View Full Version : Fiber Optic proposal for Yellow and Grand Teton
Fiber Optic proposal for Yellow and Grand Teton
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/11/05/fiber_optic_proposal_for_yellowstone_and_grand_tet on_cellphones_and_national.html
The concept of wilderness continues to evolve. People want connectivity.
Man, I just found out Rock Creek Park near Unaka Mt. has wi-fi now. It was a genuine *** moment when I saw the sign. I mean - that's crazy. You can get 4G 2 miles down the road if you just have to have it.
Part of the push from WiFi in Yellowstone and Teton, at least according to the article, is from the hospitality industry.
As with many things in life, it comes down to revenue generation.
Ed Abbey wrote a wonderful little bit about industrial tourism back in Desert Solitaire. With each passing year, this polemic seems to be more true.
In many respects, the contractors that run the restaurants and hotels in the national parks run the parks themselves. The book "Yosemite: the Embattled Wilderness" by Alfred Runte has an excellent accounting of how the concessionaires in Yosemite essentially dictated park policy for decades. It's infuriating how the NPS, like so many other government agencies, has been "captured" by the industries it's supposed to regulate.