Rich:
Really and truthfully, we get into so many different scenarios and situations, that you just have to really look at each on a case-by-case basis, and then make a decision on what's going to be the best way to get the system restored as quickly as possible. And that's really what we look at. I mean, we want to look at not only how do we repair the fiber so that it's a permanent fix, but we also want to think about getting the service back up as quickly as possible.

Andrea:
Welcome to Connected Conversations, the official podcast of Kosciusko Connect. Kosciusko Connect is a subsidiary of Kosciusko REMC. Since 2021, we have been providing lightning-fast, reliable fiber to the home internet service to rural portions of Northern Indiana. On Connected Conversations, we talk about fiber internet, technology, community, and how to navigate the digital world in which we live.
I'm your host, Andrea Melton. Thank you for connecting with us today. Welcome back to another episode of Connected Conversations, I'm Andrea. We are on episode five of Connected Conversations, which is hard to believe, but here we are. Today we're going to talk about what happens during a fiber internet outage. I'm so pleased to have with me today Rich Cinninger, who is our manager of broadband engineering and operations. Did I get that right, Rich?

Rich:
Yes, that is correct.

Andrea:
Thank you, and thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come and talk with us about this topic, which I imagine a lot of our customers, a lot of listeners, wonder about. What is happening during a fiber internet outage? We appreciate you taking some time to talk about this, because you are an expert in this field and this is your job, correct?

Rich:
That is correct.

Andrea:
You handle all this stuff. So Let's get started. Can you explain what a fiber internet outage is and why it usually happens?

Rich:
Well, basically, a fiber internet outage is when your fiber internet signals at your home does not work. That can be created for several different reasons. It could be just an individual outage, that's affecting just one customer. Or it could be a very large outage, that's affecting several customers.

Andrea:
Okay, so what would be some of the common causes of these outages? What are we seeing most often?

Rich:
Usually, what we see for individual outages, say just one customer is out of service, a lot of times it's due to a variety of things. It could be because the fiber drop, which goes from our fiber mainline up to the house, sometimes it gets cut. That could either be done by contractors doing work, or sometimes just homeowners doing landscaping, things of that nature.
Another problem that we sometimes commonly do see, is we have a fiber jumper that we actually run from a wall plate connection point inside the home that goes over to the optical modem. Many a times that little fiber jumper gets damaged, or sometimes it gets chewed up by animals or things of that nature.
That's probably a couple of the most common causes of individual outages. We also then sometimes do have larger outages that affect a number of customers that can also be caused for several reasons. Probably the most common outage, area outage as we would call it, would be to a damaged fiber. Whether that be a contractor digging and cutting into the fiber cable, creating a large area outage. Or sometimes it could also be because there's a car accident and the pole's been hit. And during that process of the pole being hit, then also the fiber optic cable has been damaged.

Andrea:
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. So if a customer is to notice they're out, they call in an outage or maybe we've gotten a couple calls about outages. Can you walk us through the first step of the process of identifying what the reason for that outage is, and then also addressing the issue?

Rich:
Normally, we take service calls and as customers call in and report their outage, if we just get the first call at that point we don't necessarily know if it's an individual problem at the customer's home, or if it's part of a larger outage. Unless we've been notified by a contractor that they've cut a cable, or obviously we'll know if we have a pole hit and our fiber is damaged or something like that.
But if it's for some other reason, maybe that we haven't been notified ahead of time, then we're going to just look at the calls coming in. So if it's a large area outage, usually customers are pretty good about calling in fairly quickly to report that their service is out. At that point, we're going to take a look at those addresses, and we're going to compile those addresses, and try to come up with what we would call a common point of failure, or a common point in the system that all of those addresses would have in common. And then, that's where we will dispatch our technicians to, that area, to begin the troubleshooting process.

Andrea:
Okay, that makes sense. Could you walk us through the steps then when you get out there, the crew gets out there, and they have to repair a damaged or a cut line? If that's the issue, what is that process to repair a line?

