[RTC List] Time for Redundant Fiber

Wed Oct 10 09:28:35 PDT 2007

Hey all,

With all the money lost, maybe we all as a temp measure, get a service to
drive the length of the fiber each day to see if anyone is digging or about
to dig.  It seems that AT & T should be doing this anyway with the problems
we are having.  What would it cost be to have someone drive to Ukiah and
back daily checking the status of our life line.  I know this sounds a bit
medieval and silly, but guess what, if someone went by that construction
site yesterday before 9:00 and showed them where the line was, we would not
be having this conversation.

Rick Gustafson

IT Manager

The Sun Valley Group

707 825-5895

707 826-8497 - Fax

707 845-7730 _ Cell

  _____  

From: list-bounces at redwoodtech.org [mailto:list-bounces at redwoodtech.org] On
Behalf Of Sean Connors
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 9:46 PM
To: RTC; Peter Krueger
Subject: Re: [RTC List] Time for Redundant Fiber

Admittedly, I'm rather a "lurker" on this list . . . . but I am damned glad
that THIS ONE really seems to have everyone's dander up.

99% of my clients are out of the area, so I definitely got hurt today . . .
. but I think one subject that really deserves attention in a big way that
isn't getting it is the inability to process credit/debit card transactions
when this happens.

There are many ramifications here, and they are probably larger than the
loses those of us who depend upon the Internet ( not to mention long
distance phone & cell ) to operate have incurred -- what of all of the
businesses locally who can't do sales because folks can't use their
"electric money"?

For example, how much did Humboldt Merchant Services lose today over local
businesses not being able to process? 

How much did big boxes like Target, KMart, & Costco Wholesale lose? Did
Verizon and Sprint lose money because folks couldn't go over their allotted
hours this month or rack up "per use" charges, etc.? Shouldn't they be
interested in throwing some of their weight in on this?

Frankly, my wife and I have become so accustomed to this that we don't even
bother to go to the bank or the grocery store or anywhere else when this
happens. Of course, much of this will be made up for tomorrow, but how much
won't be? For example, we won't be going to the grocery store tomorrow to
buy what we were going to by, because we just dug into the freeze and the
cupboards to find something. Business lost for a grocer there.

And what about those deadliners out there who meant to pay some bill online
on time today, but couldn't and now got smacked with a late fee? Those late
fees also must trickle out of spending that would contribute to this economy
locally. 

Did local "day traders" lose money or fail to make money because they
couldn't trade? Even in a county this size, there must be some losses here
to the local economy.

Any real estate deals didn't close today?

Has anyone on this list lost a prospect or a client because of these issues?
Probably not a major issue here, but every dollar lost here is a dollar not
working for this local economy.

The issues here are MUCH larger than the techie/IT interests of the RTC,
really; they probably concern most of all of the businesses and business in
this area.

As for me, fortunately I run a "virtual" office, and I'm the only one stuck
in these situations, so it's not like my whole business is stopped because
of it . . . . but, even just these 4 days of cut fiber issues since last
Christmas are enough to make me relocate to Portland. I can't take it any
more. I'm sure there are others who are seriously weighing whether they
should hang in there and wait, or relocate to somewhere with redundancy. In
all honestly, this isn't the only reason I'm relocating ( air faire would be
another major issue, as well as opportunities for my wife who can't find
much in the way of that here ), but this issue has to have folks thinking
about whether they really want to relocate TO here ( as we did several years
ago ) or about whether they want to relocate FROM here ( as we are doing now
). None of this could be at all good for the local economy.

It saddens me because I came here with an ethic of bringing money INTO this
economy form outside, but now I'm just going to have to take that to
Portland. But before I go, I'm completely on board with any serious measures
to put pressure on ANY of the "powers that be" to rally absolutely everyone
to the cause of getting some redundancy up in here ( and I really think we
need to "think outside the box" in terms of getting folks who aren't as
Internet-dependent as we all are to see how it is affecting them and get
them on board with the cause ).

All the best,

--  Sean

Sean Connors
Web Merchant Services
www.WMSmerchantservices.com
Sean at WMSmerchantservices.com
1-877-569-6584 (sales and fax)
1-707-443-4447 (support)

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Peter <mailto:cto at precisionintermedia.com>  Krueger 

To: RTC <mailto:list at redwoodtech.org>  

Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 8:47 PM

Subject: [RTC List] Time for Redundant Fiber

Yes folks it happened again and I personally am happy it did.  Heres my
story.  I own a small tech and multimedia company with 11 employees in
Humboldt County.

The major production interruptions.

1) We had a teleconference scheduled with one of our international companies
that didn't happen this afternoon because long distance to LA didn't work at
any time for us during the day.

Major hassle just letting them know  that we couldn't even connect via
phone. Fortunately the marketing director for the company was here and his
out of the area cellphone DID work.  (Area code 408 I believe)  So they knew
early in the day that it was sketchy. Fortunate there.  So we are now part
of holding up final color approvals for print jobs thanks to this. Because
of other parties schedules we are going to have the teleconference this
Friday. If any of you have worked with software companies you know that even
a few days delay is a problem and is bad. 

2) Production deadlines. We had several projects with deadlines just not
happen and we couldn't get mockups approved. All in all we lost a lot of
productivity and will have to make that up during the next few days. 

It was a major inconvenience to my company and made the whole area look like
a backwater town.

--------------------------------

Why I am happy about it.  

It happened at a much more inconvenient time this time and highlights how
VULNERABLE we are to a much LONGER OUTAGE. 

If we want jobs here for our kids that are knowledge based tech jobs its a
good time to lobby for them once more.  Time to WAKE UP everyone.  This is
not an isolated outage or problem. Any established company we may want to
move into the area and create jobs wouldn't consider taking this kind of hit
repeatedly.  We need redundancy and we needed it TODAY.

What I am going to do.

I will be drafting a letter to the Fortuna City Council to encourage them to
work towards redundant fiber connections to help ameliorate this issue. 

Lets Get It Done!   It makes cents. Lots of cents. 

Peter

----------------------------

Peter Krueger

Precision Intermedia

http://www.precisionintermedia.com

Phone 707-725-0804

Fax 888-440-3858

Wireless 707-845-2344

Imagine No Limits...

----------------------------------

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