Let's string wires on poles down every street in the nation and use them to put a device in every home that allows anyone in the world to ring a loud bell at any hour, day or night.
pathetic. the real money is if we blanket the planet in radio from high towers and poles, create thousands of types of mostly-incompatible portable wallet-sized devices that provide this ring-a-loud-bell functionality, make them requisite for daily life so everyone must purchase one to the tune of hundreds of dollars per year and keep it on their person, and then create an automated system that randomly rings every device multiple times per day trying to steal money. oh also they spy on everyone constantly and deliver incredibly volatile cognitohazards if you so much as look at them.
and we'll move on from this when we develop cheap brain implants that are even worse
Still sounds partly crazy to me (German). All those lines on poles in the US, I think the only lines here that are above ground are these super high voltage long distance power lines, anything else is underground (and safe from weather etc.)
Geology is one reason. Many major urban areas in the western US have a layer of caliche under the surface. Digging through 1m+ of natural concrete makes underground lines even more hideously expensive than they would otherwise be.
and we'll move on from this when we develop cheap brain implants that are even worse