Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!bbn!apple!sun-barr!texsun!texbell!vector!telecom-gateway From: bgsuvax!klopfens@cis.ohio-state.edu (Bruce Klopfenstein) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Illinois Bell Knocked Out For Four Hours! Message-ID: Date: 21 May 89 11:02:25 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: Bowling Green State University B.G., Oh. Lines: 33 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 172, message 6 of 6 >From article , by telecom@eecs.nwu. edu (TELECOM Moderator): > Service to over 40,000 Illinois Bell subscribers in the northwest suburbs > of Chicago was disrupted for about four hours Thursday because of problems > with the computer in the switching center. > [goes on to note other details including the failure of the backup syqtem] Are the implications of this outage as serious as they appear to be on the surface? To a non-telephony insider, this appears to be about as big a crisis as one could imagine. Am I cynical in thinking that before this happened, Illinois Bell would have said that this incident was impossible? (Shades of Exxon?) -- Dr. Bruce C. Klopfenstein | klopfens@andy.bgsu.edu Radio-TV-Film Department | klopfenstein@bgsuopie.bitnet Bowling Green $tate University | klopfens@bgsuvax.UUCP Bowling Green, OH 43403 | (419) 372-2138; 352-4818 [Moderator's Note: While the numbers seem large, forty thousand subscribers out of four million plus in the northern Illinois area is one percent or less of the total. I'll grant you, it certainly shows how vulnerable we are to computer failures. Several months ago, we had a similar outage in the CO next to me (Chicago-Irving) which lasted about five minutes. And the latest joke about Exxon is a twist on the old folk song: "What do you do with a drunken sailor? Put him in charge of an Exxon tanker!" See you tomorrow, IBT willing! PT]