US hunters shoot down Google fibre

Tue Sep 21 18:45:11 UTC 2010

On Tue, 21 Sep 2010 12:10:38 MDT, Kevin Neal said:
> How are the guys sent out on cross-country skis going to get up to the fiber
> to repair it?  I'm sure that the cable isn't low enough for them to reach it
> without a ladder, bucket truck, helicopter....  all of which you don't pack
> in on skis...

Of course it's easily reachable - it's been shot down and is on the ground.  If
it was still on the pole you wouldn't be out there on skis with a splice kit. :)

What I have to wonder about is how often hunter-inflicted damage is intentional
and located at the insulator (which makes for a good story) and how often it's
a totally accidental stray bullet nicking the cable many yards from the nearest
pole (which makes for a poor story).  I'd expect that since the fiber is
usually hung much closer to the ground, it would get hit a lot more than the
power cables higher up. Also, you're less likely to notice a 1mm divot taken
out of a (usually thicker and sturdier and essentially single fat conductor)
power cable than a 1mm divot out of a 48 pair.

(Consider that even today, it is *still* relatively common to visit some CIvil
War battlegrounds and find 2 bullets that hit each other in mid-air.  Of
course, most of those were probably going down a narrow cone pointed at the
source of the other bullet, but still, it indicates that with enough hunters
and enough bullets, somebody's going to nick that 300 miles of cable hanging
just a few yards above the deer....

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