The ATIS Network Reliability Steering Committee met last week to review last quarters network outages. I haven't seen what they've come up with, but last quarter they noted a decreas in facility outages. I also noticed an interesting change in Internet-related outages. The number of cables cuts is down since January 1 2001 compared with the same time period in 2000 and 1999. Previously, one of the primary causes of Internet cable cuts was other carriers' subcontractors installing new fiber in the same right of ways. Most high-bandwidth Internet-carriers seem to use the same right of ways, which aren't identical to the LEC voice infrastructure. For example, the Baltimore tunnel fire had little impact on voice calls, i.e. no carrier filed an FCC outage report, but the fire's impact showed up on Internet traffic. With the change in economic climate, many cable projects have been stopped. My guess is less carrier work in the same right of ways means fewer cable cuts. The number of farmers burying a cow, and gophers chewing on cable is the same. There is a silver lining on every cloud.... Those carriers which have fiber into the ground, are less likely to have cable cuts now.