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Uploaded: Thursday, April 9, 2009, 4:53 PM

State of local emergency declared in county
South Santa Clara County still affected by massive phone outages

Posted by Rush, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Apr 9, 2009 at 5:12 pm

Did the vandals target these cables because they knew that these were critical cables that would cause a wide spread outage?

Or is the telecommunications network so fragile that a couple of cable cuts can shut down telephone, cell phone, and internet service for multiple cities at a time.

Posted by Sharon, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 9, 2009 at 5:23 pm

The ATT union is locked in negotiations with ATT about their contract,

You would need inside knowledge to bring down the network.

It reality is a matter for homeland security, I am sure the perps left biological markers at the the scene.

Posted by Hulkamania, a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, on Apr 9, 2009 at 8:20 pm

I worked for Pac Bell years ago. Whenever there was a strike the majority of the workers would take off to go water skiing or other activities.

There was also the whack job fringe that screwed up pay phones, put glue into gate locks, flattened tires of employees who crossed picket lines and cut cables. The union would always say they didn't condone such activity but it was always with a nudge and wink.

With the huge carrying capacity of fiber optic cable, one cut can take out an unbelievable amount of traffic. A few years ago there was a fiber cable cut by mistake in Lower Manhattan. It wiped out Wall Street.

The only real defense the telcos and carriers have is to weld all the man hole covers shut.

Posted by Sharon, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 9, 2009 at 8:34 pm

The obvious suspects are ATT current or ex employees, as they have GPS cells phones.

The department of home land security can filter the suspect pool, also there was some email and phone traffic to co ordinate the attack, plus CCTVs and biological evidence.

This will be a good test of the anti terrorism procedure, these people are in very, very serious trouble.

When these people are caught, as they will be, they will be prosecuted under Federal anti terrorism laws and will spend the rest of their lives in Prison

Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Apr 10, 2009 at 1:39 am
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online

This is reason enough to make unions subject to anti-trust laws and outlaw compulsory union support.