|
North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Qwest Utah fiber cut
Now it makes sense - we were missing the fiber route along US HWY 89. We have data on their nation wide OC-192 network and metro fiber, but figured there was something we were missing. Also explains why other providers were not affected - it must be a unique right of way. Appreciate the help. sean ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron D. Gifford" <[email protected]> Date: Friday, May 21, 2004 3:39 pm Subject: Re: Qwest Utah fiber cut > [email protected] wrote: > > > > I was hoping someone might be able to shed some light on the > Utah cut. > > > > The news report said that the cut happened near Monroe Utah, > which is several miles off of I 70. Yet the cities that were > reported effected included St. George, Cedar City, and Salt Lake, > which all are adjacent to I 15. > > > > The puzzling part is that in our "best effort" database Qwest > does not have long haul fiber running down I 70, but it does have > a lot of fiber running down I 15. There is Qwest fiber on I 15, > all the cities affected are on I 15 yet the reported cut was near > Monroe off of I 70. > > > > I'm not familiar with Utah geogrpahy and this comes simply from > looking at our maps. Just trying to sort out the seeming > discrepency. Any insight? > > > <<snip>> > > According to this map at > http://atlas.utah.gov/staticmapbin/urta_network.gif the Qwest > fiber in > question runs southward along I-15 from Salt Lake City, through > Utah > Valley (Provo, Utah, etc.) to Nephi, Utah, then turns eastward > away from > the I-15 corridor until it reaches highway 89, which it follows > southward parallel to I-15 but one mountain range to the east. It > continues southward along 89 until I-17, then follows I-70 until > it ends > where it meets I-15, where the fiber continues southward along I- > 15 to > St. George, Utah (where I'm at), the end-of-the-one-lane-dead-end > road. > This route would be consistent with the news reports saying the > cut was > near Monroe, Utah or near Richfield, Utah. > > Such a route would agree with the telecommunication territories as > mapped out at http://atlas.utah.gov/telcom/viewer.htm which shows > Qwest > territories along I-15 except for the central Utah areas where > Qwest's > fiber follows highway 89 (which area IS a Qwest territory). > > While the news articles only mention that cellular, long distance, > 911, > and internet services were affected but local calling was not, > this is > not entirely true. As one affected by the cut, I can attest that > the > resulting additional load on the local switches (perhaps as people > were > calling each other to find out what was happening -- I don't know) > made > many phones utterly useless, including my own. > > A similar cut happened some years go around Springville, Utah. I > had > thought that Quest had since worked with local public safety folks > to > set up emergency 911 services that rely on the fiber to > automatically > fall-over to Qwest's older and lower bandwidth microwave network. > Apparently that plan fell by the wayside, or else I misheard it in > the > first place. > > Local area public safety personnel resorted to using the Emergency > Broadcast System over radio (television translators were also > affected > as many of them receive their video feeds over that same fiber) to > tell > citizens the direct-dial numbers, and in cases (like my home > phone) > where the phone system wasn't working at all (probably due to > overload), > local public safety folks told people to go to their nearest fire > station for emergency help. > > Messages over local radio indicated that the outage not only > affected > southwestern Utah counties (almost 1/3 of the state by area), but > Lincoln County, Nevada, and Mohave and Coconino Counties in > Arizona > (north of the Grand Canyon). I don't know how accurate that > message was. > > Aaron out. > >
|
