Tis The Season: Weathering the Winter Elements and The Manhole Issues
Winter is coming. And each year, winter seems to be arriving earlier, staying longer and materializing more extreme weather conditions be it the seasonal snowfall New Yorkers have come to expect, or catastrophic flooding as witnessed by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Some people see the increase in extreme winter weather patterns as an indictment of global warming. Regardless of the cause, when heavy snowstorms, plummeting temperatures and icy conditions arrest an urban center, making headlines, telecommunication, and broadband services brace for possible interruptions. One of the major problems that is now becoming more and more commonplace in densely populated cities like New York, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Missouri, and London are manhole fires igniting during the arresting coldest and snowiest months of January and February. But Old Man’s winter below freezing temperatures are not the culprit here. Most fiber optic lines are installed below the frost line which helps reduce and, in ma...