North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Undersea fiber cut after Taiwan earthquake - PCCW / Singtel / KT e tc connectivity disrupted

  • From: John Levine
  • Date: Sun Jan 21 16:26:22 2007

>In many places (based on a quick scan of the telegeography map from 200
>posts ago...) it seems like cable landings are all very much centrally
>located in any one geographic area. There are like 5 on the east coast
>near NYC, with many of the cables coming into the same landing place.

That's true, but they're far enough apart that a single accident is
unlikely to knock out the cables at more than one landing.  The two in
NJ cross Long Beach Island, then shallow Barnegat Bay, to the landing
sites.  Once crosses in Harvey Cedars and lands in Manahawkin, the
other crosses in Beach Haven and lands in Tuckerton.  My family has a
beach house in Harvey Cedars a block from the cable crossing and it's
clear they picked the sites because there is nothing there likely to
mess them up.  Both are summer communities with no industry, the
commercial boat harbors, which are not very big, are all safely away
from the crossings.  The main way you know where they are is a pair of
largish signs at each end of the street saying DON'T ANCHOR HERE and
signs on the phone poles saying, roughly, don't dig unless there is an
AT&T employee standing next to you.  I haven't been to the landing
site in Rhode Island, but I gather it is similarly undeveloped.

Running a major cable in through a busy harbor is just a bad idea. so
I'm not surprised that they don't do it here.

R's,
John