Sabotage Attacks Knock Out Phone Service(Northern CA)

[tekisui]

Source: SFGate

SAN JOSE -- Vandals cut fiber-optic cable lines belonging to AT&T at two locations early today, knocking out landline and cellular phone service to thousands of residential customers and businesses in southern Santa Clara County, in Santa Cruz and San Benito counties and along the Peninsula, authorities said.

Four AT&T fiber-optic cables were severed shortly before 1:30 a.m. along Monterey Highway north of Blossom Hill Road in south San Jose, police Sgt. Ronnie Lopez said. Two cables, one belonging to AT&T and one to Sprint, were cut about two hours later along Old County Road near Bing Street in San Carlos, authorities said.

San Jose police used yellow tape to cordon off the area where the AT&T cables were destroyed, which is near railroad tracks, as investigators and phone company workers descended into an underground vault where the cables are located.

"We're treating this as a crime scene," Lopez said.

Police in San Jose and San Carlos are sharing information, said Cmdr. Rich Cinfio, a spokesman for San Carlos police. Investigators said they had no suspects in either act of vandalism.

"I'm not sure how it's all connected, but it happened at around the same time," said Crystal Davis, a crisis communications manager for Sprint. "It's concerning."

In both instances, saboteurs had to lift heavy manhole covers to get to the cables. They would have to have been equipped with heavy-duty cutting equipment to slice through the thick rubber coating surrounding the cables.

Most of the service outages were caused by the San Jose vandalism. Among those affected were customers of Verizon and Sprint wireless, which rely on AT&T to carry their phone traffic back to their networks.

The outage knocked out 911 service, meaning people who have an emergency will have to get to a police or fire station or hospital on their own if they need help.

more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/09/BAP816VTE6.DTL&tsp=1

[murphymom]

1. Sounds like this is in the south Bay Area, not Southern California n/t

[tekisui]

3. Thanks, fixed it.

[SoCalNative]

2. Actually that's No Cal

not So Cal

[tekisui]

4. Thanks,

edited.

[lunatica]

5. My first thought is urban terrorism...

Actually, so is my second one.