wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (David Lesher) (03/26/91)
One other OBT cable repair story comes to mind. Some years ago, Bell
had dug a large trench for several hundred feet not far from the
Cleveland Zoo. This trench contained both interoffice trunkage, and
intraoffice distribution. They had opened up and peeled back several
of the 600+ pair trunks, which were very old.
Well it got to be quitting time, so they left a few barricades and
went home. Sometime that night, some juveniles came along, saw the
kerosene pots {remember those, folks?} and kicked them into the
trench. They also threw in a few road flares.
Well you can guess the results. Virtually every pair was destroyed.
This included *tens* of thousands of pairs from a major tandom to the
CO's in the area. Of course, as Larry pointed out, old pulp cable is
NOT color-coded. In the words of a employee friend, "you'll see this
one on your bill, guys" as they worked for weeks to repair the damage.
I suspect that OBT does not now leave open trenches in less-desirable
neighborhoods unguarded at night.
wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (305) 255-RTFM