(Winona-MN) Services are restored after two separate fiber-optic cable cut incidents occurred 15-minutes apart and separated by 100 miles. The incident left many Hiawatha Broadband Communications, Inc. (HBC) customers without services for several hours.
Hbc field technicians work to locate the fiber cut in red wing.
Wednesday afternoon, HBC received a report around 3:30 pm of a cut fiber cable near Winthrop, MN. Shortly afterwards, at 3:45 pm., HBC learned that a second fiber cut had occurred in Red Wing, MN. Individually, neither incident would have caused much interruption as HBC has a redundant fiber-optic service ring. When there is a disruption along one point of the ring, the network reverses service signals sending them along the redundant fiber path. But when two cuts occur to the ring simultaneously, a signal gap is created, which causes an interruption of services between the two points.
“HBC experiences cuts to our fiber network several times each year,” explained HBC president, Dan Pecarina. “Because of our redundant network, signals are not interrupted, and customers are unaware anything has happened. But when two cuts occur to the network at the same time, there is a signal disruption in the network which results in an outage situation.”
In Red Wing, a contractor for another service provider was drilling underground to place additional conduit. During this process the drill bit struck a rock and bounced into a trench containing HBC’s network fiber. Nearly 15 feet of fiber-optic cable was damaged, resulting in a major, time-consuming repair operation. Damage near Winthrop was caused by a utility contractor working on a buried gas line.
HBC personnel worked through the night, finishing repairs in Red Wing shortly before 2:00 am. Repairs were completed in Winthrop around 5:00 am. and all services restored at that time.
