Famous operational issues
Brian Knight
ml at knight-networks.com
Fri Feb 19 00:10:18 UTC 2021
On 2021-02-17 13:28, John Kristoff wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Feb 2021 14:07:54 -0500
> John Curran <jcurrran at istaff.org> wrote:
>
>> I have no idea what outages were most memorable for others, but the
>> Stanford transfer switch explosion in October 1996 resulted in a much
>> of the Internet in the Bay Area simply not being reachable for
>> several days.
>
> Thanks John.
>
> This reminds me of two I've not seen anyone mention yet. Both
> coincidentally in the Chicago area that I learned before my entry
> into netops full time. One was a flood:
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_flood>
>
> The other, at the dawn of an earlier era:
>
>
> <http://telecom-digest.org/telecom-archives/TELECOM_Digest_Online/1309.html>
>
> I wouldn't necessarily put those two in the top 3, but by some standard
> for many they were certainly very significant and noteworthy.
>
> John
Thanks for sharing these links John. I was personally affected by the
Hinsdale CO fire when I was a kid. At the time, my family lived on the
southern border of Hinsdale in the adjacent town of Burr Ridge. It was
weird like a power outage: you're reminded of the loss of service every
time you perform the simple act of requesting service, picking up the
phone or toggling a light switch. But it lasted a lot longer than any
loss of power: It was six or seven weeks that, to this day, felt a lot
longer.
Anytime we needed to talk to someone long-distance, we had to drive to a
cousin's house to make the call. To talk to anyone local, you'd have to
physically go and show up unannounced. At 11 years old, I was the
bicycle messenger between our house and my great-grandmother, who lived
about two blocks away. My mother and father kept the cars gassed up and
extra fuel on hand in case there was an emergency.
Dad ran a home improvement business out of the house, so new business
ground to a halt. Mom worked for a publishing company, so their release
dates were impacted. The local grocery store's scanners wouldn't work,
so they had to punch the orders into the register by hand, using the
paper sticker prices on the items.
I clearly remember from the local papers that they had to special-order
the replacement 5ESS at enormous cost. I saw the big brick building
after the fire with the burn marks around the front door. In late May
and early June, the Greyhound buses with the workers were parked around
the block, power plants outside with huge cables snaking in right
through the wide open front door.
When we heard that dial tone at last, everyone was happier than an
iPhone with full bars. Lol
We're spoiled for choice in telecom networks these days. Also,
facilities management have learned plenty of lessons since then. Like,
install and maintain an FM-200 fire suppression system. But
nevertheless, sometimes when I step into a colo, I think of that outage
and the impact it had.
-Brian
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