ryan Wann <bwann@cwis.net> writes:

Maybe we should have these one-call utility line/main marking services cross-reference who's fiber they're tagging, and give the respective carriers a heads-up warning before actual excavating begins... :)

The story told by the sales people is each carrier has people which check their fiber routes every day. The underground utility marking services are supposed to complete their marking at least 24 hours before the excavation work is scheduled to begin. Thus giving time for the carrier people who supposedly check their rights of way every day fair notice. They say this with a straight face, so I guess they believe themselves. In practice, I would expect excavators careful enough to have all the underground utilities marked ahead of time, are also careful during their digging. The problems seem to come from diggers which don't bother to get things marked before digging. Not to mention trains, gophers, floods, sharks, and even lightning strikes which will never call before chewing up a right of way. In other words, fiber cuts may be reduced, but never eliminated. Network designers (and managers) must decide what frequency of outages and mean time to repair are acceptable, and plan accordingly. Is N:N, N:1 or N:0 redundancy ok? I know the answer for my network, I don't know the answer for your network. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation