Re: fiber cut 19 May/PM -> 20 May/AM in Ashburn, VA (lawnmower?!)

[sgorman1 () gmu edu]

This is from a previous thread on the topic of fiber cuts but I thought it fit this discussion well, epsecially since 
it concerns Verizon.  Apologize for not being able to recall who originally posted it - only have the citation.

In an August 5th, 2003 court case involving the Maine Public Utility Commission an expert witness from Verizon stated 
that only 10% of the fiber rings in Maine are fully redundant, and 90% are at least partially collapsed and vulnerable 
to single cut failures (Maine PUC, 2003)

Maine PUC, 2003, “Docket Number 2002243”  http://www.state.me.us/mpuc/misctranscripts/2002-243%20080503.htm 

Appears it should not be a suprise at all it was not redundant.  On a related note another researcher at GMU has 
collected all the outage reports that "were" posted on the FCC website and put them in a database form, and we are 
going to try and run correlations between outage location and the density of fiber located there.  

----- Original Message -----
From: Joe Abley <jabley () isc org>
Date: Friday, May 21, 2004 10:23 am
Subject: Re: fiber cut 19 May/PM -> 20 May/AM in Ashburn, VA (lawnmower?!)

> On 21 May 2004, at 08:09, Robert E. Seastrom wrote:
>
> > sonet, obviously, does not *have* to be in a ring, but it often is.
> > unfortunately, a fair percentage of the time, the additional
> > protection offered by a ring topology is a mirage, due to a
> > configuration known as "collapsed backbone".  in this instance, both
> > pairs of fiber ride in the same conduit for some portion of the
> > distance
>
> ... or even as two wavelengths on the same pair of fibre.
>
> It's a sick, sick, twisted world.
>
>
> Joe