Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: tds@tds386e.att.com (Antonio Desimone) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Bay Area Earthquake Phone Service Message-ID: Date: 18 Oct 89 17:07:38 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 29 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 459, message 3 of 10 From article , by dennisb@pdx.mentor. com (Dennis Brophy): > How does the phone service work during an earthquake? > So, what is happening here? Why can "little" MCI make its way into > the Bay Area while AT&T cannot? First, let me tell you that I don't *know* the answer, and second, that I know only a little about how the long-distance network is run (and of course don't represent AT&T...). BUT, I can speculate. If an emegency developed and generated focussed overload in my (hypothetical) network I would block calls destined for the emergency so that those circuits would be available to those calling out from the affected area (if I had the ability to exercise such controls). A better question might be, how successful is MCI/AT&T in completing calls out of the Bay area? (But these are only my opinions and uninformed speculations!) Tony DeSimone AT&T Bell Laboratories Holmdel, NJ 07733 att!tds386e!tds