I wonder why they don't put the wires and fibers underground. It is much safer and less prone to strong winds and other natural hazards.
Is the cost of having underground wires that high?
Compared to putting them on poles, the cost of running new fiber underground (in an area without conduits already in place) is astronomical.
The time delay is also orders of magnitude larger in getting the fiber down, as you need many, many permits to dig up streets, etc.
The problem seems to be that no one thought ahead when they built the streets in the US. Back in Sweden, it's all underground. You won't find anything less than main HV transmission lines above ground. I don't know how they did it, but based on the lack of ever digging up the streets in the neighborhoods I lived in, they must have put in conduits when they build the streets. Why they don't do the same in the US baffles me. It makes absolutely no sense.
That's a joke, right? Every place I've lived in the U.S. (which granted is not that many) was built much later than most European cities, yet there are still overhead wires strung all over the place.
Imagine the cost of getting autorization for and digging a long hole through mile upon mile of in-city streets, and then repairing said hole - all while taking care of all the disruptions you cause to traffic and more. Unless you can find and use existing pipes in the right places with spare capacity (you're not going to, don't worry).
Really? I had heard that because streets are regularly dug up (well, every 5-15 years or so), and because the cost of doing so is almost always _way_ more than the cost of what goes in there, that for this reason there's already tons of capacity going unused (so-called "dark fiber" -- the Wikipedia article on the topic shows an interesting history of revisions ... ).
Directional boring is one of the most expensive ways to lay cable. Just going underneath at standard two lane road in a residential neighborhood is something like $50-$100K.
Undergrounding utilities (esp in a metro area) runs something like $250K to $1M/mile. There are many, many variables that affect cost.
Underground cables are also much more susceptible to failure when compared with aerial cables. When they do fail, it's sometimes more costly to repair them if they are buried as opposed to attached to a pole.
You don't have to take my word for it. The Telcos did their own reliability surveys.
Underground utilities have do deal with more intrusions from water, ice, salt, digging, backhoes, insects, rodents and other stuff you find at "ground level." Ask any outside plant engineer and they will tell you that cost goes up and reliability suffers when you place utilities underground.
Aerial utilities primarily only have to deal with trees and ice. Oh, and gunshots. In the backwoods, the local yokels will sometimes shoot at transmission towers, taking out the fiber links with them.
Hm interesting. Where I come from, the aerial power cables go down pretty regularly due to wind/trees from storms. I haven't heard of similar issues with the underground lines, but I don't know anyone at the utilities. I would have thought that glass fiber would be impervious to all but backhoes, though.
Yes. In my town there was an undergrounding project for a certain, high-end neighborhood. The residents voted to pay for the cost themselves. About half way into it, the project hit a snag--unexpected rock, which was difficult to drill through and increased costs quite a lot. The contract with the residents was poorly written and the city, it turns out, was on the hook for the overage. The city canceled the project, because they couldn't afford it and the residents wouldn't pay the extra amount. Lawsuits were flying and it took a couple of years to settle it. The city ended up losing 1/3 of the general fund to this mess.
Ive wondered the same thing many of times, especially in times when water/sewer pipes get replaced and the street is already ripped open. We have often joked we should make a website with pictures of the wiremess here vs pictures of the wiremess in some of indias slums