Rich:
Well, it can be very time-consuming and very tedious as well. First of all, if we know where the damage is, then that obviously helps. So if a contractor does call in and say, "Hey, we cut your cable," or even if they don't call in and we respond to that area, and we see a contractor out there digging in the area, and we investigate that, and at that time if we notice that the fiber cable is being cut, then that takes a lot of time out of the process of trying to figure out where that cut is.
If we don't know, then it becomes a bit more challenging, because what we have to do is we have to start at where we think the first point is, where the signal or the service is not working. And then we have to try to work our way back upstream, up the system using various tools, and technologies, and things of that nature to try to figure out at what point in the system is the signal working, is it good? What point is it bad? And then somewhere in between we have to locate where the problem is.
Once the problem is located, then there's a whole ... We move into, I guess you would call repair mode. So depending upon specifically what the problem is, sometimes it's just simply a fiber in a splice case for whatever reason has been broken. And in those cases, those outages normally are fixed quicker because they're a little bit easier to figure out where the problem is. And then, typically you're just splicing one strand of fiber to get the area back up or maybe a couple.
If it's a major cut where we have ... Let's just say we have a 48-count fiber cable that's been cut by a contractor because they've been digging, you've got to get the cable up, you got to get it all prepped out. You got to put back into splice cases, and then you have to literally splice all 48 strands of glass, which is very time-consuming. In some cases, that cable also may need to be replaced. All of our underground fiber is in conduit.
So depending on the location of this specific cut, if it would happen to be in between two underground pedestals or structures, in those cases we may actually end up splicing the conduit back together, pulling out the old fiber and then have to pull in a new piece of fiber, and then splice it on either end. So really and truthfully, we get into so many different scenarios and situations that you just have to really look at each on a case-by-case basis. And then, make a decision on what's going to be the best way to get the system restored as quickly as possible.
And that's really what we look at. I mean, we want to look at not only how do we repair the fiber so that it's a permanent fix, but we also want to think about getting the service back up as quickly as possible. In some scenarios, if it's going to be a very lengthy fix, we may look at trying to do some sort of a temporary type situation, just so that we can get the customers back online as quickly as possible.
Once we do that, then we can come back and we can look at a permanent fix, which may require us to then replace, say, a piece of cable, whether it be underground or aerial. And once we get that cable up, then we're ... Move into what we would call a planned outage situation. We would come back at a later date, whether that be a week from now, and actually do the permanent fix after we have notified those customers that their service will be out for maintenance.

Andrea:
Okay. I'm picturing this, because I've never been on a job site, and I'm newer to the company, and the industry, and learning. So when you're describing a full 48-strand that's been cut through, so that repair is done there, onsite. And is it one person who is doing that repair, or is it something that a team can work on, or is it one guy who's got to go in there and do each individual repair each strand?

Rich:
Yeah, usually when we have a major outage, we usually have at least two or three techs on site working on the particular ... The damage or the troubleshooting process. Sometimes, it requires to have a guy out in the field, and then sometimes we have to have also a technician in our main central hub that is using test equipment.
The thing with fiber is, is you don't really dig a big hole and then get down in the hole, and splice the cable together like you can with traditional telephone cables, or coax cable TV cables. With fiber optics, it's a whole different ball game. You do have to get enough slack pulled up out of the ground so that you can either get it into a van, and it depends on the weather.
I mean, if we're dealing with good weather, then a lot of times the guys will get the tails up, or both ends of the fiber up, and we'll set up a table, and we'll set up our splicing equipment on the table. And we can splice out in the elements, that's not a problem. Once you get to that point, and you get the fiber all prepped out, and you get it in your splice case, then it is just one person that is actually doing the actual splicing itself.

Andrea:
Okay. I was going to ask how Kosciusko Connect prioritizes which outages to address first, if there are multiple areas affected. But I'm kind of wondering, does that happen often, where you would have different neighborhoods or multiple areas affected by a fiber outage?

Rich:
It's very possible, especially during storm season. It kind of depends. I think that we've been very fortunate this year and we really haven't had too many outages this year. And with the fiber optic network and the fiber system and the way it's built, it's very reliable. It's very tough even though it is strands of glass, but the way the cable is made is very tough.
So it's not like it's just very easily broken, as far as that goes. If we were to be in a scenario though to where we were to have major storm damage, and we were to have multiple locations out, the first thing that obviously we do, typically if the fiber is suffering an outage, then a lot of times it's also because the power is out as well.
So one of the first things that we have to do in our system is obviously allow our electric crews to go in and get power restored, get the power lines back up and all of that. Typically, when it comes to multiple outages, we're going to treat it very similar to the electric side of the business. And that is, normally you're going to go out, and you're going to first start working on the areas that have the most customers affected. So if we have an area to where we've been able to identify that we have, say, 200 customers out, and we have another area where maybe we only have 25 customers out, we're going to try to focus our efforts on that larger area first.
Another thing that we have to keep in mind too is businesses and commercial accounts. So if we have a smaller outage but there's more businesses possibly in that area, and especially if it's during the day, business hours, we're going to move in and try to get that service restored to those businesses as quickly as possible.

Andrea:
For sure. That makes sense. Absolutely. Are there any specific steps businesses or residents can take to prevent fiber outages? Are there maintenance procedures or preventative measures that reduce the likelihood of a fiber outage?

