Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!texsun!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: geek@mit-amt.media.mit.edu (Chris Schmandt) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Pay Phones/Earthquakes Message-ID: Date: 20 Aug 89 03:46:03 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Reply-To: geek@mit-amt.media.mit.edu Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA Lines: 18 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 311, message 10 of 10 At least for AT&T, it seems to be policy to provide greater access for *outgoing* long distance calls from an emergency area (specifically, recent CA earthquake) than incoming. The logic is that if a family gets news out then relatives in other areas can pass it on to each other without straining the network node in the emergency area. Traffic quotas can be set, according to destination, for example, at each of the 100-odd 4 ESS's. In other words, your local node (Bent Street, Cambridge) knows to let only some fraction of the calls towards the node in question (say, LA) through, and signals busy locally without bothering the distant node. Such decisions are made by humans at the NOC (Network Operations Center), and implemented in the routing tables in each of the 4ESS's. I guess this is somewhat easier now that the network is no longer heirarchical. I was told the above{during a recent visit to the NOC. (amazing place, never turn down a chance to visit it!) chris