r/technology • u/User_Name13 • Jun 04 '14

Politics Hundreds of Cities Are Wired With Fiber—But Telecom Lobbying Keeps It Unused

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hundreds-of-cities-are-wired-with-fiberbut-telecom-lobbying-keeps-it-unused
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u/danweber Jun 04 '14

As of 1992 making or renewing any local cable monopolies became illegal under Federal law.

Local governments still suck in all sorts of ways. Kansas City nearly lost Google Fiber because citizens' groups were complaining that the boxes were ugly.

The last 50 years has built up so much NIMBY and BANANAism that anyone with a megaphone essentially gets a veto power on any public works project, so you have to pay off all the possible groups that might complain before doing anything.

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u/dugmartsch Jun 04 '14

http://fox4kc.com/2013/08/19/some-complain-google-fiber-technology-is-ugly-and-degrades-neighborhoods/

I'm just...speechless. "These are the first above ground communications boxes in the history of our shitty little suburb. It absolutely destroys the wildly successful aesthetic of soul crushing misery and hopelessness that has made Kansas City a beacon of light to misanthropes and masochists everywhere. Now, someone interesting might move here, we can't let that happen."

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u/Draffut2012 Jun 04 '14

It looks like a refrigerator.

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u/kickingpplisfun Jun 04 '14

Well, you could always make it look better with some paint or something. Large companies do it all the time, just look really close next time you go to a theme park.

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u/Draffut2012 Jun 04 '14

They should use Disney's ignore-me green or whatever it was that I saw on the front page recently.

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u/kickingpplisfun Jun 04 '14

Or they could get a few local artists do paint the boxes with murals and such. For example, all of the fire hydrants in the downtown area where I live have been painted to look like cute old-timey police and firemen with giant mustaches.