I hope besides appealling the verdict, Qwest considers revamping its contractor hiring, training and oversight practices. Reporting on the Qwest/AT&T fiber lawsuit, Newsbytes had this paragraph. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/00/158214.html

But it wasn't three outages that bugged the jury. What they didn't like, one juror said, was Qwest's attitude, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Attorney Joe Latting, who represented AT&T, said a Qwest supervisor testified at trial, "We just hire these people from the neck down," the paper said. AT&T had accused Qwest of hiring unqualified personnel.

Here was my message on Qwest's fiber trenching operations last year.

Subject: Call for Qwest to conduct a training stand-down From: Sean Donelan <SEAN@SDG.DRA.COM> Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 23:48:22 -0500 Delivered-To: nanog-outgoing@merit.edu Sender: owner-nanog@merit.edu

I'm seeing a disturbing pattern develop. Qwest contractors seem to be involved in an unusual number of cases of damaging other providers fiber. I understand that everyone makes mistakes, and a wide-variety of other equipment operators have caused many fiber cuts. But Qwest's name seems to show up with unusual frequency in the last year. Here are the ones I found in my notes.

Milwaukee-to-Chicago May 4, 1999 Smyrna, GA March 11, 1999 Gurnee, IL November 19, 1998 (drilled fiber three times over a mile)

Anyone have notes about others? I have a vague recollection of a couple of more, but couldn't find them in my notes.

I don't know who Qwest is hiring to bury its fiber, but I would like to call on Qwest to conduct an immediate stand-down until it can review its fiber installation practices, training and supervision with its contractors. Including review of safe digging/drilling practices around other providers' fiber. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation