Hunters forced Google to bury fiber

Google has reported that fiber optic channels in Oregon “regularly” are shot down by local hunters.

At the AusNOG conference last week in Sydney, one of the leading engineers, Vijay Gill, reported that Oregon hunters specifically aim at insulators on transformers.

Apparently, for local shooters this is a sort of competition for accuracy.

The problem is that Google Fiber from the data center in Oregon to the neighboring data center in Dulles, worth $ 600 million, also passes through transformers.
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“Every November at the beginning of the hunting season, we know that the fiber must be shot down, so we now began to lay the underground channel,” said Jill.

Hunters can be entertained from boredom or compete. Vijay Jill added that they almost never fall into the insulators themselves, but regularly damage the optical fiber. Due to the snowfall and avalanche, it is not always possible to quickly eliminate the damage. If the weather is good, a Caterpillar D9 helicopter or tractor is sent to the scene of the accident. Three technicians in backpacks repair materials. “The guys are literally working with guns, so the Internet is a more dangerous thing than you thought,” the engineer joked.