DACS failures and manual reprogramming

[Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>]

I've asked this before, but have never heard a convincing answer.

The story is Bell Atlantic has several Alcatel technicians going around and
reprogramming the DACS in Northern New Jersey.

Why when DACS fails do most telephone companies have to reprogram them manually?
Don't they have a download and upload configuration telco's could save somewhere
else, and just upload the config when restoring service.  It isn't unique to
BellAtl, I've experienced the same thing with MCI, Southerwestern Bell, PacBell,
and other phone companies.  The manual reprogramming seems to drag restoration
times out to 18-24 hours.

Yeah, I know, I'm the one to talk about backups.  I can't even keep my e-mail.