{"id":1890,"date":"2020-01-01T20:13:34","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T04:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southernoregonbusiness.com\/?p=1890"},"modified":"2020-01-01T20:13:39","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T04:13:39","slug":"unintended-consequences-how-amazon-is-disrupting-telephone-poles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southernoregonbusiness.com\/unintended-consequences-how-amazon-is-disrupting-telephone-poles\/","title":{"rendered":"Unintended Consequences: How Amazon is disrupting Telephone Poles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/tdSbnx7uLmwQXaBxfUgbnA0-yHlpXSibNcIJ7X-ydZdKDqIYQ-c-x1dXuQO6ehtyNLdaY3McB-eoFTNHEhCQyUzvo3Z32p-kceDwjeTj6JsdBoIfxlH3IBcRibe71inkd-7kfCk\" alt=\"unintended consequences\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/tdSbnx7uLmwQXaBxfUgbnA0-yHlpXSibNcIJ7X-ydZdKDqIYQ-c-x1dXuQO6ehtyNLdaY3McB-eoFTNHEhCQyUzvo3Z32p-kceDwjeTj6JsdBoIfxlH3IBcRibe71inkd-7kfCk\" alt=\"unintended consequences\"\/><\/noscript><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>By Mark Schaefer<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This week the New York Times did a long, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/11\/30\/business\/amazon-baltimore.html\">investigative report on how Amazon<\/a> has weaved its way into nearly every aspect of life in the city of Baltimore \u2014 government, education, politics, economics, and employment, to name a few. The city is mostly positive about its dependence on this gigantic company, but there were also a few unintended consequences!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I experienced this myself. I live far away from Baltimore. In fact, I live in the country but Amazon is disrupting life even here. They are disrupting our telephone poles!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Big trucks, unintended consequences<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few months ago, a big DHL delivery truck dropped off a package at our home, which is situated at the end of a long driveway, at the bottom of a hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the truck was going back up the hill, somehow the top of the vehicle got caught on the electrical wires strung from a telephone pole to our house. It was dark outside but I could tell something was wrong. When I walked to the top of the hill, I saw that a live electrical wire was on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even stranger, I turned my flashlight to the top of the truck and saw that the caught wire had peeled back the top of the truck like a can of sardines!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The driver took one look at it and said, \u201cI\u2019m sure glad we have insurance!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The headline of this article promises news about how Amazon is involved in all of this, so let\u2019s get to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A tall tale<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Police and emergency vehicles arrived at the driveway scene and eventually, the truck was safely untangled from the wire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But now, I had to get the wire to my house repaired. The electric company said they would put in a temporary fix but that they would have to come back and put in a whole new, larger telephone pole, which appeared to be fine to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They explained:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For decades, the electric company has used 30-foot poles. That provided more than enough room for any traditional delivery vehicle \u2014 like a mail truck \u2014 to navigate a residential neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But in the last 10 years, home deliveries from Amazon and other eCommerce sites have increased at such a rapid pace that bigger trucks have been coming into residential neighborhoods to keep up with the delivery volume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Apparently, my situation was not unusual. These trucks are getting caught by wires with regularity,&nbsp;causing the electric company to replace the traditional pole with one that is 10 feet taller \u2014 40 feet!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Unintended consequences<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A new 40-foot pole costs about $500, not including labor. For fun, let\u2019s throw another $500 in there for labor (conservative) to make it an even $1,000 to replace a pole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Think about how much it\u2019s adding to our utility bills. Eventually, every telephone pole in a residential neighborhood will have to be replaced with the 40-footers and that cost will have to be recouped somehow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are eight poles on my street, serving five houses. That would be an assessment of $1,600 per household in this little thought experiment. Sort of an Amazon tax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyway, I thought it was interesting. Who would have thought the electric bill is going up because we\u2019re buying jeans from Amazon?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/zqZfq5qblVreU6WV1zERTuW41lntTGzQ5JFX65ZVnW2PEgG0Woom14eN4zFlbAZMBKZdlAMv-sxVcqn2-ADhSSYjTaDJUD5fLdKDpJBo-Ih-iuG5lIIUMnHQymrxW4FogDBjMGg\" alt=\"Keynote speaker Mark Schaefer\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/zqZfq5qblVreU6WV1zERTuW41lntTGzQ5JFX65ZVnW2PEgG0Woom14eN4zFlbAZMBKZdlAMv-sxVcqn2-ADhSSYjTaDJUD5fLdKDpJBo-Ih-iuG5lIIUMnHQymrxW4FogDBjMGg\" alt=\"Keynote speaker Mark Schaefer\"\/><\/noscript><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Mark Schaefer is the chief blogger for this site, executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, and the author of several best-selling&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/social-media-marketing-books\/\"><em>digital marketing books<\/em><\/a><em>. He is an acclaimed&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/social-media-speaker\/\"><em>keynote speaker<\/em><\/a><em>, college educator, and business consultant. &nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/podcast-the-marketing-companion-2\/\"><em>The Marketing Companion podcast<\/em><\/a><em>&nbsp;is among the top business podcasts in the world.&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/businessesgrow.com\/contact\/\"><em>Contact Mark<\/em><\/a><em>&nbsp;to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Illustration courtesy of Unsplash.com<\/em><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Mark Schaefer This week the New York Times did a long, investigative report on how Amazon has weaved its way into nearly every aspect of life in the city of Baltimore \u2014 government, education, politics, economics, and employment, to name a few. The city is mostly positive about its dependence on this gigantic company,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[16,11,15],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Unintended Consequences: How Amazon is disrupting Telephone Poles - Southern Oregon Business Journal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/southernoregonbusiness.com\/unintended-consequences-how-amazon-is-disrupting-telephone-poles\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Unintended Consequences: How Amazon is disrupting Telephone Poles - Southern Oregon Business Journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Mark Schaefer This week the New York Times did a long, investigative report on how Amazon has weaved its way into nearly every aspect of life in the city of Baltimore \u2014 government, education, politics, economics, and employment, to name a few. 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