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The Biggest Dangers to Your Fiber
ffejie writes "Fred Lawler, SVP of Global Field Services at Level 3 has an amusing look at some strange fiber cuts that he's seen in his days maintaining a large fiber network across the U.S. Whether it's squirrels, vandals, storms or truckers, it seems everyone has a new way to destroy the fiber that keeps the global communications infrastructure afloat."
In '67 whilst working for GenTel Wisconsin plowing feeders [average plow depth ~4'] and trenching drops we cut a main [around 120-pair] line from Milwaukee to Madison. No one was happy. Dug out the break, carved out a seat for the splicer, put up a sunshade. Not the most fun we had, but close. Not our fault, as it turned out: the charts were wrong, and the info on them was wrong as well.
There was already a highway running through the property. Eminent domain was used to purchase land to widen it. That's a big difference. He lost a few lanes worth of usable land from the border (and was paid for it), but that's hardly the same thing as punching a new hole down the center.
He was mad at Florida DOT because he didn’t get enough money when they purchased the right-of-way to widen the highway that cut through his property.