RE: Fiber cut in SF area

[<chris.ranch () nokia com>]

Hi Peter,

You wrote:
>  So, let's see.  I'm pulling numbers out of my butt here, 

<snip> 

>  Total cost...is about $3000 per mile for equipment

<snip>

> It could run on an overhead monorail

<snip>

> Network it all

<snip>

> Confickr-type domains to make sure 

I get the feeling you haven't deployed or operated large networks.  You never did say what the multiplier was.  How 
many miles or detection nodes there were.  Think millions.  The number that popped into my head when thinking of active 
detection measures for the physical network is $billions.

Joel is right: the thing about the outdoors is there's a lot of it.  The cost over time investment of copper and fiber 
communucations networks, power transmission networks, cable transmission networks is pretty well documented elsewhere.  
Google around a little for them.  The investment is tremendous.

All for a couple of minutes advanced notice of an outage?  Would it reduce the risk?  No.  Would it reduce the MTBF or 
MTTR?  No.  Of all outages, how often does this scenario (or one that would trigger your alarm) occur?  I'm sure it's 
down on the list.

> > Then amortize that out to our bills.  Extra credit: would 
> you pay for it?
>
>  Assuming bills in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per 
> month, maybe to
>  the millions of dollars, and then figure out what an outage costs you
>  according to the SLAs.
>
>  Then figure out how much a breach and subsequent fiber cut 
> costs you in
>  SLA payouts or credits, multiply by 25%, and that's your 
> budget.  If the
>  proposed system is less, why wouldn't you do it?

SLA's account for force de majure (including sabotage), so I really doubt there will be any credits.  In fact, there 
will likely be an uptick on spending as those who really need nines build multi-provider multi-path diversity.  Here 
come the microwave towers!

>  The idea is inspired by the way Google does their datacenters -- use
>  cheap, off-the-shelf hardware, network it together in smart 
> ways, make it
>  energy efficient, ... profit!

Works great inside four walls. 

>  Anyone want to invest?  Maybe I should start the business.

Nahh, I already have a web cam on my Smarties orb.  What else do I really need?

Chris