judice@sulaco.enet.dec.com (Peripheral Visionary 08-Jan-1991 0951) (01/08/91)
We seem to be really plagued by telecom service outages recently. Since I'm sure there's not a large increase in the number of cables being accidentally cut, my suspicion is that more and more traffic is being handled by fewer and fewer high capacity fiber routes. Now of course building and maintaining a small number of very high capacity trunks must make a lot of good economic sense (fewer repeaters, less cable to maintain, etc.) But, the service outages say that something is missing in terms of redundancy - which I always thought was a major part of telephone system design. Am I just naive to think that the system used to be more reliable???? A joke I've heard recently in telecom circles is "wouldn't it be funny if fiber optic cable loses it's light transmission characteristics after being buried for say, 25 years..." The line of reasoning is that perhaps putting so many eggs in one basket may not be such a great idea? ljj [Moderator's Note: Yes, the system used to be much more reliable. There was a spirit of cooperation and a desire for excellence which has been gradually fading away since divestiture. Now, if a large segment of the network goes out -- something that was unthinkable ten or fifteen years ago -- they just say 'use someone else for the time being', as though that settled the matter. Sad, isn't it. PAT]
stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) (01/10/91)
judice@sulaco.enet.dec.com (Peripheral Visionary 08-Jan-1991 0951) writes: > We seem to be really plagued by telecom service outages recently. > Since I'm sure there's not a large increase in the number of cables > being accidentally cut, my suspicion is that more and more traffic is > being handled by fewer and fewer high capacity fiber routes. Tuesday evening, about 4:10, the local PBS station lost the feed for a program called "Fresh Air". After a few minutes, they came back, using a poor quality phone feed. At the end of the show, we were told that the problem was caused by a break in a fiber cable between New York and Philly. I don't know if they get the feed in real time, but would guess that they must if they put up with the poor feed just to carry the show. YACC (Yet Another Cable Cut)?
covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 14-Jan-1991 1723) (01/15/91)
From: Dale Neiburg, NPR Engineering Date: 14 January 1991, 14:40 EST On 10 January, John Stanley wrote: > Tuesday evening, about 4:10, the local PBS station lost the feed >for a program called "Fresh Air". After a few minutes, they came back, >using a poor quality phone feed. > At the end of the show, we were told that the problem was caused by >a break in a fiber cable between New York and Philly. I don't know if >they get the feed in real time, but would guess that they must if they >put up with the poor feed just to carry the show. > YACC (Yet Another Cable Cut)? First of all, FRESH AIR isn't on PBS, but rather on NPR. PBS does television. NPR does radio. Radio is very much like television, only the pictures are better. In fact, I was working in satellite control when the failure occurred, so was one of the mini-throng trying to get service back up. According to the best information we have, the problem wasn't a cable cut but a failure in the telco office serving the fiber-optic carrier that delivers the program from the producing station in Philadelphia to the satellite uplink in Washington. I didn't think the phone feed was so bad. The hum was AT LEAST 8 dB below signal ;). Disclaimer: I keep NPR on the air; I don't speak for them. Dale Neiburg Vox: 202-822-2402 [Moderator's Note: And let me tell you, Mr. Neiburg, I don't know what we would do in this household without NPR, via WBEZ. When Mr. Covert first began passing along messages from folks at NPR to the Digest, some of them were *so good* I questioned him thinking the messages had actually been radio commentaries. (I did not want to use them and violate copyright.) Most of NPR's stuff is excellent, and when you are trying to raise a small child as we are here, NPR fills a big void in a home where the television is deliberatly kept unplugged. PAT]