dennisb@pdx.mentor.com (Dennis Brophy) (10/18/89)
How does the phone service work during an earthquake? I had to send a fax to San Jose this evening, and AT&T would not complete the call, but MCI was able to reach my destination in San Jose with out a problem. Why would AT&T stop service while MCI permits inbound calls to the Bay Area? It is also intersting to note that Portland has NO local operator assistance this evening: "All circuits are busy." I guess if I wanted to make a collect call from a pay phone I would not get a Portland operator either. (Is there such a thing as a local Portland operator, or is the call being routed to another site in the nation which would explain this?) I've heard from others in Portland, that they have been performing three-way-calls using MCI (not AT&T) from their homes to connect people in the Sacramento area with people in South San Francisco cities. So, what is happening here? Why can "little" MCI make its way into the Bay Area while AT&T cannot? [Moderator's Note: This issue of the Digest was prepared and ready for transmission when this message arrived in the queue. The Digest was held and this message was 'pasted on' the end. PT]
kenj@sharkey.cc.umich.edu (Ken Jongsma) (10/18/89)
My primary mail system is through Portal near Cupertino and of course I had no sucess in reaching it this morning. Sprint just reports all circuits busy. AT&T alternates between all circuits busy and an interesting message with words to the effect of "Due to the earthquake in the area you are calling, your call could not be completed." Early this morning calls were going through ok. I suppose as people are waking up and trying to call friends, the system is jamming up. ken@cup.portal.com
ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper) (10/18/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0458m10@vector.dallas.tx.us> dennisb@pdx.mentor.com (Dennis Brophy) writes: > How does the phone service work during an earthquake? > I had to send a fax to San Jose this evening, and AT&T would not > complete the call, but MCI was able to reach my destination in San > Jose with out a problem. Why would AT&T stop service while MCI > permits inbound calls to the Bay Area? We got through via AT&T to our in-laws in Mountain View at 5:40 PM PDT last night. I believe at some point AT&T started blocking inbound calls in order to save the trunks for outbound calls, which seems reasonable. Whether this blocking was total or whether some number of calls were let through isn't clear. I find it a bit of a miracle that my in-laws who have no power, no gas, and probably no water service, have a phone that worked throughout all this--my father-in-law called home right after the quake to say he was okay and the phones worked fine. And it's not MCI who installed all those working lines and phones either. I admit to a certain bias, but I am proud of how well AT&T's installations have performed through the crisis. Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 201-957-2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com If I am not for myself, who is for me? If I am only for myself what am I? And if not now, when? --Hillel
tds@tds386e.att.com (Antonio Desimone) (10/19/89)
From article <telecom-v09i0458m10@vector.dallas.tx.us>, by dennisb@pdx.mentor. com (Dennis Brophy): > How does the phone service work during an earthquake? > So, what is happening here? Why can "little" MCI make its way into > the Bay Area while AT&T cannot? First, let me tell you that I don't *know* the answer, and second, that I know only a little about how the long-distance network is run (and of course don't represent AT&T...). BUT, I can speculate. If an emegency developed and generated focussed overload in my (hypothetical) network I would block calls destined for the emergency so that those circuits would be available to those calling out from the affected area (if I had the ability to exercise such controls). A better question might be, how successful is MCI/AT&T in completing calls out of the Bay area? (But these are only my opinions and uninformed speculations!) Tony DeSimone AT&T Bell Laboratories Holmdel, NJ 07733 att!tds386e!tds
ksp@att.att.com (10/19/89)
