Fiber Optic Cable Cut
A Century Link fiber line was severed near the
junction of N.D. Highway 1 and Interstate 94, west of Valley City on June 14,
2012. A contractor was plowing the ground in the area and cut a fiber cable. The
damage caused disruption on landline telephones, cellphones and internet across
the region. The outage lasted roughly 7 hours.
Once again, the same Century Link fiber line was
severed on June 23, 2012 by a farmer. Internet, long distance and 9-1-1
services were disrupted in Stutsman County. Officials had to establish
alternate ways for emergency services to be accessed. 9-1-1 calls were rerouted
so they could be answered by State Radio in Bismarck. This was the second
outage in 10 days.
Both breaks in the cable caused
disruptions to 911 services in Stutsman, LaMoure and Barnes counties and the
ability to make long distance calls from some landlines. The outage also
affected Internet service with some businesses reporting they could not process
credit card transactions. The two incidents of cut fiber optic have officials
looking for answers. “We’re still investigating the first cut,” said Brian
Kalk, member of the North Dakota Public Service Commission. “In the past three
years we’ve had a renewed emphasis on call before you dig and those things are
usually easy to sort out.” “Construction companies are required to call NorthDakota One Call before digging,” Kalk said. “A construction company that does
not do this can be subject of fines of from $500 to $5,000.”
Talk about “lack of communication”. My
cell phone wouldn’t allow me to call anyone, but 9-1-1, my work landline wouldn’t
allow me to make any outgoing calls and I could not access the internet. Many
employees left work early. Some of the them left due to inability to reach
their children or other loved ones, some left because they couldn’t perform
their job due to inability to access the internet and operate machinery and
some left to help others that were struggling with their businesses due to lack
of services.
I never cease to be amazed at responses. 100 or even 50 years ago, we would have not thought it uncommon to go several hours, or even a day without having access to our friends and family. I can see how not completing a job when that job requires access to the internet can be acceptable, but leaving work simply because you cannot contact someone seems a little odd to me. True, much depends on technology, from buying food to much of our work, it seems like not a single day can go by without one source or another of technology being needed. True, technology is needed and even necessary in many cases, but I worry that we are becoming to dependant on it. It seems to me like 7 hours without technology should be viewed as a wakeup call to how we view technology, are we serving it, or is it serving us?
ReplyDeleteFamily is very important but I think leaving work a early just because you cannot contact your family is not a good enough reason. If you work with a service that requires a dial up connection, hence your telephone lines need to be working before you can finish your assigned tasks for the day and phones are not working then that's okay but i think lately we have all been so much dependent on technology that the least thing that happens we use an excuse. Fiber optic cables are the best out there in terms of speed and accuracy and i think till a new technology comes out we just have to rely on them
ReplyDeleteI am living in Valley City for the summer, and was working while the outage happened. Our credit card machine and phone were both down. It made it quite the adventure for the rest of the day. The nice part for us is that we close at 3 in the afternoon, so we didn't lose as much business as most places probably did. It seems like such a simple task to call before digging, but people just can't seem to take that precaution sometimes. That part of it is too bad, because their actions end up effecting so many in the end.
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