On Sunday, Denver-area broadband customers from multiple companies experienced outages that the companies are blaming on fires and vandalism.
Chris Schroll lives in Parker and was impacted. His service is back but he received an email from BAM Broadband that said in part:
"We have been given more information from our upstream carrier regarding the damage and we wanted to share this with you. It has been reported that the cause of the outage was vandalism. Handholds/Manholes have been lit on fire randomly across the state for a few days and happened again last night along I-225."
Aurora Fire Rescue says their crews responded to a grass fire near I-225 and Alameda on Sunday at 1 a.m. The fire started in a communications vault and the cause is under investigation.
A CDOT representative said the fiber outage impacted 15 roadside Intelligent Transportation Systems devices. When CDOT responded to the manhole that houses the cables that communicate with these devices, there was no active fire, but found damage that appeared to be due to a fire that melted the fiber cables.
This was alarming to Schroll. "I think it demonstrates the vulnerability of our regular commercial fiber, commercial internet access for just regular communities," he said.
A similar email was received by Maverix Broadband customers. It showed a picture of some of the damage caused by the acts of vandalism.
The email said in part:
"…Our dark fiber carrier's infrastructure, extending from our Denver data center through Aurora, fell victim to an act of arson. This attack not only impacted Maverix's network but also disrupted hundreds of other carriers, causing widespread service interruptions. This kind of incident is highly unusual in our industry, and we've been collaborating closely with our carrier and law enforcement agencies to address the issue with the utmost urgency. Authorities have confirmed that Colorado's fiber infrastructure has been under targeted attacks by these individuals for nearly two weeks. Multiple organizations, including law enforcement, CDOT, and other entities, are actively investigating and pursuing leads related to these incidents, which have resulted in millions of dollars in damages across the state…"
Found on Mainstream News