Dennis Brophy <dennisb@pdx.mentor.com> writes about the Bay Area earthquake: > How does the phone service work during an earthquake? > I had to send a fax to San Jose this evening, and AT&T would not > complete the call, but MCI was able to reach my destination in San > Jose with out a problem. Why would AT&T stop service while MCI > permits inbound calls to the Bay Area? > I've heard from others in Portland, that they have been performing > three-way-calls using MCI (not AT&T) from their homes to connect > people in the Sacramento area with people in South San Francisco > cities. > So, what is happening here? Why can "little" MCI make its way into > the Bay Area while AT&T cannot? To begin with, it seems that all the telephone networks deserve to be congratulated for doing as well as it did considering the magnitude of the quake. But to answer the specific question that Dennis asks... In emergency situations like this, it is far more important for people in the area to be able to call out for help than for people to call in. It is also far more efficient -- for example, my brother in Mountain View, (near San Jose) called me in NJ (and he got through easily) , and I called everyone else who might have been concerned about him, which is far more efficient than everyone trying to call him. Therefore, AT&T has sophisticated network management controls and trunk reservation, which were selectively blocking calls into the Bay Area last night, and giving priority to calls coming out. So while there were some difficulties calling in on AT&T, I am yet to see a report that calling out was difficult. I have no idea if the OCCs have such controls, but I suspect that they don't, which would explain why Dennis could call in. I will bet that calling out was much harder on any OCC, though. Krishna Prasad ksp@houdi.att.com AT&T Bell Labs Holmdel, NJ 07733 (201) 949-2619
john%zygot.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (John Higdon) (10/19/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0458m10@vector.dallas.tx.us>, dennisb@pdx.mentor.com (Dennis Brophy) writes: > How does the phone service work during an earthquake? Around here, not very well. Cheap shot, sorry. > I had to send a fax to San Jose this evening, and AT&T would not > complete the call, but MCI was able to reach my destination in San > Jose with out a problem. Why would AT&T stop service while MCI > permits inbound calls to the Bay Area? According to AT&T spokespeople, they were doing this as a "service" to keep the traffic on the Bay Area's phone system down. I guess it never occurred to anyone that there might be reasons for people from outside an area to call in during a disaster. I was able to get through on Telesphere from the Victorville exchange (California High Desert) but not on AT&T or Sprint. > It is also intersting to note that Portland has NO local operator > assistance this evening: "All circuits are busy." I guess if I wanted This was happening in Victorville, also. My theory is that there are many more people than usual calling the operator because their dialed calls don't go through. You called the operator, no? So did I. > So, what is happening here? Why can "little" MCI make its way into > the Bay Area while AT&T cannot? Policy, mainly. But it is also interesting to note that since the quake, my little teapot computer has only been able to contact other teapots. My big neighbors (except for pacbell) either don't answer at all, or if their modem does answer it appears that the computer is dead. All my news at the moment is coming from a small neighbor (who is somehow still getting a feed.) It has been said that a communications network is better served by a lot of small entities rather than one behemoth one. I never believed it; maybe it's true. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
segal%cell.mot.COM@uunet.uu.net (Gary Segal) (10/19/89)
On the eve of Tuesday's quake, I was able to get through to a friend at Stanford on MCI. I was about to try AT&T after getting re-order a couple of times, but the call went through on what would have been my last try on MCI. The number was (415)328-xxxx. I believe my friend said that he lives in Menlo Park. Damage there was minimal, his area was suffering only from a power outage. I was quite amazed at the ease I had getting through! I succeded at about 10pm Pacific time. Gary Segal @ Motorla C.I.D. ...motcid!segal or uunet!motcid!segal
kaufman@neon.stanford.edu (Marc T. Kaufman) (10/20/89)
In article <telecom-v09i0458m10@vector.dallas.tx.us> dennisb@pdx.mentor.com (Dennis Brophy) writes: > How does the phone service work during an earthquake? Right now (9pm, Thursday 10/19), I can call ALMOST everywhere, including San Francisco, which was inaccessable from Woodside (also in 415) until this morning. The only place I can't currently reach is Los Gatos, which is GTE. Santa Cruz never went away. I don't know how I'll be able to tell when Los Gatos is back, since this is one of GTE's worst service areas even without an earthquake. :-) My wife is currently out of state, and she has more trouble reaching me than I have reaching her. Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu)