tom@pdx.mentor.com (Tom Ace @ PCB x2021) (10/19/89)
A short report about phone service in San Jose after the earthquake: Dial tone took a while to get, often 10 seconds or so during Tuesday evening, sometimes more. Toll calls often got reorder or "busy circuits" recordings, but some went through. I only made a couple important ones and didn't talk for too long. From my small sample of calls, the system appeared to have bent under the tremendous load but didn't break. (I use AT&T for long distance). We didn't lose our T-1 line from here (Mentor Graphics San Jose) to our headquarters in Oregon. From telecom digest #458, about AT&T not completing incoming calls: >So, what is happening here? Why can "little" MCI make its way into >the Bay Area while AT&T cannot? It wasn't a question of inability, it was a conscious decision. I heard on the news that AT&T deliberately chose to block incoming toll calls except emergency ones (presumably placed by an operator). I assume the reasoning was that people here were better able to choose which calls were important than people outside who wanted to call in. Considering how overloaded the network was, it didn't sound like a bad decision to me. Tom Ace tom@sje.mentor.com ...!mntgfx!sje!tom