Re: Bee attack, fiber cut, 7-hour outage

Sean Donelan wrote:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5148125.html

(AUSTIN) Telephone service was out for seven hours in rural Central Texas after bees attacked a construction worker, causing him to jump off his tractor and hit a lever that lowered an auger that sliced a fiber-optic line.

Is this a 7 hour outage a comment on rural Central Texas availability of fiber splicers or novel ways fiber gets cut? Anytime you talk about "rural" I'm impressed with 7 hours, however -- isn't SONET supposed to make this better? Deepak