[Outages-discussion] [outages] Vandalism of CenturyLink fibre in Arizona causes large outage footprint.

Thu Feb 26 22:29:45 EST 2015

I agree with you, I think CL got it repaired quite quickly.  

If our business customers ask I readily answer that if the local loop should break for any reason that they should mentally budget 6 to 8 hours for repair, especially outside of regular business hours.   If the customer is not comfortable with that then we talk about physical diversity options.   We’ll try to get it done quicker, but my (from the office) experience is that before field techs get into the area and fiber splicer en route it easily takes 30  to 60 minutes.  Then you hope they can find the break – if it’s a backhoe job then it’s pretty quick, but if it’s a mouse in ped it may take a bit more investigative work.  If it’s a groundhog then you almost sure have to go and shoot it.  Maybe you’re lucky and you only have to shoot one end while the field tech drives around looking for holes.  Anyways, you get the picture – a lot of time can pass before you find the area.  If it’s a backhoe job you have the people to make the hole(s) bigger or dig things up where you want to splice it.  If it’s a groundhog, well, then you got to find a backhoe and get them onsite, such that you can be at the three hour mark and you haven’t even started prepping the fiber.

Frank

From: Outages-discussion [mailto:outages-discussion-bounces at outages.org] On Behalf Of Jason Baugher
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2015 8:22 PM
To: L.T. Easterly
Cc: outages-discussion at outages.org
Subject: Re: [Outages-discussion] [outages] Vandalism of CenturyLink fibre in Arizona causes large outage footprint.

First, I think it's pretty irresponsible for any provider to not have physical diversity. It's also pretty irresponsible for all the other people leasing fiber from that provider to not have diverse connections. If you only lease 1 pair of fibers out of your area and they get cut, it's not the fiber owner's fault you're down.

Regarding CL's performance on this outage....

The information we're getting is second-hand from various official and unofficial sources. I don't know about others here, but it's not uncommon for management to translate what I say into "official" statements and mangle it all up. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the CL spokesman embellished with the "mile by mile" bit. Talking heads like to talk; it's what they do.

I don't know the area personally, but from the videos I've seen, it looks pretty remote. In my part of the country, fiber assets have been sold and resold many times over the years. If the original staking sheets have been lost, or maybe never even existed, they might not be 100% sure where to dig. Many times the locals have a better idea than the carriers where the fiber is, because they remember when it was installed.

The various news reports say the outage was at noon and services started coming back online by 6:30pm. They had to identify the issue, roll crews to locate the outage, discover the cause, dispatch the splicing crews, dig up the cable, prep the splice cases, and start splicing. 6.5 hours from cut to start splicing doesn't seem out of line to me.

On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 3:50 PM, L.T. Easterly <corqpub at gmail.com <mailto:corqpub at gmail.com> > wrote:

I can say they definitely got calls from our NOC, as a gov't contracted service provider based in Florida, but narrowing it down for them in their own infrastructure, we probably were only marginally helpful.

On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 11:44 AM, Frank Bulk <frnkblk at iname.com <mailto:frnkblk at iname.com> > wrote:

And if shooting it from one side gives dubious results, shoot it from the other side.  

The Arizona Republic reported, “Employees from Centurylink told police they stared receiving complaints of interrupted cable and internet service at about noon and, upon checking their system, determined the cause of the outage was coming from…”.  Really?  A major link is down and these employees aren’t getting calls from one of CL’s NOCs?  I would hope that the paper got it wrong, and it’s just that some employees didn’t know but that other staff was already being mobilized.  It’s our own experience that when fiber is cut that we call our fiber tech/contractor first before calling our field staff.

Frank

From: Outages [mailto:outages-bounces at outages.org <mailto:outages-bounces at outages.org> ] On Behalf Of Stephen Wilcox via Outages
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2015 9:54 AM
To: Roland Dobbins
Cc: Outages at outages.org <mailto:Outages at outages.org> 
Subject: Re: [outages] Vandalism of CenturyLink fibre in Arizona causes large outage footprint.

"According to Juarez, technicians from Monroe, Louisiana-based CenturyLink had to go through a long, tedious process of inspecting the line "mile by mile." Meanwhile, Flagstaff's 69,000 residents tried to go about their daily business."

So, northern Arizona is entirely single homed from a CenturyLink fiber, and CenturyLink technicians don't own an OTDR but in fact walk miles to find cuts?

Sounds more like CenturyLink made a huge mess up here and threw out some PR spin that the media believes is normal, vandals huh..

On 26 February 2015 at 15:30, Roland Dobbins via Outages <outages at outages.org <mailto:outages at outages.org> > wrote:

<https://uk.news.yahoo.com/police-probing-outage-cut-internet-phones-arizona-092936953.html>

-----------------------------------
Roland Dobbins <rdobbins at arbor.net <mailto:rdobbins at arbor.net> >

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