px_eliezer_ Having said that, CenturyLink has had other service problems before this.
We had a widespread outage up in NE Broward centered on Sunrise and NE 3rd Ave, I noticed the troubles dropping around 8:30 PM so I grabbed one of them and the other tech I was working with grabbed another, up in that area we always worked in groups.
Both business's where closed but testing from the outside indicated the circuits where dead and more troubles began dropping into the pool so we drove over to where the RT and crossbox where and right there was something weird a large track-hoe and a ripped open manhole.
Someone swiped the track-hoe from a nearby construction project drove it to just the right manhole where all the cables exited the RT and the CB, ripped open the top of the manhole then ripped out all of the copper cables.
Strange part was whoever did it didn't take the copper it was piled up on the side of the road along with the top of the manhole and torn up roadway.
After putting on my work gloves I climbed up on the track-hoe opened the operators door and on the seat was a hunk of cardboard with this written on it "they are going to be mad at me for doing this."
I called my manager and started out the conversation with "you are not going to believe what the eff we just found out here."
He didn't but realized I wasn't messing with him and was on his way, I called 911 let them know who I was and who I worked for and explained we have had a major attack on our network and need some units out here.
I don't know how many POTS lines where down, but we had around two hundred circuits down hard and would not be working any time soon.
Whoever did that job knew where to hit us in that area to do the maximum amount of damage,