Discussion point: Telco quality?

Roeland M.J. Meyer rmeyer at mhsc.com
Sun Oct 11 06:02:02 UTC 1998


At 10:24 PM 10/10/98 -0400, David Lesher wrote:
>Unnamed Administration sources reported that Roeland M.J. Meyer said:
>> >Are there things that can happen to both which will really ruin your day?
>> Yes.
>> 
>> Actually, on 2Sep98, PacBell had a CO failure that knocked out service, in
>> Livermore, for 12 hours. Voice, data, everything, not even 911!
>
>Not sure how a CO failure brings down leased line data....

The *whole* CO went off-line. 

>What WILL bring down the whole house..:
>
>	Fiber cut -- as well as other wholescale transmission
>		FUBAR's.

That wouldn't have taken the entire town off-line.

>	Power -- remember the NYC ATT crash? It took hours
>		to bring the DACS back up... Don't
>		overlook lightning strikes on the incoming power
>		feed.

>	Enviromental -- if the HVAC croaks, if a waterline floods
>		from the cable vault on up, or there's an
>		earthquake, or a Hinsdale-style fire. 

I would have notice an earthquake, of the fire. The CO's not far from here.

>But such will never happen, so we can all rest easy....right?

Cascaded failures will do it. aka Murphy having a party.

___________________________________________________ 
Roeland M.J. Meyer, ISOC (InterNIC RM993) 
e-mail: <mailto:rmeyer at mhsc.com>rmeyer at mhsc.com
Internet phone: hawk.mhsc.com
Personal web pages: <http://www.mhsc.com/~rmeyer>www.mhsc.com/~rmeyer
Company web-site: <http://www.mhsc.com/>www.mhsc.com/
___________________________________________ 
I bet the human brain is a kludge.
                -- Marvin Minsky




More information about the NANOG mailing list