Submitted by Howie McCausland

Technicians from BTS worked all weekend rebuilding the water-damaged fiberoptic infrastructure in the Sunderland basement wirecloset. Service was restored to Sunderland, the ILC computer labs, and Johnson by midday Sunday; service was restored to Wright Theatre early Monday morning. All damaged fibers were reterminated, with patch panels mounted in a new location where they will no longer be subject to dripping water laden with caustic chemicals.

Before (first photo) and After (second photo)

(Behind the new rack, you can see the rust stains left on the wall from the old corroding boxes and white streaks where alkali-laden water has run down the wall.)

We also used this time to replace and upgrade the ethernet switches serving Sunderland, and to improve the fiber cabling used by Media Services for video and TV feeds from the Sunderland satellite farm.

(We hope in the near future to do a similar “extreme makeover” to the network gear serving Proctor. The situation there isn’t quite so dire, but the extensive revovations offer us the opportunity to relocate the network gear away from the heat and humidity of the current mechanical room.)