Undersea fiber cut after Taiwan earthquake - PCCW / Singtel / KT e tc connectivity disrupted

Fri Dec 29 02:28:36 UTC 2006

There are significant cable landing sites at Pacific City and at 
Nedonna Beach near Rockaway, Oregon, not far from here in Portland.
They connect variously to Japan, Hawaii (and Australia), Alaska
and California.

Quite a bit about these cable terminuses can be found at the
Oregon Fishermen's Cable Committee web site.

www.ofcc.com/cable_locations.htm

The OFCC worked closely from the mid-1990s onward with at least
three cable operators, Tyco, Alaska Northstar and Southern Cross
(which has the main US-Australia loops).  They have a special
agreement that basically amounts to a collaborative approach to 
actual or potential cable snags by trawlers.  

The background makes for interesting reading.  "The Oregon 
Fishermen's Undersea Cable Committee Agreement (Oregon 
Fishermen's Agreement) is the first effort by two industries to 
discuss, describe and delineate their shared use of a community 
resource -- the ocean . . . The Oregon Fishermen's Agreement is 
intended to prevent damage to the fiber optic cable by releasing 
a Participating Fisherman from possible civil liability for ordinary 
negligence to WCICI/ANC/NorthStar Network under defined 

circumstances rather than by relying on fear and litigation."

www.ofcc.com/about_ofcc.htm

There's also an International Cable Protection Committee with what
looks like a pretty complete listing of all active, retired and planned
cable routes at:

www.iscpc.org

-- fh 

-----------------
>
>Frank Coluccio wrote:
>> 
>> Kidding aside, these "errors" are actually intentional, and the publisher makes
>> no bones about it at the bottom of the page. See disclaimer under the South
>> Atlantic Ocean:
>> 
>> "Cable Routes do not represent all subsea cable networks and do not reflect
>> actual location of cables"
>
>The relevant charts and or current navigation software have the cables
>well marked because mariners have an obligation under several
>international treaties (going back to 1884) not to hit them... If you
>have the tools to go on a "fishing trip" you have the tools to find the
>cable.  If you obfuscate the location of cables I can plead ignorance
>when I drag it up with my achor.
>
>http://mapserver.maptech.com/mapserver/nautical_symbols/L4.html
>
>Like with back-hoeing through fiber, if you think hitting a submarine
>cable is bad there's plenty other stuff out there that has potentially
>disastrous consequences, gas lines, oil lines, well heads, high voltage
>power lines, and of course lots of other things that fall into the
>category of navigational hazards.
>
>joelja
>-- 
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Joel Jaeggli             Unix Consulting              joelja at uoregon.edu
>GPG Key Fingerprint:   5C6E 0104 BAF0 40B0 5BD3 C38B F000 35AB B67F 56B2
>