how the internet gets to me. aka, the last mile
Thursday, 26. February 2009, 22:48:49
Here's a photo tour of the messy, tangled, snarl of wires that runs the Internet to my house. It's a slow day here that I'm taking pictures of such things. 
All images are clickable for closer inspection. Select "all sizes" upon landing on the flickr page.
Image #1: The ugly-as-hell utility poles marching the lines down the street towards my house (and everyone's house on this and several other streets) Ugly!
Image #2: This mess is at the end of my driveway where the lines split off to me. The thick black cable on the bottom is telephone. The silver cable higher up brings in the net and TV. Electric cables are higher up.
Image #3: An ugly snarl over my driveway. When one utility comes to work on their stuff, they don't care about what happens to the others, hence, this snarl that will wear and eventually disable something. One of the lines is telephone, which I don't use anyway.
Image #4: The TV/net coax does a loop then slides down the side of the house. A lot of pics (ahem!) have flowed through this baby.
Image #5: The box where the TV/net cables "do things" (get split, I guess), then run under the house with many spiders and snakes. There's a warning not to open the box under penalty of castration.
Image #6: The black cable modem and the VoIP telephone box beside it. I disconnected my old "copper wire" telephone due to non-cooperation and inflexibility from the phone company.
Image #7: The router. Some things here are wireless, some wired.
Image #8: One of the devices (my computer!) that is hooked to the aforementioned stuff.
Image #9: Here some of the data becomes luxurious video on a screen! Everything on the screen was downloaded, right down to the operating system itself. We're all masters of downloading here.
All images are clickable for closer inspection. Select "all sizes" upon landing on the flickr page.
Image #1: The ugly-as-hell utility poles marching the lines down the street towards my house (and everyone's house on this and several other streets) Ugly!
Image #2: This mess is at the end of my driveway where the lines split off to me. The thick black cable on the bottom is telephone. The silver cable higher up brings in the net and TV. Electric cables are higher up.
Image #3: An ugly snarl over my driveway. When one utility comes to work on their stuff, they don't care about what happens to the others, hence, this snarl that will wear and eventually disable something. One of the lines is telephone, which I don't use anyway.
Image #4: The TV/net coax does a loop then slides down the side of the house. A lot of pics (ahem!) have flowed through this baby.
Image #5: The box where the TV/net cables "do things" (get split, I guess), then run under the house with many spiders and snakes. There's a warning not to open the box under penalty of castration.
Image #6: The black cable modem and the VoIP telephone box beside it. I disconnected my old "copper wire" telephone due to non-cooperation and inflexibility from the phone company.
Image #7: The router. Some things here are wireless, some wired.
Image #8: One of the devices (my computer!) that is hooked to the aforementioned stuff.
Image #9: Here some of the data becomes luxurious video on a screen! Everything on the screen was downloaded, right down to the operating system itself. We're all masters of downloading here.
(14%)
WIDGETIZE
Shaunak De # 26. February 2009, 23:46
Which automatically means that the phone company has to dig up the roads every time some new nut hooks on to the Internet.
You've got an optical last mile? Cool.
slackwrdave # 27. February 2009, 00:40
Angeliki # 27. February 2009, 00:45
in difficult financial days you can always sell wires by the pound and make a living!
Most wirring in New York City are underground
and we are fortunate not to worry during a bad weather for computer and other appliances' to be damaged
however,
before one digging in a street ends,
another digging starts,
the Jack hammer noise is not enjoyable either
daxonmacs # 27. February 2009, 00:45
A plus is,no matter how stormy the weather, the cables are safe.
We have optical last miles too, as a promise in our ears, and in our dreams.
Gary Denness # 27. February 2009, 04:11
Nice desktop wallpaper btw.
slackwrdave # 27. February 2009, 05:23
Here almost everything is above ground, so in the winter, the pine trees get ice laden and break, dragging everything to the ground. Pines don't handle the weight well on their branches. They snap like gunfire.
Shaunak De # 27. February 2009, 12:27
They went bankrupt.
daxonmacs # 27. February 2009, 13:59
Hai.