You are here: silicon.com > Networks > Telecoms

Construction worker wipes out Silicon Valley web access

'Boss, can I have a word... do you know what this cable was for?'

By Will Sturgeon

Published: 31 October 2002 08:40 GMT

Web users in the heart of Silicon Valley lost their internet access yesterday after a construction worker accidentally severed a fibre-optic cable.

UUNet customers in San Francisco and Santa Clara saw their web access interrupted - or at best slowed considerably - around 11:10(PST). The outage lasted for around an hour putting a severe dent in the affected companies' working day.

By noon, most customers regained service after UUNet routed traffic to other parts of its network, according to a representative from WorldCom, UUNet's parent company.

The cable was still being repaired early Wednesday afternoon. The representative didn't know how many customers were affected.

Ben Charny writes for News.com

Add comment

Print story

Email story

RSS

"A shark ate the internet" - excuses, excuses...

Stock fraud case strikes at heart of Silicon Valley

Peter Cochrane's Uncommon Sense: Valley lessons

Silicon Valley rents fall as downturn hits home

Seizing power: Richard Baguley has been on the ground in California since the lights starting going out

In silicon.com

Commentary

Seb Janacek Minority Report: Apple to rock us with new iPods? Rumour mill in full swing…

silicon.com Inbox: iPhone ad, red boxes, wi-fi piggybacking, sci-fi thinking "The more machines think, the less humans bother to think"

Latest News

TelePresence saves HSBC money - and airmiles

Edinburgh Council signs multimillion BT deal

Mobile broadband threatening fixed line?

Tech spend to top $3.4tr

Brits spending record time online

£68m 'snooping' database: Little impact on serious crime

Jobs

Infrastructure Specialist - Hampshire

This is a brilliant chance to work for a rapidly expanding and increasingly well known company in the heart of Hampshire. I am looking for experience ...

Security Cleared Oracle 10g Production DBA

A massive force in the engineering field based in the heart of the Thames Valley urgently require an Oracle DBA to join their expanding team! ...

3rd Line Support - Windows 2000/2003 - Outlook - Global Multi-national

A fantastic opportunity to work for a multi-billion company in the heart of Thames Valley. As a Technical Analyst you will implement & provide ...

Special Report Focus

CIO50 2008
The silicon.com CIO50 2008 profiles the most influential and innovative tech chiefs in the UK across all industries and organisation size, from the biggest FTSE100 companies to high growth dot-com start ups and the public sector. The list was voted on by the UK CIO community and a panel of experts. Find out more in our latest special report.