North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Sabotage investigation of fiber cuts in Northwest

  • From: Robert M. Enger
  • Date: Sun Nov 02 21:40:18 2003

The article says there were  three  disruptions prior
to this most recent event.   It goes on to say:

    Early in the morning of Sept. 3, some criminal strolled into a 
    Qwest Telecommunications server station with tools in hand 
    and carefully sliced one strand of wire. 

    For the next 8 hours and 41 minutes Whatcom County, Bellingham 
    and northern Snohomish County lost all telecommunications. 
    Even 911 service was disconnected.


You'd think after three previous disruptions, that Qwest would
have enabled some form of redundancy.

The Washington State PUC doesn't appear to be providing
very good oversight.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sean Donelan" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003 8:38 PM
Subject: Sabotage investigation of fiber cuts in Northwest


> 
> 
> KIRO TV has a report concerning the fiber cuts targeting a particular
> fiber route in the Northwest US.  It has been been disrupted four times
> in the last two years, not by backhoes, but by someone entering a
> fiber hut.
> 
> 
> North Sound 911 Service Repeatedly Targeted
> by Chris Halsne KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Investigative Reporter
> [...]
> This person hasn't been randomly chopping entire bundles of cables, but
> rather he or she is using surgical precision to black out one particular
> 911 emergency call center.
> 
> Early in the morning of Sept. 3, some criminal strolled into a Qwest
> Telecommunications server station with tools in hand and carefully sliced
> one strand of wire.
> [...]
> Operators couldn't help but feel a sense of dj vu. KIRO Team 7
> Investigators have learned that someone intentionally rerouted, cut or
> altered 911 service to Whatcom County on three occasions in two years.
> Each time the criminal entered the same Qwest fiber optics "hut" to create
> the chaos.
> [...]
> 
> http://www.kirotv.com/news/2601577/detail.html
> 
>