Re: Arlington and Fort Worth, Texas

["Stephen Sprunk" <ssprunk () cisco com>]

Maybe this is a facet of natural disasters rarely afflicting downtown areas
around here...

I've noticed that every telco colo facility I've been in around downtown
Dallas has the same design...  All are in high-rise facilities, on the
10th-30th floors.  All have the battery and A/C rooms around the elevator
shafts at the center of the floor plan, surrounded by all the equipment
racks/cages around the outside facing the windows.

There are at least a dozen buildings in/near downtown Dallas with
substantial carrier presence, many with 4+ telco-occupied floors.  According
to MFS, the majority of MAE-Dallas customers aren't in the overcrowded
Infomart (where the MAE officially resides) since there's a surplus of fiber
to the downtown carrier hotels.  Every telco seems to run all of their
cross-country fiber through these buildings.

While there are geological reasons I doubt downtown Dallas is likely to get
hit with a tornado like Ft Worth was (off-topic, email me), I can't imagine
the hell that would ensue if it did.

S

     |          |         Stephen Sprunk, K5SSS, CCIE #3723
    :|:        :|:        Network Consulting Engineer, NSA
   :|||:      :|||:       14875 Landmark Blvd #400; Dallas, TX
.:|||||||:..:|||||||:.    Email: ssprunk () cisco com


----- Original Message -----
From: Sam Thomas
To: Rodney L Caston
Cc: Sean Donelan ; nanog () merit edu
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2000 10:49
Subject: Re: Arlington and Fort Worth, Texas



On Wed, Mar 29, 2000 at 11:29:03AM -0600, Rodney L Caston wrote:
> There is alot of ISPs in the Dallas/FortWorth area, tho a good chunk of it
> is located centrally in one building in the downtown vicinity of Dallas,
> the infomart building seems to house backbones for Verio and the MAEs...
> hrm.. had the tornado hit that building......

...in the best case scenario, I wouldn't have internet service. worst case,
I wouldn't have a need for oxygen. building secutity made an announcement
Tuesday evening that there was a tornado warning for Dallas County, although
the only known activity was well to the south. in the event of proximity to
the 'mart, we'd have abandoned the NOC, informed the necessary folks, and
headed for underground parking to listen to the radio in my car. then,
MCIW's gear would be sucked out the windows, ending a lot of needless
suffering on the part of their customers. there are several other telcos
in the building who haven't learned to insulate their CO gear from tornados
by placing management offices around the winow perimeter.

--
Sam Thomas
Geek Mercenary