Local people know where they are because once upon a time a D8 drove through pulling a big orange spool of fiber conduit and passers by chatted about how another fiber was going in. Also around here the contractors seeded the disturbed ground with a wildflower mix (presumably to discourage weeds) so you can also look for straps of wildflowers.
And of course there are marker posts that say "buried fiber optic cable do not dig".
I don't quite understand this sort of thing happening. Wasn't the whole point of the internet to be a self-healing network where we route around severed cables, etc?
Or is it that these ATC networks are their own air-gapped network with less redundancy? That just doesn't add up. Or maybe there was only one line going to the ATC, with no multiple "ISPs" like a datacenter would have?
* Yes, TRACON have their own dedicated links. You can look into ASTERIX and STARS to learn some of the cursed ways the data processing and dataflow work.
* There is supposed to be a primary and a secondary link, in this case the primary failed and the fail-over also failed. It's unclear from the reporting if they were damaged in the same incident or if the failover was not tested or monitored adequately.
The Philadelphia TRACON site has been notoriously unreliable and was supposedly improved in 2025, it's also unclear if these issue actually could stem from that implementation.
I’ve had enough double-redundant links fail - and I mean pretty thoroughly double-redundant, different provider, different media, different physical path - that I’m quite surprised something like the air traffic control system only has two links.
So of course if the FAA is going to put AI into the watchtowers, they're obviously going to use local AI and not rely on some random Amazon cloud infra in some middle eastern country.
right. of course, no ones going to cut corners on the safe use of AI and secure infrastructure in this administration.
There is also a new ATC system being rolled out, as early as today
https://www.airwaysmag.com/new-post/faa-smart-first-deployme...
I suspect it is vibe coded. Contract won in June. Deploying in September.
Good luck to all of us.
Deploying first to DC? Yeah, that’ll end well.
It has been conjectured that the easiest way to locate a buried fiber optic cable is to start digging.
(The actual easiest method is to install the conduit or direct burial cable with tracer wire)
Local people know where they are because once upon a time a D8 drove through pulling a big orange spool of fiber conduit and passers by chatted about how another fiber was going in. Also around here the contractors seeded the disturbed ground with a wildflower mix (presumably to discourage weeds) so you can also look for straps of wildflowers.
And of course there are marker posts that say "buried fiber optic cable do not dig".
I don't quite understand this sort of thing happening. Wasn't the whole point of the internet to be a self-healing network where we route around severed cables, etc?
Or is it that these ATC networks are their own air-gapped network with less redundancy? That just doesn't add up. Or maybe there was only one line going to the ATC, with no multiple "ISPs" like a datacenter would have?
* Yes, TRACON have their own dedicated links. You can look into ASTERIX and STARS to learn some of the cursed ways the data processing and dataflow work.
* There is supposed to be a primary and a secondary link, in this case the primary failed and the fail-over also failed. It's unclear from the reporting if they were damaged in the same incident or if the failover was not tested or monitored adequately.
The Philadelphia TRACON site has been notoriously unreliable and was supposedly improved in 2025, it's also unclear if these issue actually could stem from that implementation.
I’ve had enough double-redundant links fail - and I mean pretty thoroughly double-redundant, different provider, different media, different physical path - that I’m quite surprised something like the air traffic control system only has two links.
Do you want air traffic control to be on the general internet?
That seems like an extremely foolhardy thing to do.
As a tertiary backup: Yeah, maybe I do want that.
It seems like it would present a less-chaotic solution than that provided by having no data communications at all.
You certainly don’t need to run this over public Internet to get resiliency over multiple paths.
Pretty grim that a life critical system wasn't designed to report that the backup fibre was unserviceable until they attempted to switch over to it.
I wonder how long it was down? Days, weeks, months?
A lot of people don't check their backups until they need to restore.
A lot of people are incompetent.
A backup without a restore test isn't a backup at all
Sometimes your multiple fiber paths end up in the same bundle, severed by the same backhoe. It's always a fun day when that becomes apparent.
Put all your backups in one basket, and then pray that nobody crushes the basket.
Could this be sabotage?
That seems more than merely plausible given current tensions and the location/timing connection with NYC and UN.
ATC seems like a great place to have redundancy with a starlink dish on the roof.
So much for all that work to ensure path diversity. Perhaps it got deleted by Elon's goons grepping for "diversity".
[delayed]
So of course if the FAA is going to put AI into the watchtowers, they're obviously going to use local AI and not rely on some random Amazon cloud infra in some middle eastern country.
right. of course, no ones going to cut corners on the safe use of AI and secure infrastructure in this administration.