Beaver leaves 15 cities in Canada without internet

Engineers from BC Hydro, the water and power company for the Canadian province of British Columbia, identified a beaver as the culprit behind a general connectivity outage in that Canadian province last week.

According to CTVNews, the fall of a poplar tree on June 7 cut an electricity line from BC Hydro, and a fiber optic cable from Internet provider Telus, which knocked out much of northwestern British Columbiaa province with 5 million people, affecting the cities of Burns Lake, Granisle, Haida Gwaii, the Hazeltons, Kitimat, Prince George, Prince Rupert, Smithers, Terrace, Thornhill, Houston, Topley, Telkwa, Fraser Lake and Vanderhoof.

BC Hydro staff concluded that the The fall of the tree was caused by a beaver due to the teeth marks it had on its base. That fall cut the two lines in a marshy area of ​​difficult access, which delayed the reactivation of the service, and also caused a fire, controlled by local firefighters from Topley, the closest town.

LOOK: Quantum computers: how do they solve thousands of years of tasks in seconds?

“It’s unusual, but it happens from time to time,” said Bob Gammer, a BC Hydro employee. So he wouldn’t be a rich man if he had a dime for every beaver outage, but he does happen every now and then.”

Beyond the problem of internet access, the fall of the tree complicated all urban life, since no payment system workedfor which businesses were forced to ask for cash payments, including one of the few service stations in the area, but as customers complained, people no longer carry bills with them: everything is turned to electronic payments.

The failure also affected mobile phone service, which uses the fiber optic network for data connections from phones in the area.

The area’s infrastructure provider, CityWest, confirmed that is installing a second fiber optic line to connect the area with Vancouver; thus, there will be two connections for the zone and this will prevent another beaver from causing a service failure.

GDA / The Nation / Argentina

Source: Elcomercio

James

I have worked as a journalist for over 10 years and have written for various news outlets. I currently work as an author at 24 News Recorder, mostly covering entertainment news. I have a keen interest in the industry and enjoy writing about the latest news and gossip. I am also a member of the National Association of Journalists.