Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!ria!uwovax.uwo.ca!telecom-request From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: The Order of Repair Message-ID: Date: 17 Mar 91 04:00:00 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Lines: 44 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 210, Message 4 of 10 This talk about the problems in Rochester reminds me of a telling situation that happened right here in my neighborhood a couple of years ago. Almost simultaneously the cable, ALL of my phone lines, and the electricity went dead. A short time later, fire engines were screaming down the street. It seems that some trees had caught fire in the next block and had taken out all the services on the poles nearby. In my inimitable fashion, I went to a payphone to report all three. I realized the cause, but wanted to have a trouble report on file so that if there were any screwups later, I would be able to refer to my initial complaint, not to mention get credit for lengthy service interruptions. By the way, always report an outage (particularly telephone) even if you know the cause and know it is being handled so that you can get that credit later. What is interesting is the order in which the services were restored. Within a very short time after the fire was extinguished the cable was restored. I have some battery operated TVs and was able to observe this for myself. An hour or so after that, the electricity came back on. The next morning I discovered that phone service was still missing, but at 9AM a Pac*Bell supervisor knocked on my door to tell me that the entire block was without phone service (I knew that) and he came by my place because I was the only one who called in trouble. He explained that the reason it was taking so long was that there was shock hazard from the PG&E restoration work. As it turned out, telephone service was restored by late afternoon, about twenty-four hours after the outage began. Not very impressive. So it breaks down like this: The cable company had its act together. Its service restoral (while hardly essential) was first rate. PG&E took three hours to restore service. PG&E is probably the worst electric utility on the planet so for them it was probably miraculous. Never mind that the fire was originally started by primary wires arcing in the trees because PG&E felt it unnecessary to do any trimming. But wiping up the rear was Pac*Bell, who was too wimpy to even begin work on its cable until the next day. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !