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From: sneaky!gordon@utacfd.arl.utexas.edu (Gordon Burditt)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Massive Service Outage in Northern Illinois!
Message-ID: <14069@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 21 Oct 90 23:51:42 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 767, Message 3 of 8


>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.

What happens, financially, in a situation like this?  Does the
contractor or his liability insurance pay:

   for the cost of repairing the cable?
   for the overtime of people locating and routing around the cut?
   for the (not necessarily over-)time of people locating and
	routing around the cut?  (allocated how?)
   for estimated lost revenue?  (estimated how?)
   for lost revenue due to service guarantees and missed time-to-repair
	deadlines (especially common on business 800 numbers)?

What happens if neither the cut nor other problems go 
   over the downtime guarantee, but together they do?
   to area employers, for paying employees sent home due to inoperative 
	phones?
   to MCI, for additional advertising to counter insults in ads by
	AT&T and/or Sprint?

Does MCI get unlimited slamming rights on the contractor's phones ? :-)

Would anything be different if it wasn't a contractor, but a homeowner
digging a garden (pretty DEEP garden!) or trying to remove tree
stumps, on his own property?

	Gordon L. Burditt
	sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon


[Moderator's Note: That is the reason we have courts and judges,
Gordon. The court will decide who pays for what, and how much.   PAT]