[_16k4]

I've heard a fun story from the old timers in my org about a fiber outage in Brazil. A routine fiber cut occurred. They figure out how far from one end the cut is (there is gear that measures the time to see a light pulse reflect off of the cut end.) Then they pull out a map of where the fiber was laid, count out the distance, and send a technician out to have a look at where they expect the cut to be. All standard practice up until this point.

The technician updates the ticket after a while with "cannot find road." The folks back in the office try to send them directions, but then the technician clarifies, "road is gone." Our fiber, and the road it was buried under was totally demolished in the few hours it took to get someone out there. The developing world can develop at alarming rates.

Other tales from the middle of nowhere: People shoot at arial fiber with guns. Or dig it up and cut it for fun. One time out technician was carjacked on the way to doing a repair.

[schoen]

> there is gear that measures the time to see a light pulse reflect off of the cut end

Though not very relevant to your stories about Brazil, it's a neat technique in its own right:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_time-domain_reflectome...