Thats not true - underground cabling has a longer lifespan as they’re protected from rainfall, surface temperatures and UV. Tree roots and flooding is a factor of maintenance and location. E.g. an inner city location is unlikely to experience flooding and roots can be guided away from cables as they follow path of least resistance.
In much of Europe, buried cables is the norm, and they co-locate with buried gas and water supplies. Telephone cables were the one exception but with fibre optic cables even that is largely underground now especially in dense urban areas.
Old copper telephone lines werent buried for convenience as they were easy to install out to new properties as and when needed. Every house needed water and electricity but telephone connections varied, and some buildings needed multiple. But this was just from pole to home. The poles connected to cabinets on a street and the rest of the network of trunks were buried, at least in much of Europe.
It does cost more initially but with the benefit of lower cost in maintenance long term.
In Japan cables are often above ground, but presumably because of Earthquake risk. In the US I dont know why buried cables is less common. Possibly because many utilities were private and so went for short term cheaper costs? Most European utilities were public owned - and even if now privatised, the expectation remains burying.
I was always taught maintenance wise that the insulation around underground cabling (which is necessary since earth is a great conductor) degrades and leads to a shorter maintanable life for the cables than above ground ones. I could be wrong, though.
Thats not true - underground cabling has a longer lifespan as they’re protected from rainfall, surface temperatures and UV. Tree roots and flooding is a factor of maintenance and location. E.g. an inner city location is unlikely to experience flooding and roots can be guided away from cables as they follow path of least resistance.
In much of Europe, buried cables is the norm, and they co-locate with buried gas and water supplies. Telephone cables were the one exception but with fibre optic cables even that is largely underground now especially in dense urban areas.
Old copper telephone lines werent buried for convenience as they were easy to install out to new properties as and when needed. Every house needed water and electricity but telephone connections varied, and some buildings needed multiple. But this was just from pole to home. The poles connected to cabinets on a street and the rest of the network of trunks were buried, at least in much of Europe.
It does cost more initially but with the benefit of lower cost in maintenance long term.
In Japan cables are often above ground, but presumably because of Earthquake risk. In the US I dont know why buried cables is less common. Possibly because many utilities were private and so went for short term cheaper costs? Most European utilities were public owned - and even if now privatised, the expectation remains burying.
I was always taught maintenance wise that the insulation around underground cabling (which is necessary since earth is a great conductor) degrades and leads to a shorter maintanable life for the cables than above ground ones. I could be wrong, though.