Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!decwrl!hayes.ims.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: roeber@cithe3.cithep.caltech.edu (Frederick Roeber)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Massive Service Outage in Northern Illinois!
Message-ID: <13770@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 17 Oct 90 22:09:29 GMT
Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Lines: 29
Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 743, Message 11 of 11


In article <13607@accuvax.nwu.edu>, telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM
Moderator) writes:

> Michael Glodek must feel like a million dollars today. He's the
> landscaper who was building a new lawn for a home at 3521 Madison
> Avenue in Oak Brook, IL on Monday morning when his digging machine
> uprooted what Illinois Bell termed a 'very major, very important' part
> of their interoffice network covering northern Illinois.

Why aren't these networks, which are obviously so important (both
directly (e.g. 911, hospital pagers, and air traffic control) and
indirectly (i.e. major economic impact)) multiply connected?


Frederick G. M. Roeber | e-mail: roeber@caltech.edu or roeber@vxcern.cern.ch
r-mail: CERN/SL-CO, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland | telephone: +41 22 767 5373


[Moderator's Note: In fact, Illinois Bell has been working on such a
system since 1988, following the Hinsdale fire. It will be completed
in 1991. Unfortnatly, the incident this week was in an area that had
not yet been completed.  Bell referred to that as quite an irony: They
had worked for two and a half years on the new system, and gotten
stung on one of the few parts still undergoing change.  Also, IBT
filed suit against the contractor on Wednesday for about one million
dollars. A large business in the area filed a class action suit
against the contractor for five million dollars; on behalf of all
affected businesses in the area.   PAT]