Phone ouages grow more severe

Thu Nov 10 14:05:42 UTC 2005

Networks Are Taking Longer
To Repair Despite Focus
On Boosting Reliability
By JESSE DRUCKER and AMY SCHATZ
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 10, 2005; Page B10

Despite a new focus on strengthening traditional U.S. telecommunications
systems to withstand terrorism and natural disasters, telephone-network
outages have grown more severe and are lasting longer to repair.
[...]
In the past four years, the median duration of an outage was 3.3 hours --
"significantly higher" than the 2.86 hours it took to restore operations
during the first eight years data were tracked, according to the report.
The severity of the outages -- which takes into account several factors,
including the number of customers affected -- has also jumped over the
past four years.
[...]