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From: bill@toto.info.com (Bill Cerny)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Another Fiber Optic Cut; This Time in Chicago
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Date: 10 Jan 91 04:26:43 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 22, Message 8 of 9


This fiber cut affected a private line at a client's site.  The IEC is
Williams Telecom; but I don't know which company owns this particular
fiber cable: Sprint or WilTel.

The "treaty" between IEC's that you alluded to is called a protection
agreement, and has become commonplace in the long distance industry.
When two IEC's networks pass through a common point, they arrange some
type of interconnection to provide capacity (multiples of DS-3) to the
other in the event of an outage on the other carrier's network.  It's
"I'll scratch your back..." kind of business, and is being invoked on
an increasing frequency as carriers rely more heavily on fiber, and
backhoes continue to proliferate.  ;-)

I'm not sure how "automatic" these protection agreements are though.
I inferred from Monday's outage that even in extremis, there's a bit
of bureaucracy involved in activating the protection route(s).


Bill Cerny
bill@toto.info.com   |   attmail: !denwa!bill