And I bet not random vandalism either. Come on... think. (all of the following was from local news sources)

Union or disgruntled ATT person? No... ALL fibers were cut in the manholes, and they were clearly labeled for each carrier affected: ATT, Verizon, Sprint, AboveNet, Nextel,

Random Vandalism? Done in two places: South San Jose and Redwood City, and Redwood City's lines were cut multiple times in several different manholes.

They also knew enough to cut Fiber rather than the Copper lines... no copper was cut, even though all of the manholes carried labeled copper as well. This tells me that it was not random vandalism either or a mistake by copper stealing persons.

This tells me that it was intentional... by someone. I'm also NOT a tin-hat believer in conspiracy theories, but this could easily be a quick test by a terrorism group to see how effective it would be, test emergency resources, and see how long it would take to fix it.

As others here have said... it's not all that difficult to get into the underground lockers and conduits. Hell... most are marked pretty clearly on the manholes what's down there (sewer, steam, storm-drain, communications)

Again, I'm not an alarmist or a conspiracy-theorist, but if you add this to the hacking of the national electrical grid a few days ago. Think of what could be done with a dozen or so people in each of a few key urban areas (say... 10 or so around the country) all at once, coordinate that with hacking the grid and/or other things. Oh... then add in Conficker or something worse that we don't yet know is there on a bunch of kiosks and/or infrastructure. Heh... there are what... 6 en-route ATC centers across the US, and they all use phone for coordinating between themselves and local ATC centers. Even with fallback procedures it could cause a short-term mess.

Well.. it makes me think. Not enough to stock up on survival supplies... but it makes me think.