The cable that was severed isn’t hard to spot because the trenching machines used to bury it leave a scar on the landscape, he said.This should be a Big Freakin' Deal because it flies in the face of one of the most basic principles of the design of the Internet -- that there is always an alternate data route. The only exception is "last-mile" connections to residential and business customers.“I could take a couple of shovels, and one or two people, a six-pack of beer, find a place that’s hidden with not much traffic, and I could have a little party,” Hobbs said. “It would be a trivial task to dig up one of these cables. They’re not guarded, and they’re not protected.”
Hobbs said CenturyLink should be discussing why the lines weren’t backed up and whether there are enough alternative routes for data. “People should be embarrassed that this has happened and that they hadn’t planned for a better outcome,” he said.
WTH were these people thinking???
Why dig there are loads in the air
The consideration of the companies that provide internet infrastructure is the basic relationship of telecommunications economics: "If arpu << opex telco goes broke." Translation: If the average revenue per user is less that the operational expense of the network YOUR telecom company WILL go broke.
This is more of a problem in the Mountain West than in most places. Population densities drop off quick outside the major cities and distances are long. This means low revenues and high infrastructure costs. Which means that you can have all of the layer 2-7 redundancy you want but if there is only one fiber run from Phoenix to Flagstaff and some guy gets loose with a shovel and a pair of bolt cutters, you're screwed. And you aren't going to guard all 150 miles of fiber run.
Running fiber is the expensive part. For Flagstaff, the reasonable thing to do would be to run fiber from Phoenix Main up highway 87 all the way to Winslow and then backhaul it along the rail lines to Flagstaff - assuming there isn't already fiber there, which is probable. The problem is, every Green in the State of Arizona will be fighting you every foot of the way for 200 miles and you will have to cross the land of the Tonto Apache - and if you think their warriors were fierce in the 19th century you ought to see their lawyers in the 21st. Big casino revenues buys good lawyers. (I think that's an Apache saying, don't know how old.) There will be a price to be paid. So the question is, is it worth having a redundant path between Phoenix and Flagstaff? The I17 corridor is growing but I doubt the revenues would support the necessary infrastructure investment at this time.