San Jose, California: Incident of Vandalism Affects Phone Service And More

Saturday, April 11th, 2009 @ 8:44 am | We Think

According to police in San Jose, California, in the early morning hours of Thursday, April 9, 2009, someone vandalized fiber optic communication cables belonging to AT&T. No one so far has been able to estimate the extent of the damage caused by the unexpected interruption of service to the telephone giant’s residential and business customers in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties.

Authorities report segments of the three counties experienced service outages at hospitals, computerized medical records, stores, Internet service and banks; ATMs and credit and debit cards were similarly affected by the sabotage. Police and fire departments that rely on 911 calls were crippled by this purposeful act of inconsideration.

Service to Verizon’s more than 52,000 landline customers in southern Santa Clara County, was also interrupted. Verizon depends on AT&T cables in the South Bay to provide landline service. A Verizon spokesman reports service in the Gilroy and Morgan Hill areas was also affected. Verizon is the only provider of landline service to southern Santa Clara County.

Sprint landline customers in the San Carlos area were out of telephone service, too. Rerouting telephone traffic restored service to some of its business customers in the area.

Verizon Wireless and Sprint wireless, both companies depend on AT&T to carry phone traffic back to their cellular networks, along with T-Mobile and AboveNet cell phone customers who were also affected by this crime.

People who were unable to call for emergency ambulance service were driven by private car to hospital emergency rooms.

A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation says so far there is no indication of terrorism.

Local police say the attack began shortly before 130am PDT in an underground vault where the cables belong to AT&T. It is belived most of the service disruption came from this initial attack.

Police investigators say about two hours later at two locations near each other in San Carlos four more underground cables were cut. At least two of the four underground cables cut belong to AT&T. Two additional lines were also sliced in south San Jose.

In order to accomplish this deed the vandals had to remove heavy manhole covers using a special device, climb down a shaft and chop through heavy cables. The four cables cut in San Jose were about the width of a silver dollar and were encased in tough plastic sheath. One cable contained 360 fibers, and the other three had 48 fibers each.

It requires hours of work to splice the at least 500 total fiber-optic strands that were cut, and each has to be painstakingly repaired.

Service was restored to most affected areas around 430pm PDT. Service to all affected communities was expected to be restored by early Friday morning.

Police and telecommunications authorities have noted the attacks come at a time when AT&T is in negotiations with representatives of the Communications Workers of America who represent more than 80, 000 employees. CWA members have been working under their old contract which expired on Saturday, April 4, 2009. CWA members in a vote taken in late March 2009 authorized a strike but so far have not scheduled one.

A spokeswoman for the union, CWA, gives assurances no union members took part in the act of vandalism; she further states, “There is an investigation going on, and we’ll fully cooperate. But our members are working. They’re on the job.”

An AT&T spokesman reports the company has a good relationship with the CWA and continues contract negotiation with the union.

There are reports various local and federal law enforcement agencies are sharing information and police authorities will present a more visible presence in the attack areas. Additional firefighters and other emergency personnel and vehicles have been scheduled.

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