Hi Steve,

Hope you are doing well. This short alert about the phones/net/911 outage reminded me of a few things. First some good info on how cellular tech works: http://www.thefoa.org/tech/ref/appln/wireless.html

It not common for fiber optic cables to be cut by accident during construction/excavation. In this case it sounds like it was intentional and if you know what your're doing the locations of the cables are not hard to find. So think about if a terrorist group decided to take out a few high traffic cell towers/sites in one of the US larger cities. On top of this they say well you know what we've just taken down 911/internet and telephone lets take the grid as well. Which leads me to transformers and substations. Most of the equipment in a substation has a long lead time as they come from Asia. Power companies will have some replacements on hand and will usually have lots of the single phase transformers - the ones that look like trashcans. But the bigger transformers are expensive and take a long time to get here so there's not as many on hand. If say this group manages to damage a major substations and take out the big transformers you now have a major city without: electricity, water (need electricity to run the pumps), internet, cell phone reception and last but not least 911. A recipe for chaos, Steve and very inexpensively done as well.

GB,

Feb 27, 2015