So-called “spaghetti wires” are one of the eyesores in a town or city that has become a target for cleanups by some public officials and it is interesting to see how much trash is being left on utility poles by the indifference of local government unit officials and telecom and cable companies who don’t know what it means to do a simple job properly or how to CLAYGO.
The most common solution to spaghetti wires is an exhaustive cleanup effort that involves personnel getting up on utility poles, finding which wires are no longer in use, and then pulling those wires out to clean up the unsightliness that has been hanging overhead for years. This is honestly quite scary for those who live or work in the areas being operated on because if they make a mistake and cut the wrong wires, it could result in annoying service disruptions.
That is one of the things that makes the job of cleaning up spaghetti wires impressive, because the people who are righting the wrong have to figure out how to do it in a manner that is safe and does not result in service interruptions. It’s probably like being given a ball of yarn that has been jumbled and knotted up by a toddler and being told to undo the damage. Aside from that, they have to do it under the heat of the sun and at dangerous heights, often in the middle of busy city streets. For that, kudos goes to the personnel trying to fix spaghetti wire problems.
One of the grand solutions being presented for spaghetti wires is putting wires underground. While it is a nice and neat way of doing it, it is also quite complicated and expensive, and that is why Bacolod City will apparently do it for only a kilometer or so along its main street.
As for the rest of the city, or in places where the city government is not yet ready to employ the underground utility wire solution, there has to be a way to enforce discipline through legislation or ordinances to ensure that spaghetti wires don’t come back or get even worse.
With the way things already are, the first step would have to be the cleanup, because if the spaghetti wires are not removed, then there is no reason to try to make future installations neater. The next step would be for the LGU to impose penalties on companies that allow their wires to reach the state of spaghetti. This means that when customers terminate their wired connections, the telco or cable company responsible for those old wires have to ensure that it is cleaned up after the disconnection. They just can leave unused wires to collect and become unsightly hanging bundles of trash. If the company can install the wires, they should also uninstall it also when the contract is terminated. We teach our kids to clean up after themselves but how come the LGU forgot that simple rule?
Another cause of spaghetti wires are extra rolls of wire that are just hung on utility poles for some reason or another. We don’t know if its extra wire that has been hung up there while waiting for a purpose, or if it’s just cable installation teams being lazy and forgetful, but as long as there is no price or penalty for poor cable management, those eyesores won’t go away but will just pile and jumble up until they become unmanageably ugly, which is by then, too late.
Our communities are actually quite fortunate these days, when there are much less utility wires than before. Back in the day, there was so much more wiring needed. These days, most homes just need an electrical connection and an internet connection. No more wires for cable TV. And with so many services going wireless, a lot of homes and users don’t even have wires installed anymore. Most of the spaghetti wire problem probably comes from disconnected and legacy users, which, if cleaned up, should result in neater city skies. All that would be needed to maintain it would be discipline and penalties for violators.
Spaghetti wires wouldn’t be a problem in a community where people know that it is their duty to clean up after themselves. The problem is that most telcos and cable companies are very alert in making new connections but apathetic when it comes to cleaning up disconnected accounts, leaving the wires and cables to become trash on utility poles. Another wasteful practice is that there are so many already installed cables that could be reused, but most of the time, installers don’t bother to check and just run new cable all over again when a reconnection becomes necessary. With the help of technology, a way of identifying cables that could be reused would surely reduce the waste that we generate and leave hanging.*
