Convergence Faces NIMBY

JIM BARTHOLD

The NIMBY has always bothered the telecommunications industry.

A NIMBY says "Not In My Back Yard" when a service provider tries to install network electronics. With an increased number of companies competing in today's affluent suburbs, there's no place for these electronics to hide - literally - thus the NIMBY is more than a small-time problem for those who install and protect electronics.

"A lot of customers are putting things sub-surface," says Drew Zogby, VP-marketing for Channell Commercial. "We'll actually create air and water-tight enclosures that can go sub-surface. They can just pop open a little handle, pull up the equipment above ground, work on it, then put it back below ground, and it solves the aesthetics issues."

Zogby is not overly alarmed at the wave of NIMBYs who are unwilling to see multiple service providers cross the digital divide via their suburban landscaping.

The Midwest, for example, he says, is a place where competition is fueling more than just lower prices.

"In some of the Chicago suburbs you have the Ameritech telephone network; the Ameritech cable TV network; the TCI (now AT&T Broadband) network and one of these new rebuilders who have come to town," he says. "You have four networks - physical networks - running down your street."

Electronics have to go somewhere.

"Believe me, the overall quality of the plant becomes a bigger issue, but it's something for us to deal with," he says.

Some approaches use closures that resemble large boulders enhancing the look of suburban lawns. Zogby's seen them, but he is not impressed.

"The most important thing for us is the structural integrity of the product, its longevity and its ability to dissipate the heat and provide security," he says. "Some of the boulders and all that are not really engineered to do these jobs."

Channell offers "a whole range of custom colors that are actually in a finish like brick stone or granite stone," he says. "That seems to fulfill the same purpose, and customers are pleased with that."

Nevertheless, he says, the NIMBY problem "doesn't go away; it's managed."

Aesthetics, Zogby emphasizes, are only the first obstacles facing those who must enclose and protect today's high-tech electronics. In the recent past, he says, it was easy to hang an amplifier and let the breezes cool its electronics. Underground equipment creates a new dynamic.

"The dissipation of heat without necessarily using fans and air conditioners in an enclosure is a very key issue," he says.

Heat wears out electronics, so they "fail prematurely and become a maintenance nightmare," he adds. "We have to have our ducks in a row to understand how we're going to get the maximum heat away from electronics when you stick it in something that's covered up, as opposed to something that's in the air."

It's an old problem with a new twist.

"We're right in the thick of a lot of the next-generation platforms that are being put out in the field," he says. "Heat dissipation, security, proper bed radius management, all those types of things require new packaging for these electronics."

Hopefully, too, they're attractive enough to soothe NIMBY feathers.