PHILADELPHIA — The road to advanced video, Internet and phone services is bumpy — and the bumps can be almost as big as refrigerators.
As cable and phone companies race to upgrade services or offer video for the first time, they’re doing it by installing equipment in boxes on lawns, easements and curbs all over American neighborhoods. Telecommunications rollouts have always been messy, but several towns and residents are fighting back with cries of “Not in my front yard!”
AT&T Inc.’s nearly fridge-sized units, which route its new U-verse video product to customers, are drawing particular ire. A few have caught fire or even exploded. AT&T said it has fixed that by replacing the units’ backup batteries.
That’s not much comfort to David Crommie, who thinks the boxes are an eyesore. Crommie, who is president of a San Francisco neighborhood group called the Cole Valley Improvement Association, complained after seeing some boxes sprout in town and managed to delay AT&T’s plans to install up to 850. AT&T now is expected to reapply for an exemption to the city’s environmental-review procedures.
“We have nothing against the technology. We just don’t want that delivery system,” Crommie said. “It’s 19th-century packaging for 21st-century technology.”
AT&T’s rival Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable company, apparently thought so too. It ran ads in Illinois calling the cabinets “giant utility boxes.”
AT&T didn’t think it was funny and sued Comcast in March. The companies signed a standstill agreement in May.
Comcast has utility-box problems of its own. Several residents in Lower Makefield Township, about 30 miles northeast of Philadelphia, got upset when new green boxes from Comcast popped up around town, sometimes between driveways.
“All of a sudden we have cable boxes appear,” said 64-year-old resident Bernie Goldberg. “They seem to think our community is their open job site.”
