Intellectual Property Law

Deliberate sabotage is being blamed for a sizable internet and telephone service outage in Silicon Valley today.

At 1:30 this morning someone opened up a manhole cover on a railroad right-of-way in San Jose, climbed down and cut four AT&T fiber optic cables.  A second AT&T cable, and a Sprint cable, were cut in the same manner two hours later, further north in San Carlos.

Service for Sprint, Verizon and AT&T customers in the southern San Francisco Bay Area has been lost, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Police departments have put more units on the street, because nobody can call 9-1-1.

A much smaller Comcast outage affecting around 4,500 customers in San Jose began at around 1:00 p.m. Pacific time. Spokesman Andrew Johnson says the company is investigating the cause.

See Also:

• The Backhoe: A Real Cyberthreat
• Undersea Cables Cut; 14 Countries Lose Web
• Cable Cut Fever Grips the Web
• Five Ton Anchor Caused Cable Cut