Path: utzoo!telecom-request
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 91 09:35:14 -0400
From: Bruce Klopfenstein <klopfens@andy.bgsu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: 1991 AT&T Outage (Was Re: SPECIAL REPORT: St. Louis)
Message-ID: <telecom11.457.10@eecs.nwu.edu>
Organization: TELECOM Digest
Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
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 457, Message 10 of 12
Lines: 18

> Jan. 4., 1991.  An AT&T construction crew in New Jersey mistakenly
> cracks a single fiber-optic cable.  The cable is the width of a
> person's thumb.  The crack halts 60 percent of AT&T's long-distance
> calls to New York City. Aviation control centers are paralyzed,
> causing gridlock in the skies throughout the Northeast.

I heard at a conference that this is not true.  The actual reason was
a bug in a software upgrade to a telco switch that shut down other
switches.  Was this ever covered on this list?

Thanks.


[Moderator's Note: We had mention of it here, but the cable failure
was the reason given. Your allegation is the first time I recall
hearing any other reason for the outage earlier this year.  PAT]