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Fl. County Halts FTTP Until Installation Is Safer

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what's-a-little-sewage-compared-to-a-fiber-line dept.

celerityfm writes "Warning: Deploying Verizon's new Fiber To The Premises (FTTP, see previous) in YOUR neighborhood may involve geysers of raw sewage spewing onto your front yard or sinkholes opening and swallowing moving vehicles. Well, Hillsborough County, host to one of the first FTTP trial sites, has ordered Verizon to stop deployment of FTTP until they can figure out how to stop creating sinkholes that open up under minivans with children inside. No word on whether SBC is having similar problems with their fiber roll-out."

6 of 468 comments (clear)

  1. Dear gods, its just an optical cable! by Kenja · · Score: 3, Insightful
    "Verizon crews installing fiber optic lines have hit nearly 200 water and sewer lines, costing almost $103,000 in repairs."

    This takes incompetence to a whole new level. I mean, its just a cable. I've installed lots of local and wide area networks without hitting even one sewer line.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    1. Re:Dear gods, its just an optical cable! by meme_police · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No kidding. How many things are safely installed underground every day around the country? This has nothing to do with FTTP.

      --

      The meme police, They live inside of my head

    2. Re:Dear gods, its just an optical cable! by shawn(at)fsu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It looks like it because Verizon fell victim to using the lowest bidder for it's subcontracting in laying the cable, while it isn't FTTP's fault it's verizons fault for not hiring better contractors and the sub contractors fault for doing shoddy work to save a buck.

      I'd want them to stop to if they've had over 200 incidents, boil water notices are a pain, not having phone service is an inconvenience and without 911 a potential lawsuit.

      --
      500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
  2. 201st sinkhole! 202nd sewage geyser! by HDlife · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The problem is that there are 2,000 workers busting pipes that the county has to fix. Even if the county can bill Verizon later, the county certainly doesn't have the staff to play cleanup to Verizon's contractor.

    This is probably a great deal for the diggers; the cost of paying the county to fix the breaks is probably less than preventing them. Therfore, the only stick that the county has is to say STOP! No more digging until you clean up your act!

  3. Re:Wisdom sorely lacking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    run the fiber through the water line itself.

    While it's possible, it is a huge hassle. Fiber (and splitters, etc) rated for underwater use is much more expensive. And will you guarantee that nothing bad will leach out of the fiber into the drinking water for the house?

    It would be far faster, it would be far cheaper than digging trenches,

    I doubt it, but it's possible.

    it would be far easier to pop a fitting inside the house to extract the fiber from the incoming pipe than digging an entire trench!

    So, what about all the valves? Going to run your fiber through that? Or create a new leakage opportunity every time you take the fiber in & out of the pipe ? And the bend radius of water pipes can be very short, much less than fiber.

    They have knowledge but they don't have wisdom.

    Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black.

  4. Re:WTF? You RTFA?!! by Winkhorst · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Assuming you're not just being ironic (sorry, I don't speak Initialese), NO, they don't have to call the 800 number. They have maps. You know, those paper thingies with lines and symbols on them that let you figure out where the subway stops are and that kind of stuff? But the maps are wrong. This is because they are old, and apparently nobody bothered to update them as things were changed over the years. And, as someone else has pointed out, the water table in Florida is somewhere around your knees, so you have to bury everything at the same level. And it's not a good idea to install stuff above ground because of the weather--lots of cyclonic wind conditions and the like. So you either give the place back to the Seminole Indians, who had enough sense not to invent electricity, or you dig and hope you don't hit something.

    Now the county keeps talking about using satellites and GPS, which gives you some insight into the state of THEIR neural network, so I have to conclude that the fault lies mainly with those same officials for not keeping the maps current.

    --
    "Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."