Clearwire bringing noise to a street near you…
Stephanie pointed me to this KATU story on noisy Clear Wireless cell devices.
I was excited about some real competition to Comcast in my neighborhood, especially after fighting with them for two months over bandwidth problems introduced by equipment “upgrades” back in December 2008. But, I have to admit, equipment such as this Clear cell device shows a lack of respect for the citizens of Portland, and it also indicates that the city needs to review its noise regulations (Title 18) if a device like this is actually deemed to meet codes.
A few years back I actually submitted a few complaints to Portland’s Noise Control Office regarding the karaoke bar next door to my house that went thump-thump-thump until 2am every Saturday night for a year. It was clear to me at that time that the regulations were insufficient and the office was overworked. It would appear nothing has changed.
I’m glad to see that KATU has produced a story on this, but I suspect more citizen action is needed to get a solution for it. What can we do? Boycotting Clear will hurt another goal of mine: better internet service competition in Portland. So it seems to me that the only option is to push on the city to enforce better noise regulation on these devices.