As another with a network engineering background from the customer side as lead architect for a 1+ million port healthcare network, principal solution architect for a VAR, and now wired PLM for a major networking vendor (not the one in the article), I can't say the details given really say enough to come to any conclusion or doubts whatsoever.

I've seen simple copper->fiber migrations like this take down a large network and I've seen them be blamed when they turned out to be unrelated. I could come up with a scenario for most any view anyone wanted to speculate on because the details are so light and the possibilities are so many, but I won't because I don't have enough details to say which it might have been without just guessing myself. If they say they identified a broadcasting knob they disabled on the other ~60 routers already in service then that's what I'd leave such a conversation at for now - but I wouldn't necessarily trust that or what it really means without more info.

In the thread the other day I saw people blaming anything from AI to attacks to Starlink but few willing to admit they just needed more information to have any certainty about what to think beyond "it sucks this is down and I wonder what the reason will be". The only thing I'd raise my eyebrows at at this point would be if we don't get further details in reasonable time.