AT&T (NYSE: T) is once again finding itself in another fight with local residents over the aesthetic placement of their refrigerator-sized Video Ready Access Device (VRAD) boxes to deliver their VDSL2-based U-verse TV and data services to residential customers.
This time, the fight is taking place in Greensboro, NC where 38-year residents Doris and Dave Robinson were greeted with a surprise visit from an AT&T crew installing the VRAD boxes in their yard.
"It's just hard to believe that anyone can come onto our property, put something on the property we disapprove of and leave it on our property," Dave Robinson said. "It's just not right."
News about fights between AT&T deploying VRAD terminal boxes on local resident's front lawns, including most recently in San Francisco, is nothing new.
But according to an article in digitaltriad.com, there's not much residents like the Robinsons can do to prevent utilities and telcos like AT&T from installing infrastructure on their land if there's an easement on the property. These easements are typically granted for installing power and gas lines.
Not surprisingly, NC-based cable MSO Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) wasted no time in pointing out that while they continue to upgrade their network to support DOCSIS 3.0-based services, their infrastructure won't disturb residents because it's all underground.
"We have continued to upgrade our network. We're going to continue to do (so) without having to add large equipment into front yards or neighborhoods," Time Warner Cable spokesman Scott Pryzwansky promised.
For more:
- here's FierceCable's take
- digtriad.com has this article
- digtriad.com also has this follow up article
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