From: Scott Landman <Scott_Landman@zd.com>
If fibers being cut is the culprit here, does going with a supplier
like
Qwest make sense because their fibers are running down railroad right
of
ways and, therefore, should be less succeptible to a backhoe digging
where
it shouldn't be? Or are you looking at other, more secure mediums for
the
bulk of your traffic?
The key is to go with multiple suppliers who can guarantee diverse
routes. Carriers lease capacity from each other in some cases, so
Sprint and MCI can give you circuits in the same physical fiber.
Sprint and AT&T are implementing SONET protection switching which will
reroute circuits around fiber cuts in 50ms. I don't know if they do it
as a rule, or if you need to specify rerouting priority (and pay for
it).
It's interesting to look at a carrier's fiber map and compare it to a
railroad map. You'll see MANY similarities. Railroad rights of way are
the easiest areas to install fiber.
-rb