Northern California fires and telecomm outages

Wed Oct 18 14:08:11 UTC 2017

On 10/17/2017 03:19 PM, Seth Mattinen wrote:
>
> Out of curiosity, why weren't there any existing emergency/last-resort 
> microwave links already in place? It seems to be known that this cable 
> is a single point of failure ahead of time. Were there previous plans 
> to set up any microwave links that got put on the back burner or 
> canceled?
>
> Is there too much focus on fiber being the only option? IMO it's 
> harder for a fire to destroy a microwave path vs. a fiber path, and 
> some capacity is better than no capacity.
>
> ~Seth
>
>

The ATT building where we have collocation already however, would be 
quick and easy to add microwave, but they formally resist that idea and 
are of the position that we don't have the right to do so, despite it 
being in our interconnection agreement. They are digging in their heels 
and will have be addressed by the regulatory authority, which is not a 
quick process.  The cost of pulling a new cable to another building that 
has sufficient line of sight, is prohibitive. Not impossible, but could 
add six figures to the cost, and therefore is not realistic.

Mike-