lines on concrete poles that are a few stories up! No more squirrels and tree branches disputing power!
- slopirate 6y ago
  A lot less time than when an earthquake snaps an underground cable.
- ian-g 6y ago
  I could be wrong, but I'd worry about earthquakes severing the lines. This map[0] shows the major faults, but each one of those is a lot of small minor faults that all could snap things and shift. One small fault right by where I grew up is about three blocks long. Last I checked had one earthquake to its name: a magnitude 5.0 aftershock of Loma Prieta [0] https://usgs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=5a6038b3a1684561a9b0aadf88412fcf https://usgs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id...
- asdff 6y ago
  you'd be surprised but it takes quite an impact to disrupt a telephone pole. most crashes leave the pole standing (see examples online), and even when it does topple the wires seem to hold, and the utility company comes in with a fresh pole. the lightning strike factor does suck if you live very very close to the strike and nothing is surge protected. That happened to my house once and fried my xbox and router.
  - cameldrv 6y ago
    I've seen it happen personally, except it was the support cable to a pole with a transformer. Cable anchor came out of the dirt, pole fell over, sparks everywhere, transformer fluid all over the street, hazmat cleanup crew, big mess.
- fomine3 6y ago
  Here in Japan, there's full of pole except a few tourist spot, recovery after car accident, earthquake or heavy rain is done immediately.
toast0 6y ago
The parts of SV that have buried their power lines, probably haven't gotten a whole lot of new cable/fiber/DSL than whatever was there when they buried it. SV is the perfect place to not bury infrastructure. There's no weather to worry about, and mostly people aren't going to shoot down the fiber to try to claim scrap metals.
- ebruchez 6y ago
  I live in one of the few cities in the Bay Area where everything is buried, and it's refreshing not to have stuff hanging all over the place and blocking the view. Now, granted, AT&T fiber is slow to come here, but it's hard to know if the fact that the infrastructure is buried is the main reason. They are in some areas of town but not others. You can bury conduits, by the way, and not cables or fiber directly. This allows you to avoid digging again just to install fiber, for example. There are ways to do it right. And having the infrastructure on poles is not a panacea either. New providers are not necessarily allowed to use the poles. The weather might not be crazy, but the poles are already overloaded and a little windstorm will disrupt electricity, coax cable, or fiber. And of course, those overloaded poles are crazy ugly.
  - to11mtm 6y ago
    Both options have trade-offs. When I used to work in the telecom industry, burying conduit or cable in the ground was anywhere from 3x (bury in some dirt on the side of a county highway) to 20x (directional drilling in a heavily populated city where there's utilities all over the place) the cost per foot compared to hanging it aerially from a labor standpoint. However, as you correctly point out, there may be restrictions on what you can hang on the poles and where, and oftentimes you'll find poles where it turns out it never should have had the number of attachments it did, but guess who gets to foot a large part of that bill if they want on? But even then, I've seen absurd lengths gone to in the name of not digging. On Martha's Vineyard, I believe they wound up using a super-special Self-Supporting fiber that could be hung in or near the Power area of a Pole. Yes, that requires a far more trained/well paid worker than normal aerial work. Also, in that region, NESC 250C/D comes into play which makes it even more of a PITA. But it still was far cheaper than putting cable in the ground. I wonder whether Teraspan or other Vertical Directed Conduit would be a good fit for the bay area (Saw-cut a minimal depth in the street, just lay in a special zip-up conduit for fiber or twisted pair.) If the weather doesn't tend towards large temperature shifts it works well. Speaking of which, a couple drawbacks worth noting for buried conduit; You have to go out and do your markings, or pay someone to do them for you when a dig request is made, and you have to be ready to handle the repair when someone inevitably forgets to call or the markings are done incorrectly.
ummonk 6y ago
No, it hasn't made anything uglier - you don't really notice the infrastructure unless you're specifically trying to look for something to get annoyed by.
- FullyFunctional 6y ago
  Maybe you have gotten blind to it? When I first landed in Palo Alto (coming from Europe), I couldn't believe my eyes: 3rd world infrastructure with wires flying everywhere! I most definitely noticed and notice. It's symptomatic of some of the ill that plague Sillicon Valley.
  - ummonk 6y ago
    Overhead power / telecom lines (and cable car power lines) have always been a thing in America. Adding fiber and additional infrastructure hasn't really made it uglier. It would be different if we had buried power lines to start with.

xxpor 6y ago

god forbid infra has some infra on it

mschuster91 6y ago

Here in Germany we bury everything. I don't even want to imagine how long it takes to rebuild all of that when some drunkard crashes his car into one of these poles or a lightning strike hits.

