Rewiring (and Unwiring) New Orleans
stinkymountain writes "Is New Orleans bouncing back from Hurricane Katrina with the most advanced telecom system in the country? According to Network World, carriers have invested billions to rebuild the wired and wireless networks in the city, and businesses are taking advantage of new, advanced telecom services."
This story selected and edited by LinuxWorld editor for the day Saied Pinto.
Just imagine the future of New Orleans; a technological marvel, with gigabit ethernet connections to each home, instantly transmitting terrabytes worth of images showing topless coeds partying outside.
Let the ocean take it and live somewhere else. Or, at the least, quit asking for my tax dollars to bail your sorry asses out and hold back the gulf.
I think it is a collosal waste of money, and investing $B in infrastructure is just going to encourage people to move to an area which is inherently unsafe and very expensive to make livable.
Oh, go ahead, hit that troll button, but there are an awful lot of us that are getting sick and tired of people spending an inordinate amount of taxpayer money on projects that keep "beautiful" places in the black. I'm okay with the occasional monument or historic home, but forking over billions of dollars to artifically change the landscape for a commercial venture is not my idea of good government. That goes for all you weenies on the east coast, too. I'm tired of paying the Army Corps of Engineers to put the beach back so your oceanfront home keeps its value. You want beach, you pay for it.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Is New Orleans bouncing back from Hurricane Katrina with the most advanced telecom system in the country?
Yes, yes it is.
In fact, New Orleans' broadband is so good, Korean tourists are flocking there to mob-harass the local Web pariahs.
New Orleans' broadband is so good, Al Gore is working on a movie advocating we de-decentralize the Internet, putting New Orleans right in the middle.
New Orleans broadband is so good, mint juleps are already outselling Mountain Dew as the official drink of computer nerds.
New Orleans broadband is so good, girls at the last Mardi Gras were flashing their MySpace pages in exchange for beads.
Hope that answers your question!
Sincerely,
SlashdotAnswerGuy
That's a nice knee-jerk reaction, but if you actually look at the parts of New Orleans that are actually being rebuilt compared to those that are basically being left to rot, it's the middle class and the wealthy that are benefitting. The poorest areas are not being rebuilt, and it seems like a lot of the aim of the rebuilding efforts so far is to attract businesses and higher-income people than the ones that used to live there. Most of the poor still don't have any homes to return to, and their entire neighborhoods remain wastelands while politicians argue if they should even bother rebuilding them.
There is a significant contingent who would like to see those areas bulldozed and turned into parks, and turn the city into a smaller, wealthier (and whiter) version of what it was.
As far as there being "no point" to rebuilding a major US port city, that's just silly. The reason that city has remained there for hundreds of years, despite its vulnerability is because it's in such a commercially advantageous spot. Maybe instead of letting it sink into the sea, we should concentrate on rebuilding the wetlands around it that served as natural barriers to hurricanes in the past.
. . . you should go tell those Japanese to abandon their tiny island country so that the next earthquakes won't destroy their lives. . .
Actually, they tried that a while ago and we told them to knock it off.
KFG
The only thing that is stupid is your anon comments. What about the businesses and residents that live here? FYI, the cost for replacing the copper is the same as fiber, so just are we to do to please your ignorant ass? Here's a heads-up, the people that live here-(ME) don't give a rat's ass about anybody's opinion about why we should do this and why we should do that. This is our HOME and we will do as we see fit.
Won't Bow.....Don't Know How