Bet on with my boss

Fri Jun 21 23:43:30 UTC 2002

We have this wonderful invention called two-way radio. (grin) Our repeater 
has an autopatch, so you can hold a conversation from any landline to the 
mobile unit in the field or vice versa. Its been real helpful, like when 
aligning microwave dishes.

At 18:04 6/21/02 -0400, you wrote:

>We recently had a piece of equipment fail outside of Bronson, FL.  This was
>in a regeneration hut, 50 miles from almost anywhere useful.  There is no
>cellular service and no POTs in the HUT.  The closest employee was a woman
>who although bright was not very familiar with the equipment installed.
>Because the management channel (IP) was still working to the site, an
>engineer here in Quincy, MA was able to step her through fixing the problem
>using nothing but IRC and two-way pager.  It took her 35 minutes to correct
>the issue.
>
>Harder than with a phone?  Yes.  Impossible?  No.  Without that IP channel
>running?  It would have taken closer to an hour and a half by my guess but
>still doable.  Smoke signals or semaphore?  I won't hazard a guess.
>
>-vb

Some sort of orderwire channel might be helpful in this situation as well, 
as long as the fiber is up, youll have a voice grade line to the NOC.