This week an unnamed Comcast contractor was responsible for two separate incidents of drilling through fiber optic cable essential for Mendocino County residents to access telephone and internet communication.
The first incident occurred on the morning of Tuesday, May 10, 2022, which disrupted communications to thousands of residents leaving some without telephone or internet access for over 24 hours. Crews worked throughout that day and night and communications were restored by the next morning.
This afternoon, Mendocino County’s 5th District Supervisor Ted Williams tweeted that a second bore site dug by the same contractor caused damage to the fiber optic line leaving some residents unable to make telephone calls, connect to the internet, and even dial 911. Both of these incidents occurred near Fort Bragg.
Supervisor Williams told us that after the first incident was fixed on Wednesday, he received word from multiple residents that their communication systems were still disrupted. Based on these reports, AT&T responded and found the second incident of the fiber optic line being damaged.
Crews have been dispatched to the second incident where Supervisor Williams reports traffic controls are in place and crews will be “working around the clock” estimating services will be restored early next week.
Mendocino County residents affected by these outages are reminded of the frailty of our area’s communications systems. Many reported 911 being down and Williams expressed concern that those in dire circumstances could find themselves without help due to the communication breakdown.
Supervisor Williams said he is working to get the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services involved and is attempting to get more information on the specific contractor responsible for the mishaps.
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Proof that God exists.
Hmmm , maybe .
Call 811 before you dig?
Yep, should have had all those optic cables painted or flagged! Contactor liability!!
D,
This particular instance has absolutely nothing to do with Aerial Cable runs.
The contractor in the spotlight “drilled” through the lines.
That’s correct. There’s two possibilities here. One is they didn’t call and started boring. The other is the contractor called and the internet company didn’t respond and mark their lines within the required time frame
So…..why no name of the contractor, or the subcontractor who made 2 terrible decisions??
The California Public Utilities Commission has a rule requiring cable operators to trim tree limbs or trees capable of disrupting cable service. Yet the contractors who deployed the cable lines within the last ten years routinely ran the cable lines through tree limbs.
Everyone should write to CPUC demanding they enforce their own rule re hazards to cable. We have a regulator but whether its members are asleep at the wheel or bought off is an open question.
Zero redundancy???
Redundancy is costly. Are customers willing to pay for it? Probably not because cellular and internet is a competitive and pretty much unregulated business.