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From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Another Fiber Optic Cut; This Time in Chicago
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Date: 8 Jan 91 06:36:54 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 13, Message 1 of 12


This seems to be the season for telecom disasters. Maybe it was the
Blue Moon last week or something. Following the AT&T cable cut in New
Jersey last week, all was quiet for a few days ... but Monday morning,
Sprint managed to chew up a fiber optic cable in northern Indiana
which served as a major gateway for traffic in and out of Chicago.

The cable went out about 9:00 AM CST, and service stayed out all
morning. Apparently crews were close at hand (I think it was a Sprint
crew which caused the problem, but they aren't saying), and
restoration got underway almost immediatly. By about 12:30 PM CST
service had been mostly restored.  AT&T seemed to handle much of the
overflow without difficulty. For over three hours, Sprint was totally
silent here: calls to double zero got fast re-order tone, and one plus
calls were intercepted after the 1-NPA-XXX had been dialed and met
with dead silence. Illinois Bell and Centel service representatives
and operators /repair clerks were instructed to advise complainers of
the problem and to use 10xxx routing instead through 'some other'
carrier.

If anyone gets more specifics, please send them along. Can you imagine
the irony of someone who at the end of last week, angry with AT&T
about their trouble decided to switch to Sprint because they were
'more reliable' :).

As AT&T spokesman Herb Linnen said last week, "we all roll the dice and
have bad days from time to time."

The Digest reader who suggested there ought to be a 'treaty' between
LD carriers and automatic, transparent re-routing in times of
emergencies spoke wisely. The sooner something like that is
implemented, the better off we will be. Another reader, in a letter to
be published soon points out that not all offices are equipped to do
that sort of thing easily, but it should be SOP (standard operating
practice) in offices thus equipped. Let's not wait until all of the
USA is on ESS before we implement it.


Patrick Townson