hangonhn 6y ago
I grew up in the Florida Keys where the water table is very close to the surface so it's impossible to bury anything. When I was a young teenager, we would lose electricity all the time from tree branches brushing up against the power lines. They finally solved the problem by putting in power lines on concrete poles that are a few stories up! No more squirrels and tree branches disputing power!
slopirate 6y ago
A lot less time than when an earthquake snaps an underground cable.
ian-g 6y ago
I could be wrong, but I'd worry about earthquakes severing the lines. This map[0] shows the major faults, but each one of those is a lot of small minor faults that all could snap things and shift. One small fault right by where I grew up is about three blocks long. Last I checked had one earthquake to its name: a magnitude 5.0 aftershock of Loma Prieta [0] https://usgs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=5a6038b3a1684561a9b0aadf88412fcf https://usgs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id...
asdff 6y ago
you'd be surprised but it takes quite an impact to disrupt a telephone pole. most crashes leave the pole standing (see examples online), and even when it does topple the wires seem to hold, and the utility company comes in with a fresh pole. the lightning strike factor does suck if you live very very close to the strike and nothing is surge protected. That happened to my house once and fried my xbox and router.
- cameldrv 6y ago
  I've seen it happen personally, except it was the support cable to a pole with a transformer. Cable anchor came out of the dirt, pole fell over, sparks everywhere, transformer fluid all over the street, hazmat cleanup crew, big mess.
fomine3 6y ago
Here in Japan, there's full of pole except a few tourist spot, recovery after car accident, earthquake or heavy rain is done immediately.

toast0 6y ago

The parts of SV that have buried their power lines, probably haven't gotten a whole lot of new cable/fiber/DSL than whatever was there when they buried it. SV is the perfect place to not bury infrastructure. There's no weather to worry about, and mostly people aren't going to shoot down the fiber to try to claim scrap metals.

ebruchez 6y ago
I live in one of the few cities in the Bay Area where everything is buried, and it's refreshing not to have stuff hanging all over the place and blocking the view. Now, granted, AT&T fiber is slow to come here, but it's hard to know if the fact that the infrastructure is buried is the main reason. They are in some areas of town but not others. You can bury conduits, by the way, and not cables or fiber directly. This allows you to avoid digging again just to install fiber, for example. There are ways to do it right. And having the infrastructure on poles is not a panacea either. New providers are not necessarily allowed to use the poles. The weather might not be crazy, but the poles are already overloaded and a little windstorm will disrupt electricity, coax cable, or fiber. And of course, those overloaded poles are crazy ugly.
- to11mtm 6y ago
  Both options have trade-offs. When I used to work in the telecom industry, burying conduit or cable in the ground was anywhere from 3x (bury in some dirt on the side of a county highway) to 20x (directional drilling in a heavily populated city where there's utilities all over the place) the cost per foot compared to hanging it aerially from a labor standpoint. However, as you correctly point out, there may be restrictions on what you can hang on the poles and where, and oftentimes you'll find poles where it turns out it never should have had the number of attachments it did, but guess who gets to foot a large part of that bill if they want on? But even then, I've seen absurd lengths gone to in the name of not digging. On Martha's Vineyard, I believe they wound up using a super-special Self-Supporting fiber that could be hung in or near the Power area of a Pole. Yes, that requires a far more trained/well paid worker than normal aerial work. Also, in that region, NESC 250C/D comes into play which makes it even more of a PITA. But it still was far cheaper than putting cable in the ground. I wonder whether Teraspan or other Vertical Directed Conduit would be a good fit for the bay area (Saw-cut a minimal depth in the street, just lay in a special zip-up conduit for fiber or twisted pair.) If the weather doesn't tend towards large temperature shifts it works well. Speaking of which, a couple drawbacks worth noting for buried conduit; You have to go out and do your markings, or pay someone to do them for you when a dig request is made, and you have to be ready to handle the repair when someone inevitably forgets to call or the markings are done incorrectly.

ummonk 6y ago

No, it hasn't made anything uglier - you don't really notice the infrastructure unless you're specifically trying to look for something to get annoyed by.

FullyFunctional 6y ago
Maybe you have gotten blind to it? When I first landed in Palo Alto (coming from Europe), I couldn't believe my eyes: 3rd world infrastructure with wires flying everywhere! I most definitely noticed and notice. It's symptomatic of some of the ill that plague Sillicon Valley.
- ummonk 6y ago
  Overhead power / telecom lines (and cable car power lines) have always been a thing in America. Adding fiber and additional infrastructure hasn't really made it uglier. It would be different if we had buried power lines to start with.