The Observation Deck

Stephen,

I think Mr. O'Bryan, the staff at LO and homies like yourself are more than capable to present the idea to AT&T...to help them see the uh... Lightspeed.

Comcast is running ads in U-Verse markets making fun of the VRAD cabinets:

http://tinyurl.com/5dmtte

Om Malik, a very influential tech blogger, just posted an article about Lakewood's frustration with Uverse.

The blog post links to a thread here on the Deck as well as some photos from our own David Lay...

http://gigaom.com/2008/05/01/in-ohio-at ... -problems/

The article also mentions Stan Austin's City Council article!

OK at the risk of being flamed I'm gonna take the opposite side of this thing...

Jim and others on this thread have been most vocal in their displeasure with the Lightspeed boxes, noting that they are unsightly. Which they are.

But let me ask this. The thousands of telephone poles in our city, and the wires they carry, what about them? I don't know about you all but if I could get rid of either the telephone poles or the Lightspeed boxes, the poles would be gone in an instant. But they bring us our electricity, our telephone service, and BTW guess what else? Cox Cable. They serve a purpose.

And what about the thousands of street signs and other traffic control devices? They aren't exactly winning any awards for their aesthetic quality. Heck the signs are obnoxious by design, all kinds of bright colors so they command your attention when you're driving. But they help control the flow of traffic in our city so we don't run into each other when we drive our cars. They serve a purpose.

Similarly bus shelters, mail boxes, fire hydrants, trash receptacles, newspaper boxes, parking meters and the like. They litter our public spaces, but serve important purposes.

Jim and others have touted Lakewood as a potential location for creative “work-from-homeâ€￾ types -- web designers, writers, software developers, etc. For that we need broadband, competitively priced. But when a company makes a great deal of additional broadband available without asking the city for a dime, with the potential for significantly lower prices, at the cost of 50 or so of the pads with all that stuff, you all wanna run them out of town.

Jim posted a picture of the boxes on the West Clifton side of Breadsmith. Where was the picture of the telephone pole, the mailbox, the newspaper dispenser and the trash can all lined up ten feet from their front door on Detroit?

We long ago made the decision that tree lawns and other public spaces could be reasonably given over for the installation of stuff that serves important purposes, even if that stuff is really unattractive. I'm glad Lightspeed is coming, and I think that 50 pads with the electronic junk is an acceptable price to pay, especially given that the spaces they occupy are already laden with so much other crap already. If we're gonna bag on AT&T for the Lightspeed boxes, we need to also bag on First Energy, Cox, Lakewood motorists, the city, the RTA, the Plain Dealer and others for their contribution to the junk on our tree lawns and other spaces. Better I think that we just get over it.

Tim Liston wrote:OK at the risk of being flamed I'm gonna take the opposite side of this thing...

Tim

Solid comments from not quite the other side.

The city should take a pro-activee stance on news boxes, bus stops, above ground wires, and streets signs. The worst of all of this comes together at Warren and Madison.

As for the broadband, I think they might be an announcment from the LO on Thursday.

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.


.

Jim O'Bryan wrote:
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

You seem to be shhh-ing a lot lately.

THe LHS art classes are in charge of painting lakewood-mural type things on Plain Dealer newspaper boxes.

It's been in the works for........3-4 weeks now and they are due next week.

so the aAT&T boxes are the next item on the list to spruce up.

chris richards wrote:

Jim O'Bryan wrote:
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

You seem to be shhh-ing a lot lately.

Chris

There is so much going on that is about to break it will be magical.

But I do like to let, those doing the work to frame the event, good deed, and break the story.


.

So we got the call last night. We are now able to access the AT & T Uverse that they promised us would be ready last August.

It would appear our box was not a fake. Just a bit slow. It's a 'special' box.

Now the question is, do we go for it? Or not? We've survived this long without it. Apparently we could record four channels at once. We only have one TV. (Clearly we are Amish).

Anybody tried this? Is it worth it?

Scene chimes in:

http://tinyurl.com/5uzg4v

saw this link on Lakewood Buzz, which is to a West Life story on how Rocky River, Fairview Park and Bay Village are slowing down the Lightspeed project in their communities:

http://www.westlifenews.com/2007/01-03/fccruling.html

I'm with Tim ... it's bad enough we've got unsightly telephone poles going up and down our streets ... but on my street, we also have them in the backyard, because that's where our phone line comes in. So I've got 'em in front and back, and the wires are very unsightly. I don't mind the boxes so much, especially if they could be decorated up, either by surrounding them with shrubs, painting them decoratively, or even putting advertisements on them. My only beef is that I wish they'd set them back a little further from the street, because at times it's hard to pull out of a street that has one on the corner, with the box blocking the view of incoming traffic.

c. dawson wrote:My only beef is that I wish they'd set them back a little further from the street, because at times it's hard to pull out of a street that has one on the corner, with the box blocking the view of incoming traffic.

CD

They are a nightmare for moving into traffic. Nearly everywhere they have put them kills line of site around corners or for on coming traffic. Some like the ones on Cove create a wall you cannot see around and pull into traffic blindly.

The one on Donald humms so loud you can here it over 100' away, and many believe this is a prelude to the explosion and fire that occurs.

On the flipside, rumor has Dennis Dun, the man behind the boxes moving out of Lakewood! Well ahhhh errr ahhh errr thanks I guess.

Maybe he will take the boxes with him?


.

Jim O'Bryan wrote:

c. dawson wrote:My only beef is that I wish they'd set them back a little further from the street, because at times it's hard to pull out of a street that has one on the corner, with the box blocking the view of incoming traffic.

The one on Donald humms so loud you can here it over 100' away, and many believe this is a prelude to the explosion and fire that occurs.
.

Maybe that is what we need... more boxes on fire...