Nestled against the northwest side of Chicago, Park Ridge is a fairly unremarkable suburb—except for two things. First, I live there, which gives it a certain je ne sais quoi. Second, we have two truly high-speed broadband providers, and a third is about to arrive.

At its Committee of the Whole meeting earlier this month, the Park Ridge City Council voted to approve AT&T's bid to install 13 video-ready access devices (VRADs) throughout the suburb so that the telecom giant can bring its U-Verse Internet/TV/voice service to the upstanding residents of our fair city. Included in the franchise agreement is a lump-sum payment of $2,000 per VRAD to cover landscaping.

The VRADs are to be installed in public parkways (the space between the sidewalk and street) around town, including one at the end of my block. The $2,000 landscaping payments are due to the fact that the boxes are big (four feet tall and five feet wide) and ugly. While surrounding them with shrubbery won't camouflage them from residents upset about their locations, landscaping should make them less obnoxious to look at.

Interestingly, there's no language in the memorandum of understanding [PDF] forcing the city to use the money on landscaping:

The Payment(s) may be used by the City for screening and landscaping of AT&T’s Facilities, (and the maintenance of such screening and landscaping) following the restoration of the construction area by AT&T at its expense after the installation of the VRAD.

"As I understand it, we can take the money and run," 3rd Ward Alderman Jim Smith remarked, according to the Park Ridge Herald Advocate (via DSLReports.com).

That's unlikely, given there has been no small amount of outcry from residents faced with the prospect of unsightly VRADs being plunked down in front of (or on the side of) their houses. "Just found out that AT&T is trying to put a hideous box on our lawn," one of my neighbors wrote on our block's Facebook page in late August. "[W]orried about it not only being ugly as hell, but do not want the view of the alley blocked because it is dangerous."

My Alderman, the 5th Ward's Dan Knight, expressed reservations about that very location. "I have serious concerns about the sight-line issue," he told the Herald.

Some of the VRAD locations could still be moved but only if it's "technically feasible," an AT&T representative said at the council meeting. But moving a big metal box from one yard to another is only going shift the anger from house to house.

Judging by the exhibits attached to AT&T's memorandum (and the image at the top of this article), the landscaping doesn't do a whole heck of a lot to hide the VRADs; it just makes them slightly less unpleasant to look at. And if the city cuts funding for landscape maintenance—not out of the question given a multimillion-dollar redevelopment project gone wrong here—the VRADs and surrounding plants could easily become an eyesore.

Given the presence of Comcast (the long-entrenched incumbent) and WOW (which arrived in 2010), Park Ridge is hardly crying out for a third broadband alternative. Comcast tops out at 105Mbps around these parts and WOW offers a 50Mbps plan with a 12-month introductory rate about $20/month cheaper than Comcast (but with a slower upload speed). Judging by my own experience and that of my WOW-subscribing neighbors, people seem reasonably happy with the service options they have. But more competition is always a good thing.

From the standpoint of a pure bandwidth freak, AT&T's max speeds of 45Mbps (and you need to live within spitting distance of a VRAD to get those) don't look quite as interesting as they otherwise might, especially when you have to subscribe to a TV package to get it and the Internet is competing with HD video streams for available bandwidth. That said, I will readily admit that I'm not a typical, price-sensitive consumer. I don't bundle (I can only get my rugby fix from DirecTV and get dirt-cheap VoIP via an Ooma box). Looking at bundles, AT&T offers an 18Mbps Internet/TV/voice package for $180 per month after a two-year introductory price of $119. That same $180 will get me 30Mbps Internet, TV, and voice from Comcast. WOW is definitely the value provider, offering 30Mbps speeds paired with digital TV and phone for $105. Those looking to shave a few bucks off their bills now have the opportunity to play the companies off against one another.

With the City Council signing off on the deal, AT&T is free to come on in and compete. Franchise law in Illinois gives telecoms carte blanche to deploy network upgrades and VRADs even if towns don't want them, so there's little residents can do to block the box… landscaping or not.