Fiber cut in SF area

Mon Apr 13 20:53:00 UTC 2009

>>> On 4/13/2009 at 1:12 PM, Peter Beckman <beckman at angryox.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Apr 2009, Scott Weeks wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>> --- beckman at angryox.com wrote:
>>
>>>> I still think skipping the securing of manholes and access
>>>> points in favor of active monitoring with offsite access is a
>>>> better solution.
>>>
>>> The only thing missing from your plan was a cost analysis.  Cost of each,
>>> plus operational costs, * however many of each type.  How much would that
>>> be?
>>
>>  So, let's see.  I'm pulling numbers out of my butt here, but basing it on
>>  non-quantity-discounted hardware available off the shelf.
>> -----------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> Manpower to design, build, maintain, train folks and monitor in the NOC.
>> Costs of EMS, its maintenance.  blah, blah, blah...
> 
>   My estimates are for getting something off the ground, equipment-wise, not
>   operationally.
> 
>   What is the cost of the outages?

But would alarms prevent any, or what proportion, of these incidents?
>From what we know of this specific one, would an alarm have stopped
the perpetrator(s)? It would have bought the NOC five, ten minutes
tops before they got the alarm on the circuit. And in practice would
a manhole alarm translate to a call to Homeland Security to have
the SEALs descend the site pronto, a police unit to roll by when it
has the time, or is it going to be an AT&T truck rolling by between
calls? I'm guessing number two or three, probably three. So what
would it get them in this case. If it doesn't deter these guys,
who does it deter?

And what are the costs of false alarms? What will the ratio of
"real" alarms to false ones be? Maybe lower-stakes vandals take to
popping the edge of manhole covers as a little prank. Or that one
that triggers whenever a truck tire hits it right. Or the whole line
of them that go off whenever the temperature drops below freezing.
Or, what I am absolutely sure will happen, miscommunication between
repair crews and the NOC about which ones are being moved or field
crews opening them without warning the NOC (or even intra-NOC
communication). Will they be a boy who cried wolf?