China's War Against Wires 244
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."
Actually.. (Score:5, Informative)
Really? (Score:2, Interesting)
Not that big a problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Hint. You can see the sky anyway, wires or no wires. Wasted effort aiming for underground, if you ask me. Wireless tech is a good replacement, but isn't going to work everywhere.
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
They are up in the sky, and they *aren't* instantly accessible. Above or below ground isn't the problem, so much as that they have intersections with 30+ pairs of wires running across them. Who do they belong to? Where do they connect? No one knows!
If no one comes to claim them, they will be cut. *That* is the heart of the article, the simplification, regulation, and control of the wires. Not whether it's above ore below ground. It's only written to seem that way.
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:2)
What I would like to know is, what are the wires that follow train tracks? Ancient telegraph lines perhaps? Who owns them? Are they still used? If not, why the hell are they still there?
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:2, Informative)
If it is an electrified line, then they are the power for the train. If not, then they are probably there from where the track was run on overhead power at some stage in the past.
That's the case here in Australia anyway, perhaps it's different stateside.
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:5, Informative)
At least in Rural Texas, where you see short (10 feet high) poles strung with wires, half rotted or fallen over, they were telegraph cables. The rails are still used, but the cables aren't.
Communication to/from the train is done by radio and communication between rail stations is done by regular telephone.
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:5, Interesting)
I happen to own a copy of the Encyclopaedia Brittannica that was published in 1903. The article in it about telecommunications is particularly interesting in relation to the referenced article. At the time of course, telecom was pretty primative. Each individual phone had its own wire. Thus, if you look at period photos of New York City, you'll see these huge bundles of wires that pretty much obliterate the lower stories of buildings. The bundles of wires were huge and one might say they detracted much from the scenery (such that it was).
In those days, and later years, the process of connecting a call was actually a process of building a single point-to-point wire that connected the two parties, which is where the patch-boards and operators came from.
Several years ago I read a contemporary description of exactly what it was like to make a long-distance call from New York to St. Louis in the mid-20s. The caller would pick up the phone and repeatedly press the cradle that broke the circuit off and on. This would alert the operator that someone wanted to make a call, by flashing a light on her switchboard. (When the reciever was on-hook the light was off, and when it was on-hook, the light would come on.) The caller would tell the operator where to connect to - something like "Saint Louis 6 4324". The first two letters being the abbreviation for the city. Then the caller would hang up, while the operator connected to other operators across the country until the circuit was completely built, and essentially a single wire stretched between the caller and callee, and she had the callee on the line. Then she'd ring back the caller, and they'd start the conversation.
This is basically from memory which has been somewhat corrupted with age, so take it for what it's worth. The description of the wires brought it to mind so I thought I'd share...
and an operator would answer. (You see people repeatedly mashing the cradle of the phone in old movies.Re:Not that big a problem (Score:3, Informative)
hint. radiation. I sure want as less of that as I can get.
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:5, Funny)
that's one more wire radiating electromagnetic dirt! can't we make that grounding wireless?
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:5, Informative)
Lots of digging up roads though (Score:5, Interesting)
However, the downside is that what with utility privatisation and deregulation, we now have over 100 companies with a statutory right to dig up the roads as when they require. This means we often get cases of roads being dug up by company A, resurfaced and then a couple of days later getting dug up again by Company B. IIRC there are some roads in London that have been subject to works for more than 50% of the time in recent years.
The govt keeps legislating to make the utilities co-ordinate with each other (I remember working on the Street Works Act system for the local authority I used to work for back in the mid-90s) but it never seems to have much effect. The latest wheeze is "lane rental" - allowing utilities to dig as they want but making them pay for the economic cost of the disruption to traffic that they cause.
Mind you, I do think it looks nicer having everything underground. I find the overhead electric cables they have in the suburban US quite ugly.
Re:Lots of digging up roads though (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lots of digging up roads though (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Lots of digging up roads though (Score:5, Informative)
There are a few different kinds of underground lines.
HPFF are the most common in the US, and SCFF are the least common, mainly because they don't do well in extreme weather. The fluids are dielectric, 200 psi oil, and saturates the kraft paper insulator of the wires. The fluid is static, and removes heat from the wires by conduction. HPGF uses compressed nitrogen to accomplish basically the same thing.
HPFF requires a pressurizing source, usually a station at one end of the line, with an oil/gas resorvoir. HPGF requires a regulator and a nitrogen cylinder. The HPGF lines also require manual maintenance, as you can't just leave nitrogen gas cylinder's laying around.
Couple all of that with usual line maintenance, and you've got one expensive system, all in the name of keeping the sky unobstructed.
