Phone failure reveals system weakness

[Thunderbolt]

DELTA, Colo. -- A near total telephone communications blackout that silenced the North Fork and Surface Creek Valley areas for over five hours on Nov. 12 revealed a weak link in the county communications infrastructure. Early this week, meetings had been scheduled with first responders and emergency services to evaluate the disruption, to begin taking steps to deal with it more effectively in the future, and to try and prevent a recurrence.

http://www.deltacountyindependent.c...eals-system-weakness&catid=34:delta&Itemid=72

 

[kb2vxa]

There's nothing at all unusual here, buried utilities are not immune to damage. Here we have yet another case of an equipment operator who failed to "call before you dig", this time no sparks and no Darwin Award. Then there are instances of "someone needs to be shot" like happened here a few years ago. The short version is a blown fuse and faulty "trouble alarm" led to a cascade failure of a major switching center that blacked out a wide area of northern NJ for half a day. That's what happens when routine testing and maintenance fails.

 

[poltergeisty]

Given Delta's population is around 8,000 and the following statistics for 2006:

* Fatal accident count: 2
* Vehicles involved in fatal accidents: 5
* Fatalities: 2
* Persons involved in fatal accidents: 5;

Then figure about 60% (4,800) of the population probably owns a cell phone*, I don't think this outage was very threatening to public safety. Is it bad? yes, but make it a huge deal? What are they gonna do? Run a separate line?

To think a few times before in the past, ATC had to use their own cell phones to coordinate air traffic when a fiber optic line was cut.

*Given this fiber optic line doesn't carry cell calls.

 

[NeFire242]

Ah yes, the 'ole analog wire finder.

 

[Thayne]

This was really not a catastrophe; Most of the state fiber system thru the large population centers is a self healing fiber ring, but smaller areas, (population wise) are served by radials or stubs because it would be cost prohibitive to do it any other way. The only bad thing is that tearing up one fiber route will bring down more things than ever before.
I assume the DTRS is redundant in that the fiber is backed up by microwave and of course generators at each site. I have noticed at times that even POTS is affected by the phone companies using the internet to save money instead of the old Ma Bell way--

 

[mastr]

One of the best educational tools for operator of the above pictured equipment is to present him/her with a bill, the bottom line of which contains lots of trailing zeros. You know you are in the ballpark when the face turns colors, the jaw drops and hands tremble.

 

[kb2vxa]

"I have noticed at times that even POTS is affected by the phone companies using the internet to save money instead of the old Ma Bell way--"

Huh? And what do you think carries the internet? It never was and never will be a separate network, it's carried by the telephone network via multiplex, it's ALL digital.

 

[poltergeisty]

NeFire242's wire finder raises a question. How do you trace fiber? Besides the signs and maybe precise GPS mapping you can't use a pancake tracer (for lack of a better word), its glass! :lol: Maybe via the steel armor? Now of course in this instance they know where to dig. But suppose you need to dig somewhere how do they flag it?


kb2vxa, one acronym, FIOS. :lol:

This image is classic.

 

[Thayne]

Fiber installations are usually traced by an extra tape or wire pulled in at initial installation. I suppose some Fiber may also have that as part of the fiber bundle. Most fiber is done by directional boring, then pulled thru a plastic raceway that is pulled in when the directional bit is withdrawn.
Anyone digging is supposed to call before digging to give any utilities a few days to mark their stuff, whether pipes, or electrical or communications. Fines are mandatory if rules aren't followed, but the people that do the marking often make mistakes. One time I was at a site where a dude fixing a sewer line pulled up a 500 pair phone cable & didn't know what it was. He just went back to Mexico rather than pay up.

 

[Viper43]

This kind of thing happens daily. Even in the good old days when I was dispatching our consoles went down for 4 days when workers on a bridge cut the phone lines with a torch. The lines went to the tower 5 miles away on a mountain top. We had to dispatch police using portables which was imposible in some areas of the county and we couldn't dispatch any fire/ambulance during that time, the county had to do it. It made for a real mess but we got through it. Fortunately the actual phones into the dept. were on a seperate set of lines that ran on the other side of the same bridge.

V