

How Amsterdam was wired for open access fiber - e1ven
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/how-amsterdam-was-wired-for-open-access-fiber.ars

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anigbrowl
One relevant factoid is that going underground is far cheaper in Amsterdam
than in many other places. A great part of the city does not have tarmac
roads, but rather tiled roads of bricks resting on sand. The surface is easy
to drive on and extremely well-maintained.

So when you go out at night it's common to see work crews building new
infrastructure by lifting up the bricks and piling them to one side, digging
up the sand and working on pipes and conduits, followed by replacement of the
sand and the bricks. By 7am or so they have gone, the street looks exactly the
same as it did the day before, and the next night they return and do it all
over again farther up the street. They make relatively little noise, traffic
is largely undisturbed, and the construction crews operate with military-like
discipline.

Not a very portable solution, but one that infrastructure planners might do
well to consider for long-term development. Very practical people, the Dutch.

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pan69
That is correct. I'm from the Netherlands but I now live in Australia. Here in
Sydney they seem to find it best practice to construct the pavement out of
concrete. Every time work needs to be done on pipes they bring out "the heavy
machinery" and you get two days of drilling and dust. When they're done, they
patch up the hole with tarmac!

Sometimes however, you do see pavements that are made out tiled bricks which
seemingly could be lifted up. But don't be fooled. These bricks are cemented
in as well as is of course demonstrated by the patches of .... tarmac.

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d_c
It will be interesting to see how the different ISPs want to differentiate
their offerings to private customers and local businesses.