Rich:
You're moving into an area to where we're talking about individual outages within a person's home. The answer to that is, yes, absolutely. I mean, we have many cases to where I was talking about earlier where we have this little fiber jumper that goes from the wall plate to the optical modem.
We've seen many cases to where we have domestic animals, whether it be cats or dogs. For some reason it seems to be more cats than dogs that seem to like that jumper cable. And they will chew on it, and they'll create damages. It's kind of ironic because right now I'm actually going through August service call summary reports, looking at our service calls that we did, which we do analyze on a monthly basis. And last month we actually had one of the leading causes of damages to our fiber jumpers was, the jumpers were getting kinked behind furniture, and things like that.
It's really just a matter of probably partially customer education, and making sure that customers understand that, that cable, that jumper, fiber jumper, is very easily damaged. It's not like our main cable that is very robust and strong. That is a very vulnerable part of the connection inside the home. And probably just something to kind of be aware of.
When it comes to outside the home, we have our main fiber line and then the customer's drop is hooked into that. And then, from there the drop is ran to the home. That's going to be either ran underground or above ground. From there, we run another fiber optic cable from the outside the home to inside the home. And then we make the transition to the smaller fiber jumper.
We find that the cable between the outside of the home and inside the home, the inside connection, we find that that also can get damaged. A lot of cases it could be dogs chewing on it, it could be from construction contractors, whether they're having siding work done, or things of that nature. And then of course when it comes to the underground drop that's buried up to the home, the key there is to just reiterate the advertisement for 811, call in for locates.
So before you do any digging, just make sure you call 811. It's a free service, and that will notify us to send locators out to locate that fiber drop for you. At least then you know where it's at. So if you're planning a tree or something like that, you want to try to obviously avoid that area. But also during any of that process, if a customer has any questions, if they're wanting to do some landscaping, and they're not sure, they don't want to get into the cable, they can always call us and we can help them through that.

Andrea:
Wonderful. That's good to know. Let's talk for a moment about planned outages. Why do planned outages occur? I know there are people listening who want to know.

Rich:
Well, it's basically, anytime you've got a telecommunications network, there's always going to be a need to do some sort of maintenance. Now, the thing of it is that with us, most of the maintenance is not necessarily on a preventative basis, but it's because of either a cable has been damaged, and we've temporarily fixed it to get customers back on as we had talked about earlier.
And so, now we're having to go back and we're having to do the permanent fix. That's one scenario where we will do what we call a planned outage. Another possible scenario is, is say either we or NIPSCO will go out and they put in a brand new pole line, and during that process we have to rearrange those fiber cables to the new poles. Sometimes either the fiber cable won't reach, or we're going to have to move the structure from one pole to the other pole.
In order to do that, we have to replace some fiber cable to make that work as we rework our facility so to speak. What we try to do, and we try to keep it to a minimum, but what we want to do is we want to get ourselves in a situation to where we are notifying our customers that there is going to be a planned outage for maintenance purposes, and at least give them enough notice, especially in today's environment. We want to be very conscientious about the fact that nowadays with online schooling and remote workers now, which seems to be continuing to increase the amount of people that are actually working from home-

Andrea:
Absolutely.

Rich:
... and rely on the internet service to be able to do that work. Hopefully by giving the customers enough advanced notice, hopefully they can make arrangements that either they can go into the office that day to work, or go to Starbucks, or someplace else and make those arrangements.
So that's what a planned outage is, and again, we try to keep it to a minimum, but unfortunately it is just one of those things when you're dealing with a network that sometimes you do have to take the services down.

Andrea:
Absolutely. Planned outages are hopefully infrequent but necessary. They come with the territory. My very small role that I play for those planned outages is that I record the greeting or the voice message that goes out to residents and businesses who are going to have a planned outage.
So the team will send me the day and the time, and I send that out. Or I record it, and then the team sends it out. So I do know that they are infrequent, and that folks are working hard to try to make sure our customers are notified, and know that, that outage is coming up and can plan ahead for it. So I get to see a little bit of that on my end. Great conversation. Thank you so much, Rich. I feel like I learned a lot today. I'm sure our listeners and customers did too. Is there anything else that we need to cover that we haven't talked about?

Rich:
Again, I would just encourage all of our customers to call in if their service does go out. And please, if you are planning on doing any digging in your yard, please call 811 so that we can get somebody out there to locate your underground fiber drop. And as always, we're here to serve our customers. So if any of our customers ever have any kind of a question, or are concerned about anything, please give us a call.
One thing I would say is that we do take customer service very serious here at Kosciusko RMC/Connect. Many a times if it's even just an individual outage, we're doing same day service. And if we don't get you back on today, we will most certainly get you back in service the next day. That's what we're here for. We appreciate all of our customers. We appreciate their business. We know it is a service that they can get elsewhere. We hope, and that they choose us, and we're going to do everything in our power to keep our customers happy and satisfied, so that we continue to hook up more and more customers.

Andrea:
Happy, satisfied, and connected.

Rich:
There you go.

Andrea:
Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Rich, again. Have a great rest of your day.

Rich:
Thank you, appreciate it.

Andrea:
You've been listening to Connected Conversations, the official podcast of Kosciusko Connect. From all of us at Kosciusko Connect, thank you for connecting with us today.