atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Outside Plant OSP Construction Cut about 50+ underground main phone lines. Need HELP!!!

It may not be just the cost of the fiber repair but reimbursement for loss of revenue while the fiber is down as well. When they roll out the little fiber trailer it's not pretty.

I has someone cut the fiber to our billing office (off-site) once and it was estimated we were loosing around 1,000,000 a day from it being down. Luckily the contractor who cut the fiber had enough insurance to cover the damages.

I have heard of some being a LOT higher than that.

For your cut cable, they may have mercy on you.

If you've got a mission-critical application going get fiber coming in from TWO different directions. Get a PBX with redundant CPUs etc., have a disaster plan.

What are you going to do when:

A drunk knocks down the pole outside the building and you lose fibre, copper, electric.

Telco does an upgrade on their CO and you lose service for a day.

Your server crashes.

And on and on and on.

What's your plan "B"?

Years ago I did Disaster Avoidance and Recovery Consulting for a major Multinational. I was amazed at the stories I got from the people I spoke to at various large companies. Usually I was there AFTER they had a crisis and couldn't recover from it in a timely fashion. They would lose(or had lost) millions but it never occurred to them that something might happen to them. Accidents and disasters were always something that happened to OTHER people.


Sam

In this case the building is about 3 blocks away and someone cut the 36 strands of SM fiber and 300 pair copper I had running to the building. The main service coming in to our main equipment room does have redundant fibers coming in to feed our OC3, OC12, OC48, and Mega-Link for data service. We are the main hub for the northern part of the state and feed other like National guard, state police and other hospitals.

It never seems to matter how much you do , you can not plan on everything. And in this case Sh@# happed. We were able to restore service in about 24 hours. Luckily the building working hours are 8:00 to 5:00 so we did the bulk after normal working hours.

But these guys didn't dial the 1-800 call before you dig number either and this is what happened. I even had signs made up with all the number to call before digging and placed them the entire route. They dug beside one of them with the infamous backhoe and cut the cables.

After talking with our LA one call people they told me that I can still expect to have a cable cut every 3 years even being a member with plats of our OSP cabling locations marked.

I guess Deepsht has sticker shock or else is waiting for bill.Re fiber: with phone,tv and internet, trucks will roll faster for repair,but only so many techs are certified for fiber.When I took course I had to get better pair of glasses. To work at nite on that stuff has to be interesting to say the least.----------John

I'm having trouble working up too much sympathy. If you are operating heavy equipment you need to follow the laws that apply to underground construction. I know it's a cliche by now but if someone needs to use their only phone to call for emergency help and their line is broken because of a problem like this, I would feel a lot worse about that than the bill for repairs.

and to top things off im just glad he didnt hit a gas line

Well, I can sympathize with the guy.
Shortly after the "Call Before Digging" law became the law of the land in Texas the owner of the company I worked for cut a 100 pair cable with an auger. We truly were not aware of the law and we were nowhere near the right of way.
The home owner told us where the water and sewer lines were and there was no gas line or underground power in the area so we proceeded to dig.

Long story short, one of the managers from the telephone company told us we were going to have to pay for the repair. The home owner told the manager that the telephone company was going to have to pay him back rent for the use of his property.

The cable was abandoned and a new one was ran within the right of way. The telephone company never billed us for the repair and the homeowner never billed for the rent.

You can bet I learned the lesson. I don't dig nuthin' without calling for a locate first!

I have a client that is a kids summer camp. He called one day to say they had cut a phone cable. They've got about 2 miles of 2 pair buried feeding all the tenting areas & they're always doing something, so it was no surprise.

On arrival I'm told that they were digging to put in a couple of gate posts and hit this cable dead center. 50 pair feeder to their camp. I told them Bell had to fix it, but he insisted that I patch it "for now". Being THEIR cable, sure. I told them it would be temporary as I don't do that kind of repair.

They then proceeded to tell me that they had cut 6 buried drops across the field when they were digging a new ditch. Man, you'd think they'd stop after the first one.

Dave

I wonder if Deepsht's father killed him from grief over the teleco bill

Folks, the original poster admitted that he made a mistake and that he was in way over his head. Does this really need to become a discussion about how much trouble he's in? Not to mention that he hasn't been back since his original post.

Please use PM or EM if you want to share war stories about similar situations. Don't sit here and try to make people more fearful of the situation that they are in. They came here for help, not for ridicule.