At 08:39 p.m. 22/12/2006 +1300, Steve Wray wrote:
Russell Fulton wrote:
What amazes me is that Telstra maintain that a truck hitting a pole was a *completely* unforseeable event and that even in retrospect they could not have been expected to have forseen that *one* *day* a truck would hit a 'single-point-of-failure pole' and that they could not have been expected to have planned for it.
its called a restoration plan and they have them and it worked very well.
I think that the question one must ask first is "Just how many such poles are there?" Probably thousands scattered around the country.
millions - you have no idea of how many towns and cities have single points of failure on poles. And thats world wide. In the mid 70's a single lightning strike hit a pylon and caused 5 days of rioting and looting - in New York. The power was off for days. The pylon carried 5 circuits and loosing them destabilised the power network and it fell over like a pack of cards. Rebooting a power system like New Yorks isn't a 3 finger salute. So it comes down to risk and chance. What is the risk that you'll get hit crossing the road ? it never happens ? So do you always use an overbridge or tunnel ? We all learn to live with a degree of risk. I know customers at the end of Telstra's fiber. They're not happy, but neither do they want to pay more for diversity. So they have a strong cup of coffee and accept the dice rolled the wrong way.