FCC outage reports

Goldstein_William at bns.att.com Goldstein_William at bns.att.com
Fri Sep 18 20:43:00 UTC 1998


>From what I have seen, I'm not sure these figures are accurate. Beyond
the qualifications that you offered, another factor is the size of the
network (i.e. if one carrier has three times the fiber miles and
customers of another carrier but has the same number of outages, the
"one is just the same as the other" argument might be a little tenuous.)
I will check for a direct source, if I can find it, for NANOG list
subscribers to access this information independent of any carrier or
ISP.  Because of a holiday and business travel, I won't get back on this
immediately, but I'll try to follow this up in the next two weeks.
Bill Goldstein
Senior Internet Specialist
AT&T
wgoldstein at att.com
TEL:(412)642-7288

   ----------
   From:       SEAN
   Sent:       Friday, September 18, 1998 4:06 PM
   To:         nanog
   Cc:         SEAN
   Subject:    FCC outage reports
    
   Goldstein_William at bns.ATt.COM writes:
   >There IS a difference.  The FCC keeps records of outages which must
   be
   >reported by the carriers.
   >
   >It is worth checking these out.
    
   I think there are some problems with how the FCC outage reports count
   things, but here goes....
    
   FCC outage reports by year and inter-exchange carrier
    
                1992    1993    1994    1995    1996
   AT&T            3      15       7      18      17
   MCI            13      12      19       9      15
   Sprint          3      11       3      12       9
   WorldCom       NA      NA      NA       7      13
    
   There are all sorts of normalization problems, different reporting
   requirements (e.g. if you serve airports you have to report more
   outages), some carriers report only when the must, other carriers
   report anything even close to being reportable, and so on.  Also,
   if you know how fiber swapping works, sometimes its luck of the
   draw who gets tapped when a shared right-of-way gets chopped.
    
   For overall trend analysis the FCC outage reports serve a useful
   purpose.  But comparing one carrier to another is a different matter
   and I'd rather they not get turned into another Boardwatch fiasco
   with
   people manipulating their numbers.
    
   Note: I haven't gone to FCC reading room in Washington DC and counted
   the actual reports myself, these numbers are third-hand from one of
   the carriers salespeople.  Caveat Emptor.
   --  
   Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
     Affiliation given for identification not representation
    
   <<File: FCC outage reports.TXT>>
    
   


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