john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (10/27/89)
I had lunch today with an engineer who works with the San Francisco
School District. We were discussing matters earthquake and he
confirmed something that I brought up some time ago in this forum for
which I was soundly dismissed. He was cursing the decision of the
school board to go with centrex.
For two days following the earthquake, prople in the school offices
(and the associated radio station, KALW) were unable to so much as
phone down the hall. It seems the CO serving the area had sustained
some damage and dialtone was extremely slow for an abnormal period of
time.
So while those people with those "unreliable" on-site PBXs were having
difficulty making outside calls, those with "the most reliable phone
system in the world" (Pac*Bell advertising hype) couldn't so much as
talk to their secretaries at the front desk.
There was another major Pac*Bell embarassment: The Bush-Pine office
(SF's main downtown CO). It seems that no one bothered to test the
fancy turbine standby generators under load. They regularly powered
them up, but just let them spin. Under load following the earthquake,
they broke down. The CO ran on its batteries until they went dead,
then it was good-night. The downtown financial district CO and the
tandem were dead. Fortunately, they were able to get a portable unit
connected shortly thereafter. I'm sure there were some downtown
business that were delighted they went with centrex, also.
John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395
john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
[Moderator's Note: Well, it is not like an earthquake happens every
day or a central office is overloaded for several days running as a
routine thing. Everything has disadvantages. *In general*, my belief
is that centrex is superior to PBX almost anytime. I've also seen
PBX's break down and disrupt communications in a company for an entire
day or two pending repairs. Those people were angry they did not have
centrex. You really just have to make an informed choice and go with
it. PT]