News Story Net Traffic Hit By Outage By: Steve Gold, Newsbytes. October 01, 1999

http://www.currents.net/newstoday/99/10/01/news4.html

If your e-mail or Web surfing sessions have been sluggish since midday Wednesday, you can claim a misplaced hole in Ohio for your problems.

Reports are coming in that a gas company in Ohio accidentally sliced through a major fiber cable with a backhoe. The cut, which occurred some 30 miles east of Cleveland, cut most of the data pipes that connect the Eastern and Western segments of the US Internet backbone.

The cut, which occurred around noon Eastern time on Wednesday, was not catastrophic, but it did result in the considerable rerouting of Web (Internet protocol) IP calls, as well as spooling of e-mail in many cases.

The bottom line was that, for most of yesterday, IP data transfers were slowed down by up to 50-fold. Reports suggest that some Internet service providers (ISPs) were severely affected by the outage.

Today's New York Times says that the pipe which was cut was a bundle of fibers that carried around 40 gigabits per second (Gbps) - around 35 percent of the inter-coast traffic on the Internet, Newsbytes notes. The paper quotes Bill Woodcock, network architect for Zocalo, a regional ISP in North California, as saying that such outages are very rare. "We've seen plenty a quarter this size, but my impression is that if this is not the largest to date it's very near," he told the paper.

The Times says that the traffic most affected was data that would normally travel through the fibers that were cut. This traffic was rerouted to other parts of the network, but the net effect was one of congestion that slowed all data moving through large stretches of the main Internet backbone. GTE, the owner of the cable segment, said that it hoped to have things repaired by 9:00 PM EDT on Wednesday. However, latest reports suggest that the outage continues as of 7:00 AM EDT, with repairs being hampered by severe weather in the repair area. Click to Home Page | Daily News | Dictionary | Current Issue | Prior View Copyright ) 1994 - 1999 Computer Currents Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

-- ! (sluggish@to.day), October 01, 1999

Answers

Joe backhoe strikes again! This bud's for you, Joe! NOT!

JJ

-- Jeremiah Jetson (laterthan@uthink.y2k), October 01, 1999.

Does Joe Backhoe work with The Squirrel King?

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), October 01, 1999.

I knew it! The FBI is looking in the wrong place. They are looking for foreign cyber-terrorists. They should be looking at backhoes! Those tools are dangerous...

Auditors' Credo: "The incompitents will get to you long before the crooks do!"

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), October 01, 1999.

Are fiber optic cuts kind of like the flu - they can be catching?

Lost phone line almost 2 weeks ago for most of day and all night. Called US West who stated it was a fiber optic cut and wouldn't be fixed for 2 days. Amazing but next morning had dial tone.

-- claurann (claurann@aol.com), October 01, 1999.