The Backhoe, The Internet's Natural Enemy 382
Juha-Matti Laurio writes "Experts say last week's Sprint outage is a reminder that with all the attention paid to computer viruses and the latest Windows security holes, the most vulnerable threads in America's critical infrastructures lie literally beneath our feet. A study issued last month by the Common Ground Alliance, or CGA -- an industry group comprised of utilities and construction companies -- calculated that there were more than 675,000 excavation accidents in 2004 in which underground cables or pipelines were damaged." I estimate that one third of those accidents occured within the 5 block radius surrounding my office.
Nothing New (Score:1, Interesting)
Cost?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah, yes, Qwest did this to my home town... (Score:5, Interesting)
That reminds me of when Qwest cut all telephone lines to my home town - including 911. It made the local news, and the police chief and fire chief were both pretty pissed about it. They had to increase police patrols since no one could just call in a crime, fire, or medical emergency.
Fortunately nothing serious happened while 911 was out.
Then Qwest did it again, two days later, on the same line...
Ah, telecom monopolies.
Learn from the backhoe (Score:3, Interesting)
When CU Boulder put in their fiber ring, they ran the spans in separate conduit, which they lay in the same trench. The conduits were not at different depths, nor were they really that far apart (about 3 inches)
They put the bright orange plastic sheet ("Hey backhoe guy! Stop digging now!") right on top of the conduit, then filled in the trench.
Surprisingly, it got cut.
Re:Human error... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nothing New (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone remember back in the late 90's when AT&T lost its ENTIRE frame-relay network [networkworld.com]? Some 6,000 or so customers suddenly lost network connectivity?
According to the scuttlebutt around AT&T a piece of construction machinery backed into some sort of switching station and took the whole thing out. 6,000 customers, just like *that*. Try beating that one.
Re:Human error... (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is that each service provider has their own idea of when this should be done. Some don't even know where their services run. If they do know, they only check within a few feet of the preposed test hole. So this means that once phone, sewer, and water have agreed, natural gas comes along and says to move the hole 10 feet to one side. Now the locates need to be done all over again. Often when calling them back to locate in a new place, theyd just say "enh, youre fine.".
what a mess.
Re:And on the ocean...? (Score:3, Interesting)
Solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Should increase liability / penalties (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, no one ever calls. I work for a local utilities company, and lines get cut ALL the time by contruction crews. Because they almost NEVER call for a locate. It's insane.
The few times they do call for a locate, we go out and mark the lines, and they cut them ANYWAY. Unbelievable.
it happens anyway (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nothing is for certain... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cost?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Neal Stephenson's observations on backhoes (Score:4, Interesting)
Q: Why bother running two widely separated routes [for cable from Point A to Point B] over theMalay Peninsula?
A: Because Thailand, like everywhere else in the world, is full of idiots with backhoes.
Q: Isn't that a pain in the ass?
A: You have no idea.
Re:Should increase liability / penalties (Score:3, Interesting)
And a large part of the other half, like this particular incident, is probably because the digger got an erroneous answer from the support number. A contractor for Verizon buried fiber optic cable (for FIOS [verizon.com]) in my neighborhood late last year. Prior to their arrival, the cable, electrical, and natural gas utilities marked the locations of their respective cables/pipelines. But when they started boring two doors down from my house, they suddenly quit and packed up for the day.
I went out to watch a couple of days later, and asked what happened. They had nearly punched a hole in the natural gas line, because it wasn't properly marked -- and had to wait for the gas company to investigate. Apparently, natural gas lines have a wire next to the pipeline that pulses at a certain frequency, and can be picked up with a sensor. For some reason, the wire had been separated from the pipeline and was about 3 feet away.
A number of years ago, a friend of mine worked for a large computer company with a support center in Colorado Springs. A contractor digging post-holes for a fence did what they were supposed to do: called the telephone company for the location of a buried cable. The phone company marked the location of an adjacent cable that was no longer in use and instead directed them to the right-of-way for the new cable. So, when the digger pulled up bits of copper wire from every hole, the contractor didn't even blink -- it was supposed have been the old cable that had been decommissioned.
Be thankful that you only find fibre (Score:5, Interesting)
A short period of digging later and he came out the hole at some speed looking very pale. The said "pipe" had fins on one end and was delivered 60 years ago by some Germans who failed to stop and advise my grandparents of the delivery.....
Sometimes, it's the same fiber crew (Score:1, Interesting)
In my home neighborhood, we have two cable companies, and both upgraded within a month of each other to a fiber infrastructure. Same company, different contracts, same side of the road (but not my side!). I had neighbors across the street who lost their phone service twice to their water boring machine.
The best was when I went to a Network Appliance product demo. They were talking about how fast one could recover and come back online, when power went out. They DID have utility work going on up the street, so this was not faked. Sweet system, BTW, but too pricy for my old, cheap, employer.
Re:Nothing is for certain... (Score:3, Interesting)
It didn't work; GPS is good for 20 feet usually, whereas excavators need to know within a bucket-width (24"). That means that the GPS error, combined with OUR error, must be less than 24". Not gonna happen, especially since we're dealing with junk that was buried over a century ago.
The second reason it didn't work was because retards would transpose digits while entering them.
The third reason it didn't work was because GPS units do not work in multi-path areas (heavy metro) or tunnels, etc.
The final reason it didn't work is because it requires every human who is capable of digging to have one of these GPS units, and have the realization that they need to enter it into my server, and then have that ability to enter this data into my server. Sorry, but no home-owner is going to get one of these devices just so they can throw up a fence post, or till a new flower bed.
For now, the best bet appears to be GPR (ground penetrating radar)... if it ever matures to a useful and cost-effective product.
Re:Nothing is for certain... (Score:2, Interesting)
I had a septic guy come to my house to pump my tank. This was my first time since living here that it was done so I had no real idea where the lid or even the tank was. The septic guy walked around for a while and then started digging. His first attempt was directly centered over the access lid which was three feet down. I was impressed. I commented on how lucky he was and he stated "It is not a science but I know my shit". How fitting.
Already in use... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://tinyurl.com/6zw7u [tinyurl.com]