Tunnel borer mishap results in outage affecting 70,000 customers

In yet another data cable severing mishap, contractors working on an Olympic site in Stratford, United Kingdom, sent a large tunnel borer into a deep level British Telecom (BT) tunnel. The resulting carnage cut through fiber optics and copper wire, disrupting service to some 70,000 customers. Internet access, phone lines, private digital circuits and mobile cell sites were affected, though BT says service has been restored to 50,000 homes and businesses so far.

Despite the redundant nature of the Internet, the severing of data cables--most commonly at sea--has shown just how prone some of these data pathways are to disruption. Indeed, some ISPs remain off-line at this point. Ironically, the outage has also inadvertently created traffic problems of the road-bound kind in other parts of London due to the inability of the Transport for London to manage some of its traffic lights.

In this instance, the accident completely blocked the tunnel located 32 meters below the surface. As such, any repair will be difficult and could take some days.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at The Register

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