[nom-steer] Disaster in New York; offer of assistance

Wed Sep 12 08:43:00 UTC 2001

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No doubt everybody reading this will alread be aware of the disastrous
events unfold in New York and WDC, and untold human cost.

As we try and focus back on running networks, it has become evident that
much of downtown NY is currently without power, and many telco hotels are
running on backup generators. Some are not being started, or cannot start,
due to the ash in the air, and some may stop. At least three colo
facilities (WTC obviously, 7 WTC next door, Old slip) are down. 25 Broadway
(at least) is running on generator power. It is unknown at this stage how
much diesel existing facilities have. At least one C/O is gone, and Verizon
is having extensive problems in the downtown area.

Most transatlantic circuits land in Manhatten, and most are routed through
down town area. Though we didn't see much circuit disruption yesterday
(apparently UUnet lost some transatlantic capacity - no doubt they can
provide more details), I expect more disruption as generators run dry.

This is likely to be a difficult week for transatlantic operators. In the
spirit of cooperation in adverse circumstances, XO Europe would like to
offer free transit to any European ISP with a presence in the UK, in case
of any emergency outage caused by the NY / WDC events (i.e. total lack of
transit or severe degredation through). We can bring this up quickly in
either Telehouse or Harbour Exchange. Obviously we will need to capacity
plan this. Please email or ring me first. Don't just point default.
XchangePoint has similarly offered to put in private interconnects at
minimal notice if required under similar circuimstances (please contact
Brett Wilde there). I would encourage other large ISPs with transatlantic
capacity spare to join us in this offer.

Please feel free to redistribute this message intact.

Alex Bligh
Senior Technology Officer, Europe
XO Communications - http://www.xo.com/
(formerly Nextlink Inc, Concentric Network Corporation
GX Networks, Xara Networks)

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