Qwest Utah fiber cut
sgorman1 at gmu.edu
sgorman1 at gmu.edu
Fri May 21 20:16:40 UTC 2004
Now it makes sense - we were missing the fiber route along US HWY 89. We have data on their nation wide OC-192 network and metro fiber, but figured there was something we were missing. Also explains why other providers were not affected - it must be a unique right of way. Appreciate the help.
sean
----- Original Message -----
From: "Aaron D. Gifford" <agifford at infowest.com>
Date: Friday, May 21, 2004 3:39 pm
Subject: Re: Qwest Utah fiber cut
> sgorman1 at gmu.edu wrote:
> >
> > I was hoping someone might be able to shed some light on the
> Utah cut.
> >
> > The news report said that the cut happened near Monroe Utah,
> which is several miles off of I 70. Yet the cities that were
> reported effected included St. George, Cedar City, and Salt Lake,
> which all are adjacent to I 15.
> >
> > The puzzling part is that in our "best effort" database Qwest
> does not have long haul fiber running down I 70, but it does have
> a lot of fiber running down I 15. There is Qwest fiber on I 15,
> all the cities affected are on I 15 yet the reported cut was near
> Monroe off of I 70.
> >
> > I'm not familiar with Utah geogrpahy and this comes simply from
> looking at our maps. Just trying to sort out the seeming
> discrepency. Any insight?
> >
> <<snip>>
>
> According to this map at
> http://atlas.utah.gov/staticmapbin/urta_network.gif the Qwest
> fiber in
> question runs southward along I-15 from Salt Lake City, through
> Utah
> Valley (Provo, Utah, etc.) to Nephi, Utah, then turns eastward
> away from
> the I-15 corridor until it reaches highway 89, which it follows
> southward parallel to I-15 but one mountain range to the east. It
> continues southward along 89 until I-17, then follows I-70 until
> it ends
> where it meets I-15, where the fiber continues southward along I-
> 15 to
> St. George, Utah (where I'm at), the end-of-the-one-lane-dead-end
> road.
> This route would be consistent with the news reports saying the
> cut was
> near Monroe, Utah or near Richfield, Utah.
>
> Such a route would agree with the telecommunication territories as
> mapped out at http://atlas.utah.gov/telcom/viewer.htm which shows
> Qwest
> territories along I-15 except for the central Utah areas where
> Qwest's
> fiber follows highway 89 (which area IS a Qwest territory).
>
> While the news articles only mention that cellular, long distance,
> 911,
> and internet services were affected but local calling was not,
> this is
> not entirely true. As one affected by the cut, I can attest that
> the
> resulting additional load on the local switches (perhaps as people
> were
> calling each other to find out what was happening -- I don't know)
> made
> many phones utterly useless, including my own.
>
> A similar cut happened some years go around Springville, Utah. I
> had
> thought that Quest had since worked with local public safety folks
> to
> set up emergency 911 services that rely on the fiber to
> automatically
> fall-over to Qwest's older and lower bandwidth microwave network.
> Apparently that plan fell by the wayside, or else I misheard it in
> the
> first place.
>
> Local area public safety personnel resorted to using the Emergency
> Broadcast System over radio (television translators were also
> affected
> as many of them receive their video feeds over that same fiber) to
> tell
> citizens the direct-dial numbers, and in cases (like my home
> phone)
> where the phone system wasn't working at all (probably due to
> overload),
> local public safety folks told people to go to their nearest fire
> station for emergency help.
>
> Messages over local radio indicated that the outage not only
> affected
> southwestern Utah counties (almost 1/3 of the state by area), but
> Lincoln County, Nevada, and Mohave and Coconino Counties in
> Arizona
> (north of the Grand Canyon). I don't know how accurate that
> message was.
>
> Aaron out.
>
>
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