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our communications systems is too thin
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1993 12:09:15 -0500
From: redpoll!fmsystm!fmsys!macy () uhura neoucom EDU Date: Sat, 11 Sep 93 11:56 EDT Subject: Re: MCI Fiber Cut - 9/10/93 About 11:30 AM Reply-To: macy () telemax com Organization: F M Systems/Telemax Medina, Ohio USA In article <telecom13.637.4 () eecs nwu edu> msilano () access digex net (Michael Silano) writes:
Well as of about 11:30 this morning, no long-distance calls were being completed to the midwest or western United States through MCI. Seems that they had a fiber cut (the customer service rep didn't know where) and that MCI was experiencing disruption over much of their network.
A primary fiber trunk was cut between Akron and Cleveland, OH by a road crew installing signposts. MCI has a major network switching node just south of Cleveland in North Royalton. This fiber was its primary east coast connection.
What ever happened to network redundancy and/or rapid rerouting?
Third party and unsubstantiated information: 1. MCI no longer uses its old microwave routes for backup as they used to. They were deemed to costly to maintain. 2. Some traffic was diverted to their alternate southern route (this may be a Wiltel route they share.) 3. Much traffic was switched to alternate carriers via MCI interconnections at nodes in the east, but on a delayed basis. It appears these are activated by hand rather than by network control computers. This is the second major MCI national outage from road crew fiber "backhoe fade" in this area in two years. My contacts told me they had learned their lesson last time ... and MCI has a reputation for learning from their mistakes (as opposed to just being cheap). Macy Hallock N8OBG Voice:+1.216.723.3030 Fax:+1.216.723.3223 macy () telemax com Telemax Inc. and F M Systems Inc. 152 Highland Drive Medina, Ohio 44256 USA ------------------------------
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- our communications systems is too thin David Farber (Sep 12)