Re:Lots of digging up roads though (Score:3, Funny)
Speaking as a canadian:
And snow, ice, mad beavers, enraged mooses, majestic maples...
The wires are in constant danger!
Re:Lots of digging up roads though (Score:2)
Re:Lots of digging up roads though (Score:2, Interesting)
I live in a quite forested area of Canada (as you can imagine, it being Canada and all) and I can say it sucks really bad when a tree falls over in a storm and powerlines come down with the tree. Underground power and telecommunications is definetly the way to go, al
Re:Lots of digging up roads though (Score:2)
Re:Lots of digging up roads though (Score:3, Interesting)
A couple of years back a lot of new ISP's started putting cable and now all company buildings have wires from all the providers so they can switch to anyone they want.
Re:Not that big a problem - yes it is, with photos (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:2)
Above-ground wires do bother me. I live in an area with underground power, underground telephone and underground cable. The landscape looks great when there are no cables to obscure the view. I really notice the difference when I visit Sydney or Melbourne; t
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually these days (in countries with a modern infrastructure - so excluding most of the US) underground wires are run through multipurpose conduits rather than just being laid individually. You only have to dig up the road once -- to lay the conduit. After that it's a simply task simply to pull across new wires (and pull out old ones) from one manhole to the next - there are special machines for threading them through the holes.
Most of the time when the road is dug up, it's to repair services such as water, sewage and gas - not really the sort of thing you can run overhead anyway.
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:2)
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:2)
Cost (Score:2)
Another issue is rural areas. Some of my relatives live on farms, and they have told me that they have to pay for the power company to string the electric wires from the county road to the buildin
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:2)
Not particularly, I don't recall any earthquakes in Shanghai, typhoons are infrequent (every several years). There was flooding in 1998.
Re:Not that big a problem (Score:3, Informative)
When I read the headline I instantly thought of Shanghai -- especially parts of the old city. The area east of the Huangou isn't as bad but there are places where you really can't see the sky. The photo in the arcicle doesn't give a good sense. Above every street -- all along the street in some neighborhoods -- is what looks like a net of wires. Some places it's so thick that you could crawl across it with little fear of falling through the spaces between t
Who'd of known... (Score:5, Funny)
Looks Like... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Looks Like... (Score:5, Funny)
I found them eventually, hanging on a piece of cat5 just below sight behind my desk.
Re:Looks Like... (Score:5, Funny)
where do these buggers come from? its like they're breeding and no matter how hard i try to keep the female ends on the other side of the desk from the male ones it seems to happen every time.
And why is it that even though CAT5 cables are male-male they too seem to multiply!
Re:Looks Like... (Score:2, Funny)
That's nothing! (Score:4, Insightful)
No wonder China is developing a home-grown wireless solution tailored to it's needs.
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Re:That's nothing! (Score:2, Insightful)
a new mediums with no inter-operability problems...solution : put up barriers...like dvd...and happening now with wireless...
Tell the Afghans (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks like San Francisco (Score:2, Informative)
It's ok... they still dig the streets up for gas and plumbing.
Re:Looks like San Francisco (Score:2)
Re:Looks like San Francisco (Score:2, Interesting)
There are many 'shaky' areas that have underground utilities.
I think basically it costs more to bury them
than to hang them... at least the initial cost.
Re:Looks like San Francisco (Score:3, Insightful)
I rather think that this was due to the fact that you _can't_ have those types of lines aboveground. Rather have 3 utilities toast during an earthquake than 6 (power, phone, cable TV.)
But your cost argument is most likely a big part of it.
Re:Looks like San Francisco (Score:2)
Populations and natural disasters go together. The same conditions that increase the risk of a natural disaster also make it attractive for people to live there.
Establish a standard, and wait (Score:5, Interesting)
However, if a standard, unified, cooperative standard was released for packet-based communication was released to the public domain, and a reasonably cost-effective solution was available to anybody regardless of size, you'd see the obviation of many of these wires...
Oh... wait... that's called the Internet, isn't it?
Seriously, wires are only strung 'cause it's cheaper than the alternative. If there was a standard, effective method of effecting a point to point communication, over IP or whatever, and it was reasonably priced, all those extra wires would go away.
Re:Establish a standard, and wait (Score:3, Interesting)
Overhead line: $16/foot
Buried cable: $40/foot
These numbers are from about 20 years ago, so I'm sure it's now much higher, but I doubt the cost *ratio* has changed much.
There can be other factors too. Frex, here overhead wire in rural areas is taxable by the regional authority, but buried cable is not taxable. So the local authority won't authorize new buried cable because they want to collect taxes on overhead wires. However, the state has
Re:Establish a standard, and wait (Score:3, Informative)
This is a TERRIBLE idea.
