Verizon banks on AI to help it reduce outages

It has deployed a programme to trawl through more than 10 million 811 dig requests. 811 is the phone number that homeowners and professional builders are asked to call several days ahead of undertaking any digging.

It alerts companies like Verizon about any proposed works, giving them a window of opportunity to log the details and send an inspector to visit the site and mark the approximate location of any underground lines.

Verizon's new programme scans these records to identify high-risk excavations. It does this by factoring in historical and current activity at the location as well as the track record of the individual or civil works firm that is carrying out the work.

When a high-risk excavation is flagged, Verizon can take action, such as reaching out to the excavator to ensure they are taking appropriate measures to mitigate the chances of an accidental outage. It reckons the new programme has the potential to reduce "up to several hundred fibre cuts" on an annual basis.

"We are using artificial intelligence and machine learning to be proactive, rather than reactive, keeping our customers connected and preventing accidents that result in costly repairs," said Julie Slattery, SVP of core engineering and operations at Verizon.

Calling 811 is voluntary, but Verizon urges people to do it regardless of the size of job – from installing a mailbox, putting in a fence or new deck, or even planting trees.

"It's the easiest step toward reducing the chance of damaging underground fibre and helping to keep our customers and first responders connected," said Slattery.

Verizon says that an underground line is damaged every six minutes due to somebody digging without checking first.

Indeed, according to local media, as recently as the weekend Verizon customers in Harrison and Tarentum near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania experienced outages. Just after services had been restored, customers in nearby New Kensington and Plum started reporting problems on Monday. Verizon confirmed that the additional disruptions had been caused by fibre cuts.

These incidents occur with such regularity that in June, T-Mobile introduced a new fixed-wireless access (FWA) service pitched as a backup connection for fixed broadband customers to use if their fibre or cable service stops working.

Citing figures from CivicScience, T-Mobile said nearly 20% of US internet users experience outages "at least a few times per month."

Here in the UK, according to comparison Website Uswitch, between spring 2023 and spring 2024, 38 million people experienced a broadband outage lasting three hours or more. Outages are estimated to have cost the UK £1.6 billion in lost working hours over the past year.

In a nutshell, it's a serious issue, and although AI is beginning to elicit eye-rolls for being crow-barred into every news release going, if it can reduce outages, then its use on this occasion is very much justified.