News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on What California Is Learning from Solar Panels Built over Irrigation Canals. Parent comment

Re:What California Is Learning from Solar Panels Built over ... by physicsguy on Wednesday September 23, 2026 @09:24AM (#49815744)
> I live in a European country, where the phone company hasn't bothered to come remove the old unused copper phone lines in the last 5 years. Thousands of dollars worth of cables running past my house alone, and no one has bothered to go strip it in the night and sell it

Isn't that because they're still flat out on rolling fibre out? There's not that many telecoms engineers and if they spend tons of time removing the old, that slows down the new.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:What California Is Learning from Solar Panels Built over ... by swiftcoder on Wednesday September 23, 2026 @11:38AM (#49817760)
> Isn't that because they're still flat out on rolling fibre out?

Spain's rollout is up in the last few percentage points (>95%) of fibre coverage, in this particular region we reached saturation of the entire rural area 5 years ago.

Plenty of time for those disconnected copper cables to go walkabout if anyone were so inclined. Realistically, in a region where the population skews older and most everyone owns property, it's probably not worth the risk to fence it

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:What California Is Learning from Solar Panels Built over ... by physicsguy on Wednesday September 23, 2026 @12:24PM (#49818483)
We're still quite some way off that in the UK. Copper lines still working though due to shut down by next year I think. Lots of older people with no internet left in the lurch with phone lines with that of course.
[ Parent | on HN ]