There is a finite amount of wireless bandwidth available in the world -- only so many frequencies at which information can be beamed from place to place. Technological advances have slowly increased the upper bounds of what is feasible, so that we can use Gigahertz bands that weren't possible with the electro
Re:Establish a standard, and wait (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Establish a standard, and wait (Score:2)
Re:Establish a standard, and wait (Score:2)
Rodent contraceptives (Score:5, Funny)
> Wires are just one urban challenge. Bedeviled by ballooning rat populations,
> Shanghai has turned not to poison but to rodent contraceptives.
Who gets the job of fitting all the little guys with condoms?
Japan is just the same (Score:5, Informative)
but when you dont have the chance to burry things, i guess it's inevitable. (side note, after earthquakes japan tends to use the rebuild phase as a chance to organize some of this stuff, which is neat)
Re:Japan is just the same (Score:2)
after earthquakes japan tends to use the rebuild phase as a chance to organize some of this stuff
In Japan, the glass is half full :-)
Re:Japan is just the same (Score:2)
just pull it out! (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years ago I was doing IT work and the company had rented an office suite in a big 30yr old building. We were pulling cat5 about 40 meters between rooms, along the main hallways. There was a four inch thick layer of ancient wires held up by the cieling panels. At least a hundred times as many wires as there were people working on that floor! The telephone closet was even worse - huge masses of jumpers going back to the MPOE where there was no connection on the other end. There were 25pair cables for old multi-line systems... everything you can imagine. We just left it all there because we had no way of knowing which 0.05% of all that cable was still live.
Then last year I rented an office in a newer building. Lifted the cieling panels and found a rats nest but not too bad - I think it was about 10 years worth of junk, and it was a smaller place. There had been about five previous tenants and they'd all just installed new systems on top of the crap the previous one left. I just went up there and pulled out EVERYTHING except for one wire - for the thermostat. After that, installing the CAT5 wiring we needed was trivially easy, and since there wasn't a rats nest to dig through everwhere you went, it was easy to route everythign neatly and hang it way up high where it'd be out of the way of future installations.
Anyway regarding China: there's really no solution other than to dig in, start identifying the old wire, and pulling it out. It's not really that expensive, and it gets easier as you go!
Re:just pull it out! (Score:2)
Re:just pull it out! (Score:5, Interesting)
BAD IDEA (Score:3, Informative)
Even worse if you pull something like a fire alarm cable that isn't immediately noticed...
Re:BAD IDEA (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:just pull it out! (Score:2)
At my work nobody wants to just get the job done - you get promoted for coming up with a better way of getting the job done. As a result everybody changes every system three times a year, and the new systems break down six months after they're promoted out of responsibility for it...
Re:just pull it out! (Score:3, Interesting)
Pfft... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Pfft... (Score:2)
Asking the masses? Askslashdot? (Score:5, Funny)
So why didn't China post this in Askslashdot?
Re:Asking the masses? Askslashdot? (Score:5, Funny)
Not just China! (Score:5, Informative)
This is a problem for societies such as China (now) and Japan (opst-war) which expand too quickly. In the pace of progress, it seems too difficult, too regressive, to take the time for really clever use of technologies, such as building cables underground, digging out walls and restoring the surface again, and, nowadays, wireless where possible.
If you look at well-preserved places, they still have modern conveniences like aircon, alarms, etc. But they are willing to spend more, often a lot more, to get the best of both worlds.
Re:Not just China! (Score:5, Interesting)
With Kyoto, it's not just wires--it's general shoddy urbanization. The city has no metro, so public transportation consists of fairly shabby buses, the traffic is insane, and in between historical landmarks, the place is laid out in a grid pattern filled with boxy, unattractive 1960s office buildings (at least the downtown areas.)
It's really too bad--this is pretty typical of those parts of Japan as a whole that I managed to see (caveat: mainly built-up areas between Himeji and Tokyo.) Buildings were put up and cities planned, seemingly with purely pragmatic concerns in mind, with little regard for aesthetics. Damn shame, really.
Re:Not just China! (Score:2)
Re:Not just China! (Score:2)
Most other cities don't follow any particular order, except that of fire, earthquake and some reconstruction-plans.
