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Steam Heat to High Speed Internet

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the warm-and-wet dept.

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."

3 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Know something we don't? by puppetman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Dark fibre, the collapse of many companies that built these networks (and then had other companies buy them at pennies on the dollar), etc, then why do this?

    Or maybe someone is thinking long-term; five-years, and maybe this will be a very valuable asset. Bah. Perhaps I need more foresight.

  2. I wouldn't say so by TWX_the_Linux_Zealot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Only good things can come from a tech visionary who purchases Old World infrastructure and is willing to run fiber to them."

    I wouldn't call that an absolute. Look at the nightmare that Qwest Communications has caused. They're still using Pair Gain, in a city that is supposedly modern in design. We can't get DSL service in half of Phoenix that is within the copper distance needed to do it, and Phoenix was originally a US West Communications test city for the technology. I've had friends who couldn't get the phone company to install a copper circuit, and would not say who was responsible for Qwest's engineering decision to implement pair gain on every phone line.

    So, I don't believe that companies usisng old-world, middle-world (not to be confused with middle-earth), or brand-new technologies are any better simply because of the tech. They have to actually provide service, not claim to be able to without delivering.

    --

    IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
    And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
  3. I knew I'd heard this town's name before... by orbital3 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wilkes-Barre was featured in a previous Slashdot article when they decided not to renew their maintainence contract with IBM and their AS/400 with all of their tax records crashed... in light of that whole situation, unless Wilkes-Barre has done a technological 180 since then, I can't imagine what they'd do with all of this fiber.