Re: U.S. Plans Cyber Shield for Utilities, Companies

[Danny McPherson <danny () tcb net>]

On Jul 8, 2010, at 9:26 AM, Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu wrote:

> > I'm not familiar with cable break splicing procedures, but is it even 
> > possible to pay extra to have your splice done first?  I would think 
> > that the logistics of splicing are such that the guy down in the hole 
> > doesn't know whose traffic is on each strand in the bundle
>
> Exactly - which is a case for just having everybody's traffic mingled on
> a very busy 12-pair rather than several 96-pair with lots of dedicated links,
> *everybody* ends up back in service a lot faster...
>
> And remember - this industry has more trouble with backhoes and would-be
> copper thieves than terrorists. Anybody who is defending against terrorists
> by increasing their vulnerability to backhoes is, well... 

Having done a good bit of manual copper and [old school fusion] fiber splicing 
for a few years as an outside plant monkey in the Army Signal Corp and a 
short stint thereafter as a contractor, I assure you that prioritization can make a 
significant different with large cable damage, in particular when single wire/pair
splicing is done.  Copper multi-pair splicing still allows specific bundles to be 
prioritized as well, sorta the same as fiber.

Given that cuts and other damage usually requires splicing on two ends,
some bit of coordination is required but mostly trivial, in particular with large
copper cable (e.g., 2400 pair).  Of course, in fairness to Valdis's comment, 
setup time on both ends is often the dominating factor, although bundle 
1 to bundle 96 is an 2400 pair copper cable could be several hours or more.  

Of course, physical plant prioritization is only the dominating factor when 
last mile damage occurs.  It's more useful and commonly employed when 
intermediate facility failures happen - prioritized regrooming of critical 
services is sometimes even automated, and often results in, err.. less critical 
services being booted until full restoration has occurred.

-danny