PMC cuts fibre cables pulling down internet services in Pune

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onlyravi

Godly Modly...
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Internet services in many parts of Pune are down and will be down for a real long time as PMC has cut all cables which were hung on the electricity poles. Sadly most ISP/LCO/MSO rely on these electric poles to run their cables to long distances.

Since last week or so PMC have created teams which go in various areas in a crane mounted in a truck. They simply cut all cables on the poles with a big cutter. Another tempo follows behind which picks all the cut cables and put them in the tempo ....
I heard they have cut more than 100kms of cables in last week.

My ISP is only 300mtrs from my building but worst part is that input line itself is disconnected in this exercise and now I am relying on wireless services like Vodafone 3G and Tata Photon Max.

This is no small repair and will take months to restore connectivity. Infact first everyone needs to take permission from PMC(Pay heavily) for laying cables underground.

I read that in some areas they even cut all OFC which was running through the drains. This meant that companies like IDEA and BSNL which paid for laying those cables also got hit :-o

Links to news articles.
Mid-Day
Sakal
Sakal Last week

20130727_115610.jpg
 
Did the companies not take permission before putting up the wires?
If a company paid & the wires were still cut, they should ask for damages for loss of business.
 
I think PMC is aware of the legal precedings thant can happen against them, guess they know what they doing.

Else whay would they do it ????
 
Idea services in Hinjewadi are down due to this.
Internet in aundh area seems to be working fine as of now. But last weekend i did see the truck and followup van in Aundh area too and some policeman and they were cutting the cables that were over trees and all. I asked one of the guys and he just said "woh police walon ko poocho". Seems this is what was happening for sure. I saw them even cut those orange color cables, i suppose they are fiber optic ones right ?
Internet in my office too is crawling. Too many errors as well.
 
Did the companies not take permission before putting up the wires?
If a company paid & the wires were still cut, they should ask for damages for loss of business.
As per the mid-day article they dint which I think is the issue. Even if they did, Maharashtra local bodies are now trying to find any way to extort more money.
 
I think PMC/PCMC whatever should have first given "dhamki" to the operators to pay up else face the consequences rather than just going on cable cutting spree.
 
PMC was slammed by High Court and given an ultimatum of few weeks to repair all pot holes in the city. Failing to do so they can be fined by the High Court or asked to provide reasons.
Also there was a stray incident where due to heavy rains one of the transformer blew up in one of the posh locality. Now they transformer pole was covered with some creepers and cables. So the locality citizens(the rich and capable) made it hell for PMC by publishing in the media and Media blew it out of proportion. The downtime was almost a day and in some cases 2 days without eletricity....
You can imagine how much these rich people must have pestered the PMC officials. Since then they have gone on a rampant to clean all the poles in the city and cut all cables on them.

Yes all the cables on poles are illegal or not laid by permission of PMC but in some spare cases they even cut cables of IDEA and BSNL which were laid inside the drains and were licensed to do so by PMC.
BSNL is a state entity so they cant easily sue the PMC. I think Idea might claims damages like it did once back when cables near law college road were dug out by PMC.

PMC gave no warning and it was not even expected actually. Coz those poles are not for private bodies to lay and hang cables.
My own ISP said that they lost 13KMs of cable.... can you imagine??? They saved 13 * 1000(meters) * 1500(cost per meter to dig and lay cables) = 1.95CR.... screw me..... If thats what a small time ISP is saving by hanging cable on poles then imagine about other big players......

You know the funny thing. The photo which i attached is of a near by lane where the road itself is so narrow that two cars can hardly cross over. There is no provision of underground drains/ passages to pass cables. And since its monsoon PMC does not permit any entity to dig roads in this season. Its protocol. :)[DOUBLEPOST=1375106377][/DOUBLEPOST]Update:
Just got a call from my ISP that they have restored the connectivity to my building.
If it took only 3 days for them to restore the connectivity only means that this time also they have just hung the cables somewhere.
Hopefully this time its on buildings and not poles :D
 
The Electric poles belong to Electricity board and ISP's pay for Each one/using Each pole.
Local Municipal authorities have the Right to remove the cable if they become menace like hanging on to Roads or something.
In Such Cases Vitamin M plays a crucial role. Municipal authorities will only find it as menace if they don't get their moolah every month.

I did start a Thread on this..
http://www.techenclave.com/community/threads/aerial-wiring-in-your-city.130636/

Hyderabad Municipal Corp was also doing this when there was a International conference last year. They even invited ISP's to start using underground ducts. But due to high digging price no one showed interest.

I wish they had done something like this before laying roads and New drainage System: http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/17/3655442/restoring-verizon-service-manhattan-hurricane-sandy
 
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Well if anything, this should a be a good thing for the future.