And acutally I'd say that is the reason why some parts are quite unattractive. According to the Asahi Shinbun, a new law has been proposed, which puts constraints on the buildings in that way, that they have to fit int
Re:Not just China! (Score:2)
I understand that a lot of it stemmed from the need to build stuff fast during the 1960s nascent economic boom, but I never understood why this happened in Kyoto, which w
Re:Not just China! (Score:2)
Not much of one, though--its coverage is pretty limited. And like a lot of cities that combine underground metros with fairly modern buildings, it's pretty charm-free (I just think tramways are cool.)
Sorry bout that.
Growing Pains (Score:5, Informative)
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_notebo
Big government sucks!
Re:Growing Pains (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Growing Pains (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, but there is one very important difference in technology since then. Back then, there were no automated phone switches at all. In the very early days, lines went from point A to point B directly and were dedicated to communication only between those two points. This t
Gumming up the works? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, this isn't just China's problem. Alex Kerr's quite interesting book "Lost Japan" discusses the blight of utility poles and wiring.
Look under your desk (Score:4, Funny)
Another interesting thing to ponder, last time you moved your equipment from one room to another, when you booted up did you notice that a third of the wires you once had in your old setup were unused... where do these buggers come from? its like they're breeding and no matter how hard i try to keep the female ends on the other side of the desk from the male ones it seems to happen every time.
Yet another thing to consider. I just came back from a 200 person LAN party [eastcoastlan.com] this weekend. A buddy in my clan (read: geeks that LAN together, not CS \"noobs\"); was relieved that he brought his trusty Dell QuietKey keyboard rather than his wireless logitech. The clan sitting directly behind us all were using these devices are were having trouble with interference all the time. Probably could have fixed things with using different channels but by the looks of things (19" LCD, green Antec cases, blue LED casefans) these guys didnt know a CAT5 from a Hello Kitty Personal Vibrator [jlist.com]
I was in Shanghai last year (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyways, I went all over that damned town. I spent an entire day walking around (mostly because I got lost) and I don't honestly remember there being that much of a massive wire problem overhead. I'd remember it because I'm a geek at heart and got thrown out of more than one cyber cafe for playing around to how to break their censorship software. But I'm getting off track. Sure, there were plenty of lines overhead, but no more so than any large city I've been in, reguardless of country. There's nothing wrong with running wires overhead, you just have to be certain of what you're running and not run useless wire. If it's useless I completely agree with tearing it down.
Personally, I still think that we should run fiber through the sewage systems to all locations. Everyone has to have sewage, and no one really cares if we run something through it. Why it isn't a standard I don't understand. The expense in the short term is offset by the long term gain in my opinion.
Re:I was in Shanghai last year (Score:3, Informative)
Hence the sophisticated delivery mechanisms [bbc.co.uk] that have been put in place.
Enterprising indeed... (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, if the power/fiber/phone lines are that close to a building, there must be really old standards in place. You can imagine the fun someone would have if they tapped a fiber line for spamming.
Come to think of it, if someone pulled that off, he/she would never be found because all the wires are in such a mess. It would be like looking for a needle in a field of haystacks!
Easy solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Just publiclly annouce that people have 30-60 days to prove whats theirs and why it's there. Anything that isn't claimed is gone.
We have this problem in our datacenters at times. Projects end or people don't need the servers anymore and don't RTS them. Time comes when theres a problem or we need to know who owns a server. When nobody fesses up we just shut it off till somebody screams.
Re:Easy solution (Score:2)
We have this problem in our datacenters at times. Projects end or people don't need the servers anymore and don't RTS them. Time comes when theres a problem or we need to know who owns a server. When nobody fesses up we just shut it off till somebody screams.
So you let people put crap into your datacenter without getting contact, and backup contact information? One of a datacenter's primary functions should be to keep a complete hardware inventory up to date and accurate.
-josh
Re:Easy solution (Score:2, Informative)
"It's not our job"
It should be but it isn't. theres a special group thats supposed to keep track of it all but they fall short of the task many times.
NOTHING comes in without the things you mentioned. It's just what happens after its there that causes the orphans to appear. We have a DB of it all but without the participants giving up info when necessarry it's useless.
Basically what happens is a project starts. They order a bunch of shit, we set it up, sometimes load it and it sits there.
Many things c
Re:Easy solution (Score:3, Informative)
Just publiclly annouce that people have 30-60 days to prove whats theirs and why it's there. Anything that isn't claimed is gone.
Why doesn't anybody ever read the article?
Finding a Broker (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually that's not quite true, but there was a yellow cable that left the exchange building and went to various different installations where exchange activities (including trading) took place. It was just hanging off the poles and you could easily track amongst the spaghetti at the time. That was back in '96, the last time I was there. I dread to think what it must look like now.
Standardised prefabricated concrete roads (Score:2)
It would reduce the amount of digging up of roads and therfore traffic chaos in cities like London as well.
