Do the large carriers now participate in 'one-call' operations like power and gas companies do? At least in Virginia a couple of years ago, they didn't. It might be a good idea for them to do so. -----Original Message----- From: Sean Donelan To: nanog@merit.edu Sent: 9/23/00 5:36 PM Subject: The Backhoe Summit On November 30 I'm moderating a session at the Damage Prevention Convention (http://www.damageprevention.com/) on "What is being done to protect the Internet." What types of questions would you ask excavators, service providers, and users? Although we often joke about the backhoe as the leading cause of fiber cuts, in almost 1/3 of the cable cuts last quarter were due to inaccurate or incomplete marking by the cable owner. Are fiber companies their own worst enemy? Diversity, is it just an illusion. How can a user order diversity and be assured of getting it? How can we estimate the effect of a cable cut? With today's mergers, reselling, and swapping of fiber combined with dense-wave multiplexing a lot of customer's could have data passing through the same right of way. I'd like to have a mix of softball questions and a few more provacative questions. If you have any, please send them to me.