Outside plant protection, fiber cuts, interwebz down oh noes!

Fri Apr 10 06:13:43 UTC 2009

deleskie at gmail.com wrote:
> Not to turn this into an ethical typ discussion but this arguement
> would have to assume you could sue the telco not the 'vandal' due to
> a loss of life if it occured, and that, that dollar amt would be
> greater then 'securing' all cables.

Internet lawyering is a different mailing list...

joel

> The cost to fix all pintos' gas tanks was only $11 per car unit and
> it was gambled, though they lost it was cheeper then the lawsuits,
> I'm betting the while fewer units, its order of magnatitudes more
> then 11$ per unit to 'secure' access points with a lot less certain
> negative lawsuit outcomes. Sent from my BlackBerry device on the
> Rogers Wireless Network
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Ravi Pina <ravi at cow.org>
> 
> Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:51:16 To: JC Dill<jcdill.lists at gmail.com> 
> Cc: nanog at nanog.org<nanog at nanog.org> Subject: Re: Outside plant
> protection, fiber cuts, interwebz down oh noes!
> 
> 
> On Thu, Apr 09, 2009 at 10:22:41PM -0700, JC Dill wrote:
>> Ravi Pina wrote:
>>> That said one would *hope* vault access is not trivial and there
>>> are mechanisms in place to alert of unauthorized, unlawful entry.
>>> 
>> I regularly drove on these roads when these lines were being put in
>>  up-and-down the SF Peninsula.  There are 4 manhole covers every
>> 1/4 mile or so that provide access to this fiber.  Do the math.
>> Multiply by the number of miles of fiber runs across the world, and
>> the number of access points per mile on each run.  Exactly how do
>> you plan to make "vault access non-trivial" and yet make the access
>> as easy as it needs to be for routine maintenance and repair?
> 
> Having never been in a vault or know how to get in one other than 
> apparently lifting a manhole cover I can't possible answer that with
> anything more than guessing.
> 
>> My guess is that it is probably less expensive in the long run to
>> leave them unprotected and just fix the problems when they occur
>> than to try to "secure" the vaults and deal with the costs and
>> extended outage delays when access it "secured" and it takes longer
>> to get into a vault to fix things.
> 
> I wasn't thinking Exodus/C&W/SAVVIS/Whoever level security, but 
> considering communications cables traverse such sites it is hardly 
> unreasonable to think they could implement some alarm that is 
> centrally monitored by a NOC.  I'm guessing *anything* is better than
> what appears to be the *nothing* that is in place now.
> 
> Also not to get sensationalist, but less expensive than a life that 
> could be lost if an emergency call can't be put through?
> 
> -r
> 
> 