Rofl Matt,
I was recently laid off from my job for 'economic' reasons, what you say is
deadly accurate.
Bravo! 
"Earth is a single point of failure."
On top of that, one basic principle of telecommunications:
No matter how much diversity and path redundancy, tons of concrete or
titanium sealed fiber vaults you have, in the data exchange between points
A and B there will be always two single points of failure: A and B.
IMHO, this thread is getting way off topic, boring and useless.
Fiber cut is over, there will be many more, move on ...
Cheers
Jorge
True enough Jorge, however, we need full-orbed perspective here....it's
not merely beating a dead horse; as far as topic goes, it is purely
edification in the nth degree, manner, fashion. This is the lingua
franca of this forum, and those who chose to read it, or not. Not
merely pointed dialogue or geek speaks for the consummate net head
ideologue. After all, iron sharpens iron. Demagoguery gives rise to
elitism. No demonization here. You're ok.
Cheerio,
Jay Murphy
IP Network Specialist
NM Department of Health
ITSD - IP Network Operations
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87502
Bus. Ph.: 505.827.2851
"We move the information that moves your world."
True enough Jorge, however, we need full-orbed perspective here....it's
not merely beating a dead horse; as far as topic goes, it is purely
edification in the nth degree, manner, fashion. This is the lingua
franca of this forum, and those who chose to read it, or not. Not
merely pointed dialogue or geek speaks for the consummate net head
ideologue. After all, iron sharpens iron. Demagoguery gives rise to
elitism. No demonization here. You're ok.
I know, I don't mind the dialogue but IMHO besides trying to define
which is the best way to seal a manhole, I'd rather see a more
constructive discussion from an operational perspective.
I really doubt that the big guys who own the fibers will make a rational
decision about how to build their networks reading NANOG when the
underlaying problem is not just technical or operational.
For example, based on the experience with this outage, what's was
out, how many users were affected, how the network operator's
community handled the issue, what information was available,
what kind of communications we used, what we did wrong, what
we did right.
BTW, now I know where to get a good padlock for my shack 
Cheers
Jorge
Cool enough.
Jay Murphy
IP Network Specialist
NM Department of Health
ITSD - IP Network Operations
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87502
Bus. Ph.: 505.827.2851
"We move the information that moves your world."