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China's War Against Wires

Posted by timothy on from the stephensonian-detritus dept.

hodet writes "On sections of Beijing Road, you can barely see the sky. On Tibet Road, they dangle in garden-hose rolls and knots intricate enough to confound a Boy Scout. Over on Hefei Street, one enterprising apartment dweller even used them to hang-dry selected cuts of meat. Tech-happy Shanghai, the most wired city in China, has a problem: wires. Telephone wires. Fiber-optic wires. Electrical wires. Wires no one can seem to identify. Black wires. Blue wires. Magenta wires. They're everywhere, and they're gumming up the works."

4 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. Actually.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Those words are from Ted Anthony, not hodet.

  2. Growing Pains by gotpaint32 · · Score: 5, Informative

    These are typical of any area undergoing modernization. It is kind of elitest for anyone to say that they lacked planning. (even though they are) Just look at the United States when it was undergoing its telecommunications boom in the early 1900s; (wired one not the wireless kind) countless phone, telegraph, power and who knows what else lines were strung all over the place.

    This is just what happens, planners can't always be expected to accomodate for the booms of a volatile industry, the private sector is pretty resilient, it will work to help itself in the quickest most efficient (not necessarily pretty) way possible. Once the government has had time to catch up and realize the ensuing chaos, then they can work to make everything nice and orderly again without disrupting the oh so important rapid expansionary growth shown in these industries.

    http://www.albionmich.com/history/histor_noteboo k/ R0112.shtml

    Big government sucks!

    --
    Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner
  3. Re:Not that big a problem - yes it is, with photos by tedshultz · · Score: 5, Informative

    The wires are such a mess that they would be considered a clear safety hazard by most peoples standards. I was in Shanghai (one of the most advanced cities in china) and I took some photos of both how low the wires were (as low at 4 feet off the ground!) and the over head rats nest . There was worse, I just didn't have my camera at the time.

  4. Re:Establish a standard, and wait by highwindarea · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'll show you how to distribute AC over IP

    --
    I think this internet thing sounds like a good idea