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Verizon has reported that construction accidents by third-party companies and homeowners have damaged thousands of its fiber-optic internet lines. While Verizon technicians can fix some of these incidents within hours, some issues can take days.
In either case, the resulting internet outage could mean lost revenue for businesses and individuals working from home, as well as just plain frustration for everyone else.
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Verizon on Wednesday announced how it's combating this problem: with artificial intelligence (AI)-powered technology that aims to proactively prevent cuts from happening, rather than reactively reacting to them.
811's “Call Before You Dig” is a nationwide program aimed at helping businesses and homeowners locate critical lines: Just call the program and give it the address where you plan to dig, and a crew will come to your property within three to 12 business days and spray paint or flag the location of the lines.
Verizon combines that system with its own AI technology to identify potentially problematic requests and reduce the potential for hundreds of cuts each year. Here's how it works:
The 811 system receives more than 10 million requests to excavate each year. Processing these requests manually can be difficult, and workers may get frustrated and start digging before the line is even drawn, or may not pay attention to drawing the line. Verizon's technology uses both past and current activity, as well as excavator activity in the field, to predict when the line is at risk of being cut.
Verizon customers may also be able to access space-based broadband connections later this year.
This means that if the company has a history of disconnecting lines, or if lines have been disconnected previously at a location, the system will proactively notify Verizon and take extra steps to contact drilling parties.
Julie Slattery, Verizon's senior vice president of core engineering and operations, said anyone planning to excavate should first call 811. “This is the simplest step to reduce the chance of damaging underground fiber optics and keep our customers and emergency responders connected,” she said in the release.