I sympathise with the poor customers who are suffering due to no fault of their own, and such is the scenario in India due to illiterate and blank incumbents, but Atleast some logical action took place!
This def should have been the way in the first place itself. The companies cannot fling cables like this, Nor should any municipal body allow such practices. But now, as they have cut the wires.. this surely sets a precedent, and in future these bodies can be hauled up for inaction if they fail to keep a check on such wires making an appearance again. And icing on the cake would be the example set by themselves.
 
Actually in case of street lighting both the poles and responsibility to maintain them lies with the municipal body and not the electricity board. I am not aware of any such thing where after paying some charge one can lay cables using street light poles. Also in any case its impossible to spot which cables is whose. In many cases the local MCO upgrade their network or install new fiber if the existing one goes kaput. But they never take out the old cables. They are just left like that hanging on the poles. Also at many places you will see huge lengths of fiber is just collected and hanged on the poles. this kind of creates the mess and specially in monsoon its a disaster waiting to happen.

Anyways if there is something positive to be taken of this incident its that
1)Companies will be little more careful before just hanging cables on poles next time. (Though they wont completely stop it).
2)My ISP is now laying cables from terrace to terrace and will be terminating the fiber to my terrace. (before it was some 300meters away and connected to my house by CAT6). This means I will get more reliable connectivity now.
3)This has cleaned the mess in the city. (and made it ready to be messed again in the coming festivities. )
4)The PMC will be more courageous going forward after this exercise. Who knows the next thing could be hoardings. :)
5)Companies will push PMC to provide some facility to lay cables underground without everyone having to dig the roads / pay the heavy price of digging. Like PMC can dig the underground ducts everywhere and charge companies by kilometer / year charge for laying their cables in the duct. And this is how it should be actually.
 
Actually in case of street lighting both the poles and responsibility to maintain them lies with the municipal body and not the electricity board. .

I said The electricity poles are owned by the Electricity board and ISP/LCO needs to pay per pole (Rs.50/pole ) to the Electricity pole and therefore the wires on them are not illegal..
It's the ISP duty to do the wiring clean and Remove any unused wires of theirs. This is not new/illegal/unsafe as long as its tidy and Infact Google Fiber in US use Poles to pull Fiber to your home.
 
I said The electricity poles are owned by the Electricity board and ISP/LCO needs to pay per pole (Rs.50/pole ) to the Electricity pole and therefore the wires on them are not illegal..
I got that. But in case of Pune there seems no mechanism where someone can pay for using poles to hang cables. Else everyone would do that rather than paying 1500bucks/meter for digging road. Things work differently in Pune/Maharashtra as compared to rest of the world.
Govt here does not believe in using their brains. All they care is milking the public in various forms of taxes. Here in Pune the street light poles are owned by PMC and they do charge for Advt but when there is some rally all those advt boards are covered with flags and posters & PMC takes no action. Due to this recently not many companies are keen on using that space for advt and its resulting in a loss for PMC.
 
Now you know why HYD can get a 10MBPS connection for 1000 bucks and in pune we cant get even 1MBPS for the same price.
 
Got a message from YOU broadband that service wont be available till 16:00 Hrs (already passed), due to cable cut.
Although internet was working fine so it seems not all users were impacted.
 
Got a message from YOU broadband that service wont be available till 16:00 Hrs (already passed), due to cable cut.
Although internet was working fine so it seems not all users were impacted.
The down time differs from area to area and service to service.
ICC in my area totally uses terraces to spread their network of Cable and Internet. Its working fine without a minute's downtime. Maybe experience has taught them a lot.
 
Now you know why HYD can get a 10MBPS connection for 1000 bucks and in pune we cant get even 1MBPS for the same price.
Beam's Wiring isn't Underground, It's Same just like your ISP but Redundant Cabling so that line is not down.
Even Pune can Get such plans, It's your ISP who's Not thinking maturely.
- Don't Worry mate.. It's just matter of time when ACT Group Enters pune as it's on their expansion list.

We are seriously looking at expansion into metros like Delhi and Mumbai, and emerging cities like Surat, Pune, Ahmedabad, and Baroda and parts of Andhra Pradesh over the next 18 to 24 months.

http://postnoon.com/2011/11/26/wanna-deliver-gigabit-magic-to-million-customers
It's just a matter of time. may be more 6-12 months.
 
1500/metre? :p
PCMC is charging Rs 9,500 per metre as road digging cost while PMC is charging Rs 2,500 per metre.
http://www.sakaaltimes.com/NewsDeta...61142064258099SectionName=Pune&NewsTitle=BSNL
OMG
What a criminal price by criminal organizations (municipal corporations).
Let me tell you the actual quotes from a contractor:
OFC cable - varies from Rs 15-150/meter - depending on brand and spec
Conduit for the cable - Rs 15-150/meter - depending on whether it is plastic or GI
OFC cable laying - Rs 10-20/meter
Trench digging & filling - Rs 300/meter
Core cutting (in case you encounter concrete) - Rs 1000/meter

What gave these asinine organizations the rights to fix such insane prices!!!
 
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