I'm ranting today

It is getting ridiculous. The is the sixteenth time our school district's fiber has been down this year. Yes, part of it is my organization's fault. We do have a fail-over (another telco) but not those in my area code. My area code contains about 10 school districts. We have been trying for months to get this area code over on to the fail over telco but we are caught up in red tape with the state. Arrgghh!

The schools are LIVID.  And we have been trying for months to get rid of this telco altogether. We had to wait until our five year contract expired first. Then it is red tape with the state. The state is married to this telco. The telco monolith is not a stupid empire.

Another fiber cut. I am trying to educate myself on what happens when the fiber gets cut out in the field. We have to drag information out of the telco as to what happened. They do not give up any information willingly. This time the cut is in a manhole.

This cut happened yesterday about 1:00 p.m. On a Sunday. It is in a manhole somewhere. Who in the hell was working on a Sunday? And in a manhole? And get this! The latest report is that the technicians had to leave the manhole for safety reasons.

What? Is there some sort of mutant alligator down there? Did the Monday morning showers and flushes of  the sewer systems threaten to wash one of them away? I don't know! We don't even get details like "where" this manhole is.

One tech at a vocational school expressed his frustration to my manager. He has several people coming this morning to do some testing at his location. Some are driving 2 1/2 hours (not certain I believe this, but okay).  He needs to call them and let them know there is no Internet before they get on the road. Well, as of 7 o'clock this morning - still nothing.

This same area lost connectivity for about 36 hours a week ago today. It is not pretty out there. Most understand it is not my fault. They need to vent their frustration on somebody since the home office is 60 miles away (and they rarely - if ever) answer their telephones. The anger and frustration just loses something when you leave a voice mail.

So, I get it. I always answer my phone. I can't tell you how many times I get "I know you can't do anything about it, but I call you because at least you answer your telephone."

Anyway, here was an interesting read on fiber cuts. Two that affected me and schools in my area are listed in March 2012. And I lifted the photo above. I can only imagine having to take that equipment down into a man hole in below freezing weather where sewer is running around your ankles. Or, can they bring the cable up and out of the manhole and repair it? Sheesh. I don't know. How in the hell did it get cut down there? What the hell are people putting down into their sewer systems? We never really get the entire story and are left wondering.

http://www.ecessa.com/coverage/internet-outages-happen-every-day/