FYI

Sun Jan 5 01:53:33 UTC 2003

This was in my mailbox, might be old news to you, but a FYI


>Coastal area silenced by cable break
>
>   01/04/03  Portland Oregonian
>
>   JEFFREY KOSSEFF
>
>   A fiber-optic line break cut off the southern Oregon coast from the
>rest of the world for much of
>   Friday.
>
>   After a state cleanup crew accidentally tore a
>   CenturyTel fiber-optic cable at 9:30 a.m., residents and
>   businesses from Reedsport to Brookings couldn't make
>   or receive phone calls outside of the area or connect to
>   the Internet.
>
>   CenturyTel crews fixed the cable just before 5 p.m.,
>   spokeswoman Carol Allen said.
>
>   "I've been dying for my e-mail all day," Joseph Whitsett,
>   mayor-elect of Bandon, said after phone service was
>   restored.
>
>   Most urban areas have more than one fiber line
>   connecting local phone systems to long-distance
>   networks, but less-populated regions typically depend
>   on one fiber route. The outage demonstrates the need
>   for companies to build multiple lines, creating backup
>   networks, telecommunications experts said.
>
>   An Oregon Department of Transportation crew clearing
>   debris from a mudslide near Camas Valley on Friday
>   morning cut a cable that connects the south coast to a network hub in
>Roseburg.
>
>   Ted Paselk, an ODOT district manager, said before his workers dug
>along Oregon 42, they gave
>   appropriate notice to a statewide utility hot line that locates
>underground utilities. They weren't told of
>   the CenturyTel cable, he said.
>
>   Neither Allen nor Paselk knew who would pay for the repair.
>
>   "Usually, when a locate is called and they clear us in an area, then
>we're not paying the bill," Paselk
>   said.
>
>   Residents along the 135-mile stretch of the coast could call one
>another, but they could not call
>   outside the area, said Melissa Barran, a spokeswoman for Verizon, the
>local phone company for
>   most of the south coast region. Verizon connects its 50,000 area phone
>lines to the long-distance
>   network over CenturyTel's cable.
>
>   Calls to spots such as North Bend were met with a recorded message:
>"Due to local telephone
>   company trouble in the area you are calling, your call cannot be
>completed at this time. Please try
>   your call later."
>
>   Besides blocking long-distance and Internet access for residents in
>the region, the outage kept other
>   callers and Internet users from reaching phones or Web sites in the
>area.
>
>   Although cell phones don't require wires, long-distance cell-phone use
>was out because cell towers
>   connect to the long-distance phone network over the CenturyTel cable.
>
>   Unless residents had costly phone or Internet connections via
>satellite, they were unable to
>   communicate with the rest of the state, nation and world.
>
>   "We're just sitting at the mercy of the repair crews," said Joseph
>Gayer, director of strategic
>   relations at Bend-based Edge Wireless, a rural cell-phone carrier
>whose 9,000 customers in Coos
>   and Curry counties lost long-distance service as a result of the fiber
>cut.
>
>   Such outages have become more common since fiber-optic cable became
>the main method of
>   transporting long-distance calls over the past decade, Gayer said.
>Without more than one fiber line
>   in the same area, they will continue, he said.
>
>   But laying fiber costs money, and many telecom carriers are reeling
>from fiber-overbuilding in urban
>   areas. The largest investments in redundant loops came from the
>state's largest local phone
>   company, Qwest Communications International. It spent $70 million on
>network upgrades, including
>   five redundant fiber-optic loops throughout the state.
>
>   In exchange for that improvement and investments in school technology,
>the state deregulated
>   Qwest's profits.
>
>   "Absent that kind of win-win situation for the company and the state,
>it makes it very difficult to have
>   a business case (that will) pencil out that says, 'This is a good use
>of capital dollars," said Judy
>   Peppler, Qwest's president for Oregon. "You're going to have some idle
>capacity at all times. But on
>   the other hand, you don't have these outages."
>
>   Qwest has completed construction of three of the fiber rings, and it
>will finish the other two by
>   October. The backup networks have averted at least two outages in
>rural areas.
>
>   "It is obviously very valuable, especially when you have businesses
>that rely on your network,"
>   Peppler said.
>
>   Irv Emmons, senior telecommunications engineer for the Oregon Public
>Utility Commission, said
>   before Qwest built a backup network in Eastern Oregon, a farmer in
>Madras cut the area's main fiber
>   cable a few times a year.
>
>   "That used to isolate all of Eastern Oregon," Emmons said.
>
>   Allen of CenturyTel said redundancy is "always of a high priority,"
>but she did not know whether
>   backup networks were in the works for the south coast area.