Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!bionet!hayes.ims.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: floyd@hayes.ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Massive Service Outage in Northern Illinois! Message-ID: <13871@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 21 Oct 90 06:50:40 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: University of Alaska Fairbanks Lines: 67 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 751, Message 1 of 9 PT>>rights. Bell did in fact file suit Wednesday to the tune of one PT>>million dollars against the contractor. PAT] FD>...trying to negotiate a payment for their damages, and they are FD>obviously trying to collect more than the cost of the damage he did. FD>What he damaged was apparently one each fiber optic device. He FD>probably owes them the cost to repair it. Several hundreds, or a few FD>thousands, of dollars. FD>What I object to is going after the cost of lost service. That was FD>caused by proven bad management and bad planning. The study done FD>following the Hinsdale fire disaster is all the documentation needed FD>to prove it. NOBODY builds non-redundant systems and puts critical FD>traffic on them. (At least nobody with good management and good FD>planning does.) PT>[Moderator's Note: They apparently did ask him to pay, and reasonably PT>assuming he would not do so voluntarily, they filed suit. Do you mean you know that they did, or you know that they did not negotiate damages? In the given amount of time they couldn't have done any 'good faith' negotiations. PT>amount of the damages it goes a lot further than 'one each fiber optic PT>device' as you stated. How much is the salary for a dozen men being PT>paid union wages working several hours overtime? This is precisely what the contractor is responsible for. Plus all other costs associated with repair of the damaged cable. It won't be inexpensive. PT>How much did it cost ... several examples of expenses as a result of outage deleted ... PT>have approached a million dollars by the time all was back to normal PT>in 708-land. PAT] Virtually everything listed above is the cost of lost service. The loss of service resulted from a non-redundant system with no alternate restoral route available. That is bad planning by definition, which comes from bad management. The study done after the fire disaster and the plan that arose from it are documentation that the potential for a disaster was planned into the system. For anyone not aware of what "redundant" and "restoral route" mean, in this context, the normal design for radio and fiber optic systems is that there are actually two radios or two cables. Only one is normally used. Sometimes the secondary carries special traffic, like live video feeds, but normally it is totally idle or carries identical traffic. When there are several routes between two locations there may only be one spare, in which case a failure on any one of them would be alt-routed on the spare. In this particular case it appears that either a separate route entirely or a second fiber optic laid just a few feet apart from the one that was cut would have prevented most of the service loss. My guess is the lawyers decided it was good PR to file for such a large amount. I'm betting they don't get close to a million bucks when it is settled. Floyd L. Davidson floyd@hayes.ims.alaska.edu 8347 Richardson Hwy. floydd@chinet.chi.il.us Salcha, AK 99714 [and related to Alascom, Inc. by a pay check, only]