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  • Utility Poles

    By Joshua Kim October 31, 2010 7:45 pm EDT

    We don't notice infrastructure until it fails. In my case, I never noticed utility poles until I moved to a house served by electricity and phone wires, but not by cable (or DSL until recently!). In the efforts to bring broadband to my street (we finally succeeded - I'm off satellite Internet for good), I started to notice and think about utility poles.

    Utility poles make the Web possible. The future may be WiMax or 4G or something, but today we get the Web at home via wire. And for most of us, those wires mean utility poles. (What percentage of Internet connections are buried underground, I failed to get the answer from Google?).

    According to NPR, there are about 160 million utility poles in the U.S. The best site to learn about which wires are which, and the functions of the different boxes on the utility poles, is at this site: http://www.annsgarden.com/poles/poles.htm#def I found out about this site from the "On the Grid" site - a companion to Scott Huler's amazing book.

    The Utility Pole site is really the best one available, with great pictures and diagrams of power, cable, telephone, and fiber lines commonly found on utility poles. I now know which wire is which, and I'm trying to get my wife and kids as excited this knowledge as I am. There is actually a lack of information and videos on the Web about utility poles. I found "The Utility Pole Fan Page" - but it is sort of a disappointment.

    Andy Rooney hates utility poles, but I'm a fan. Infrastructure of any sort gets me excited. While courting my future wife I took her to the Paris sewer museum, Musée des égouts de Paris, the most romantic place in France. On our honeymoon we spent time at the Baltimore Public Works Museum, an amazing place which I just found out closed down due to budget cuts. This April we are taking our family to Disney World, and I'm already booked for the 4.5 hour "Keys to the Kingdom" tour - which promises the "unforgettable highlight [of] a trip below Magic Kingdom theme park into the service tunnels known as the Utilidors.".
    Is my obsession with infrastructure a common affliction for people in educational technology?

    Is your dream also to tour the steam tunnels on your campus?

    Do you agree with me that every college graduate should be able to identify the wires and boxes on a utility pole?

    Should infrastructure literacy be required of every graduate?

    What are your favorite infrastructure books and websites?

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Comments on Utility Poles

  • Fragile Systems
  • Posted by K. Tim Pridemore, CFPS , Emergency Management Specialist at University of Tennessee - Chattanooga on November 1, 2010 at 8:30am EDT
  • I too am "excited" by infrastructure but possibly for different reasons. As the engineering genius of Star Trek, Montgomery Scott, once quipped, "The more complicated they make the plumbing the easier it is to clog up the pipes".

    Such is the situation we face with today's technological infrastructure. It has become so complicated that the ratio of potential problems to system failures is rising rapidly. As an example, most people do not know that, in the event of an internet failure over a given area, >75% of the gas stations in the affected area will not be able to provide fuel no matter how much is in their tanks. No internet inventory system, no gas. Or, given a nation wide failure and extending it two more degrees, no internet, no restocking of supermarket shelves.

    Unless we are really aware of what all those wires are and what they do, and, more importantly, what the end effect of that function is, can we really make informed choices about our future?

    Can you say "continuity planning"??? Sure you can.
  • Infrastructure
  • Posted by Ron Reigner , Assoc. Professor, Collaborative Support and Intervention at University of West Georgia on November 1, 2010 at 2:00pm EDT
  • "Underground," a picture book for middle school students and up by David Macaulay, winner of a Caldecott Honor for "Castle," offers a worm's eye view of what lies beneath the streets of a typical urban city: tunnels, conduits, wires, etc. It's truly amazing how informative it is.
  • Posted by Brian Reid at Dartmouth Medical School on November 2, 2010 at 8:30am EDT
  • I have toured the steam tunnels at my institution, and I think that everyone should be aware of the infrastructure. But I think I have to agree with Andy Rooney that utility poles are usually pretty ugly. It's kind of like having all the wiring in your home exposed. On the other hand, it would be interesting to see all the wiring and plumbing in your house.

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