Re:Standardised prefabricated concrete roads (Score:2)
Re:Standardised prefabricated concrete roads (Score:2)
The key is to build support for the amenity cabling, piping and ducting (All stuff that seems to be an afterthought at the moment) into the pavement in a standard, easy to access manner. Want to fix or lay a cable, lift the top off of the pavement with a crane.
Damn, I should have patented this.
Yes, much of Asia is a wired mess (Score:5, Interesting)
Shanghai is much better than Taiwan, although still needs some improvement. I think the biggest problem is there is concrete everywhere, so unlike the US where they lay cable underground in the mass sprawling suburbs of the cities. It is hard to do that when you have no suburbs and the cities sprawl for a hundred kilometers, all concrete jungle!
Interesting enough, I was way deep in Mainland China near Mongolia a couple years ago, and there were huge tracks where they were laying fiber on the sides of the road. I mean this was in the middle of NOWHERE, only coal mines and steel factories I was trying to figure out why they were laying fiber optic cable there. "If only they did that in the cities", I thought to myself at the time. sheesh.
"sprawl" (Score:2)
I think the biggest problem is there is concrete everywhere, so unlike the US where they lay cable underground in the mass sprawling suburbs of the cities.
That's why I always laugh when people knock suburbs. It's a good thing not to be packed in like ants!
Re:"sprawl" (Score:2)
Booming China (Score:2, Funny)
Dr. Seuss's wires in China. (Score:4, Funny)
Crossing and shorting and starting great fires.
Sagging and snagging and causing us ires,
down to the street and around all our tires.
Intricate knots to confound a Boy Scout.
Perplexing knots that no one can get out.
So many knots that I know nothing about.
Gordian knots I say without a doubt.
On Tibet Road they dangle
each and every angle
on telephone poles
n garden-hose rolls.
Black wires Blue wires Magenta you see,
it's a rainbow put there to serve you 'n me.
On Beijing Road you can barely see the sky
Wires no one can seem to identify
growing and climbing and reaching so high
all over China's tech-happy city Shanghai.
Wires to hang-dry selected cuts of meat,
Wires as planters for growing rows of wheat.
Wires for poppy-san, wires for mommy-san.
Wires for you-san, wires for me-san.
Please do not forget some wires for Nissan!
Wires in rows for power that glows,
under my toes and under my nose.
The question I pose is where it all goes?
Where it all goes? But nobody knows!
We are betwix it how do we fix it?
How do we nix it? Let us sub-six it!
Oh what a feat I jump from my seat!
Under the street down under our feet!
That is no cheat! That would be a treat!
That would be neat that answer I greet!
Could that be beat down under concrete?
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Funny, (Score:5, Interesting)
new york city was the same way until 1888 (Score:5, Interesting)
then came the largest blizzard anyone ever saw, they called it the "great white hurricane" [fen.com]
no one did anything about the electric and telegraph poles in the city, even though wires were snapping, falling and killing people, as well as making the city look like a rat's nest
pictures [cuny.edu]
that is, until 1888, when the blizzard FORCED new york city to clean up it's act, and move everything underground... they had no choice! the blizzard knocked down all the poles.
still, corporations resisted [cuny.edu]
with the attitudes of the day, you can make the case that had the blizzard of 1888 not happened, new york city to this day might resemble a rat's nest of wires like shanghai is now
knowing human psychology: that is, don't deal with a problem until you have to, my point is that shanghai probably won't clean up it's act until a typhoon or something (do they get typhoons in shanghai?) forces the city to clean things up, just like new york city in 1888
irresistable corporations (Score:2, Insightful)
Interesting story.
"with the attitudes of the day, you can make the case that had the blizzard of 1888 not happened, new york city to this day might resemble a rat's nest of wires like shanghai is now"
Right! Lucky that storm hit or New Yorkers would have missed 115 years of progress. Because of those damned corporations.Re:irresistable corporations (Score:2)
i don't actually think you think corporations can do no wrong, so don't think i think they can do no right
so stop attacking me the same time you thank me for my interesting story, asshole
why should anyone post on slashdot, or any other (Score:2)
i represent what is good about forums: interesting tidbits people find interesting, you represent what is bad about forums like slashdot: negative trolling... after you admitted the comment was interesting to you to boot!
i don't get it
I'm here to talk to you about ducts... (Score:2)
prophetic here...
Wires no one can seem to identify (Score:2, Funny)
Obligatory Webcomic Reference (Score:4, Funny)
The Jim Saga, Part 1 [penny-arcade.com]
The Jim Saga, Part 2 [penny-arcade.com]