POTS dies in NYC

[mike123abc]

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/17/3655442/restoring-verizon-service-manhattan-hurricane-sandy

Essentially the old reliable copper lines serving Manhattan were destroyed by hurricane Sandy. Very interesting article with lots of pictures of the wiring under the city. A couple days of being submerged destroyed the copper, VZ now running fiber as fast as possible to restore service.

Miles of copper is ruined not only in the cable vault at Broad Street, but also at 20 or so manholes around the area. Even worse, paper insulation in the copper wiring sucks water through the cabling from capillary action, destroying cabling even in dry areas. Levendos says it’s "far too tedious, time consuming, and not effective of a process to try and put this infrastructure back together," so Verizon’s taking the opportunity to rewire with fiber optics instead. Service has been restored to FiOS customers for over a week — unlike copper, fiber optics aren’t damaged by the water. As part of this process, crews have already pulled fiber up the major corridors — including Water, Broad, and Pearl Streets — to ultimately connect the fiber network to buildings.

 

[LER]

Thanks for the link. It's an interesting read for me, since I grew up in the NYC/LI area.

 

[harshness]

I haven't seen phone transmission wire that included paper in the insulation my lifetime. Most of the underground stuff I've dealt with is pliable plastic coated and the outer jacket is flooded with sticky dielectric goo.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

A lot of it has been there since they started laying copper cable...

With the cost of copper lately, it wouldn't surprise me if once they rippd the copper out that the could proably pay for most of their costs of laying the new Fiber lines by just selling the copper.

 

[bhelms]

Or copper oxide, as it were...!

 

[mike123abc]

I have to suspect that Manhattan was one of the first places in the US that telephone service was rolled out... Interesting in the article that they had positive pressure air pumps for the cable bundles to help keep moisture out.

Those pictures with tons of spaghetti wiring were just amazing that they were able to keep track and maintain them for the past 130 years!

 

[Anole]

I haven't seen phone transmission wire that included paper in the insulation my lifetime. Most of the underground stuff I've dealt with is pliable plastic coated and the outer jacket is flooded with sticky dielectric goo.

When I was in Vietnam, we used plastic insulated wiring on-base between our DCO and the various commands.
In spite of that, we had regular wiring outages, needing to switch to backup pairs.
And that was just a tropical environment with high humidity.
We never let our wire-ends get flooded.

I was a 32D20, Fixed Stations Facility Controller. SP5

 

[riffjim4069]

...Those pictures with tons of spaghetti wiring were just amazing that they were able to keep track and maintain them for the past 130 years!

I was almost expecting to see some guy dressed like Norton crawling around in that manhole.

 

[Foxbat]

Or copper oxide, as it were...!

Copper Chloride might be more accurate, given the exposure to salt water.

 

[truckracer]

We still have straight lay 1200 pair pulp cable here in wv. DSL will not go through it very well.

 

[Jimbo]

I haven't seen phone transmission wire that included paper in the insulation my lifetime. Most of the underground stuff I've dealt with is pliable plastic coated and the outer jacket is flooded with sticky dielectric goo.

Yes, but on the inside, it's pulp, paper and copper, with what your talking about on the outside of it.

 

[Jimbo]

I have to suspect that Manhattan was one of the first places in the US that telephone service was rolled out... Interesting in the article that they had positive pressure air pumps for the cable bundles to help keep moisture out.

Those pictures with tons of spaghetti wiring were just amazing that they were able to keep track and maintain them for the past 130 years!

All of your copper lines leaving the Central Offices are under air pressure, about 5 lbs if I remember correctly.

Chances are most of it IS from the very beginning, I know I personally have worked on cable in our area that is from 1909 or there about ... obviously it's under air pressure to keep it dry.

as for the lines getting wet in the manholes, that only happens if there are already leaks involved, the Storm didn't have anything to do with that, it was due to not keeping up with it, while they do what they can, they can't keep up with it all...

My guys that work Air Pressure tell me you can start at the Office and repair all the way out to the end and when your done, you can start over ... everytime you FIX a spot it reinforces the 5 lbs of pressure and potentially blows another location because the full pressure is on it again.

 

[Jimbo]

We still have straight lay 1200 pair pulp cable here in wv. DSL will not go through it very well.

Sure it will .... as long as it's not been OPENED and has been closed properly.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I have an employee who used to work in repair for AT&T.

Like it was mentioned earlier, the issue is that all the copper cable is insulated in this pulp paper. From there, the cable bundle is pumped with air and kept under pressure, so any holes in the cable casing it will leak air instead of take in water.

Once the storm knocked out power, battery back ups kicked in and once the batteries failed any little hole in the system let the water get in and destroy the cable.

I wonder how long its going to take them to replace everything with fiber?

I got T1's at my office that are running over the old pulp cable. Everytime we get a bad storm we have issues, and its so bad I have to have 2 T1 Lines just as a backup if one goes down.

 

[Jimbo]

I have an employee who used to work in repair for AT&T.

Like it was mentioned earlier, the issue is that all the copper cable is insulated in this pulp paper. From there, the cable bundle is pumped with air and kept under pressure, so any holes in the cable casing it will leak air instead of take in water.

Once the storm knocked out power, battery back ups kicked in and once the batteries failed any little hole in the system let the water get in and destroy the cable.

I wonder how long its going to take them to replace everything with fiber?

I got T1's at my office that are running over the old pulp cable. Everytime we get a bad storm we have issues, and its so bad I have to have 2 T1 Lines just as a backup if one goes down.

It may not take as long as you might think ...
MOST cities (I'm sure NY is one of them) have been using Fiber runs for many years now ... they run them mainly between Central Offices (CO's).

 

[mike123abc]

At least in lower Manhattan it should be easier to run fiber to each building and put a node in the building to service that building. They should have the density to do that.

 

[Jimbo]

At least in lower Manhattan it should be easier to run fiber to each building and put a node in the building to service that building. They should have the density to do that.

If they want to pay the cost of Fiber then Yes, they would do that.
I can't see them running the whole city that way though ...
Takes longer to splice Fiber than it does copper, mainly because of the different equipment involved.

 

[Juan]

If they want to pay the cost of Fiber then Yes, they would do that.
I can't see them running the whole city that way though ...
Takes longer to splice Fiber than it does copper, mainly because of the different equipment involved.

one fiber vs tens of thousands of copper lines

 

[Juan]

At least in lower Manhattan it should be easier to run fiber to each building and put a node in the building to service that building. They should have the density to do that.

nahh its called fios..only thing in the building is a splitter..its all "passive fiber"

 

[Jimbo]

one fiber vs tens of thousands of copper lines

Fiber has it's limit as well.