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Steam Heat to High Speed Internet
jrmski writes "Thom Greco, an astute businessman from the crumbling town of Wilkes-Barre is betting the future of its downtown on a new state of the art fiber optic network. He recently purchased the former Steam Heat Authority, and the underground pipes associated with it. The pipes provide clear advantages in connecting every downtown building with access faster than what's currently available in Philly."
This is actually a good way to get use of something that would otherwise just sit and decay.
:)
Having fast internet and reliable forms of connectivity are important things businesses look for when they come to towns. Hopefully what this guy is doing can spur some growth there.
I wonder what else you could do with a steam tunnels. Live in them maybe?
Okay, so some guy gets the bright idea to run fiber through steam pipes . . . with how many miles of *dark* fiber out there already?!? And how many big telcos with the similar idea are already bankrupt or are about to go there (JDS Uniphase, anyone?)
This sounds like some idiot who thinks he can revitalize his city by "hookin' it up to that thar new internet thang. We done gunna make it real real real fast." They did the same thing in Washington with Tacoma. They even call it "The Wired City." And you know what? It's still a crime-infested shithole with no jobs!
Wake up, fellas. This was cool at the height of the boom whem Amazon.bomb sold for $400 and the lemmings bought it. But now that reality has set in, it's just another bunch of idiots buying into the Ponzi scheme - after it has collapsed!
Very little future commercial exploitation? You're not qualified enough to say that. As a long time resident, I can say that the Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre area certainly has the possibility for future growth. We're "decaying" aren't we? To where else can you possibly go from the decayed?
Let's be sensible here.
If you've seen the episode of the Simpsons where Springfield gets a fancy monorail, you'll recognize immediately what this is really about. It's a con artist selling false hope using technobabble that probably sounds impressive to some provincial mayor in Amish country. Only a fool could think that all you need to bring in tech companies is a place for them to plug in. Luckily for these snake-oil-selling jerks, many of our leaders really are fools.
The problems of the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre area of Pennsylvania will not be solved by running fiber through steam tunnels. Bank on it.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
I'm guessing none of you guys have ever DONE a cable/fiber install. You don't lay excess capacity for "future use". You lay excess capacity because no sane company wants to have to dig up a 2 mile stretch of trench to fix the line every time it goes dark.
It's not EXCESS CAPACITY. It's being cheap. You lay enough fiber that you should almost never have to dig it up to repair it again. Fibers go dark for all sorts of stupid reasons. Even in good installs.
The idea is to lay SO MUCH that you can always just switch over to another "good" line when one goes bad.
What's cheaper? The extra cost of the fiber initially or the HUGE cost in having to dig up the line multiple times to repair it?
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I mean you can't really complain, he is creating jobs, and running fiber. But in all honesty, are businesses in that downtown grid a) all going to want to pay for his G-Net networking services and b) if they do buy it, is it going to make a serious difference that its going to turn the whole city around, and make it become a thriving city once again?
I can't imagine a high-speed and high tech networking technology turning a whole downtown city around.
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Mike
I'm going to kick the next person that I see with their karma rating in their sig.
You're right. Between all the businesses coming in and giving us the bone by starting up and saying that they are the next greatest thing, then shutting down after a few months, and the generally inadequate infrastructure . . .
And besides. Everyone who knows anything knows that you don't run a business in Wilkes-Barre, the taxes are too high, and the regulations too cumbersome. You run your business in Plains. Same with Scranton. Why do you think all those buildings downtown are half-empty? Everyone is doing business up on Montage Mountain. Granted, the bigwigs never have to DRIVE in there, but that's another rant for another day and time.
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
It's not indoor plumbing, it's a distribution system for a municiple steam system. The pipes are probably huge, not some little tiny things like you'd buy in a hardware store. The bend radius from outer wall to outer wall of the pipe, touching the inner curve of a bend, is probably not that tight.