Village of Itasca on AT&T Project Lightspeed Boxes

[Jonathan Kramer]

From the Village of Itasca Website

AT&T vs. THE VILLAGE OF ITASCA If you haven’t already noticed, the large and shockingly pink boxes located around town are a way to draw your attention to the proposal by AT&T to locate ground mounted and over-sized utility cabinets on public rights-of-way near our homes and businesses.


The Village information campaign is designed to provide a graphic display to our residents and businesses depicting the size of the cabinets proposed by AT&T. The Village believes that the placement of these utility cabinets in locations to be determined by AT&T will be disruptive to our health, safety, welfare and quality of life.

While the Village only painted the boxes pink to capture your attention, AT&T wants to place the utility cabinets of similar size, measuring approximately 63 inches high, 43 inches wide and 25 inches deep, in parkway areas and other right-of-way locations near you. The utility cabinets are part of the infrastructure AT&T wants to install in order to provide residents with an internet based network to deliver cable television, broadband and voice services via a fiber optic network.

Last year, the Village of Itasca Board of Trustees passed a moratorium on the construction of oversized utility cabinets like our pink versions. Other municipalities such as Geneva, Wheaton and Roselle, passed similar suspensions on the installation on the oversized utility cabinets. AT&T has taken a hard line against communities that passed moratoria on the placement of oversized utility cabinets on the public rights-of-way. In response, the telephone giant filed suit against the Village of Itasca.


AT&T is aggressively marketing its position as a way to compete with Comcast cable. Comcast invested heavily in putting most of its infrastructure underground or along power and telephone poles. AT&T wants to circumvent this costly investment. There is no doubt that Village of Itasca is interested in upgrading technology and allowing competition, but not at the cost of threatening the safety and/or aesthetics of our community. We feel the placement of these oversized utility boxes on your street, or possibly in front of your home, are not worth the price of another method of cable access.

Eventually, the Village will remove these brightly colored boxes. However, unless we garner support from our residents they may be replaced by the monstrous utility boxes envisioned by AT&T.

How can you get involved? In this newsletter are correspondence addressed to your state senators and state representatives. Your state legislators have a say in how AT&T will implement this service through future legislation addressing statewide cable franchising. Please mail your letters to the officials listed below.

The Village Board also encourages you to write your own letters. Residents can return them to the Village of Itasca Municipal Complex or place them in the water bill drop-off box in the parking lot. We will be certain to mail them for you. Additional materials can be found on our website at Itasca.com. Legislators often listen to their constituents. Please take the time to express your opposition to AT&T’s assault on our community.


The Village of Itasca believes that competition for internet and video services is highly beneficial to consumers. The actions taken by the Village of Itasca to impose a moratorium on the installation of over-sized utility boxes is in no way related to a plan of action designed to protect the cable industry. Rather, the Village of Itasca possesses legitimate public concerns regarding the negative effect of placing large ground mounted utility cabinets in the public easements and private rights-of ways in our community. This information campaign by the Village of Itasca is an effort to fully inform the public regarding the size and placement of cabinets proposed by AT&T.

Should you have any questions, I can be reached by e-mail at mayor@itasca.com or 773-0835.