---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-ID: <20181230033348.GA4477@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2018 22:33:48 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: State officials say 911 issues in Mass. 'have been corrected' A telecommunications network outage disrupted 911 calls in Massa- chusetts and across the country Friday, creating confusion among first responders and exposing a major weakness in the emergency response network. CenturyLink Inc., one of the nation's largest telecom providers, said a technical problem led to failed 911 calls made by cellphones in many parts of the country. The Louisiana-based company said Thursday night that it expected service to be restored in four hours, but the job took until about 8 p.m. Friday to complete. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/12/28/internet-outage-affecting-wireless-calls-mass/OhYDQH7cgskeN7gugkRpCO/story.html -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20181230034910.GA4730@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2018 22:49:10 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: 911 service restored in most of Western Washington; here's where to call if it still doesn't work for you Some agencies were able to take 911 calls Friday morning, but police and fire authorities recommend people dial alternate emergency numbers if they experience issues. By Heidi Groover and Asia Fields Many Western Washington agencies began receiving 911 calls again on Friday morning after CenturyLink network issues had prevented callers from getting through to call centers. Some systems still aren't fully running, and emergency officials are advising people to call alternate numbers if they can't get through. Law-enforcement agencies throughout Western Washington warned of busy signals and other possible problems when calling 911 Thursday evening. Calls in King, Kitsap, Pierce and Thurston counties were working Friday morning, but call centers and county officials said they can't be sure systems are fully restored, as that depends on CenturyLink. The 911 outage did not affect Snohomish or Whatcom counties, according to the call centers' social-media posts. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/century-link-outage-may-interrupt-911-calls-in-western-washington/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <q06v62$t2r$1@pcls7.std.com> Date: 29 Dec 2018 05:02:58 +0000 From: "Michael Moroney" <moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com> Subject: Re: Nationwide internet outage affects CenturyLink, Verizon > ***** Moderator's Note ***** > Oh, good grief. I wish that NBC would take the time to verify the > facts in its stories: Gamewell boxes don't send Morse Code unless > there's a Fire Department Telegraph Operator standing there using a > Morse Code key. > The internal mechanism that is engaged by pulling down the alarm > hook sends a series of equal-length pulses that correspond to the > number on the box. These boxes do NOT automagically send Morse Code. > The difference is important: claiming that a McCulloch Loop uses > Morse Code implies that it has mechanical intelligence, i.e., the > ability to send different message depending on internal settings > and/or external events. Neither is correct: the mechanism can only > signal to the dispatchers that /something/ has happened, not what it > is or whether the ambulance, police, or fire departments should be > sent. That is correct. In New York City the system has been partially upgraded to voice call boxes in the old Gamewell mounts, but the old boxes still in use in some boroughs send 4 digit numbers as equally spaced pulses, not as Morse code. The boxes are wind-up and work not too differently from wind-up music boxes. Originally the pulses rang a bell and the dispatchers had to count pulses, these days a computer counts the pulses and enters the number into the dispatch system. Some boxes have/had telegraph keys inside so I assume at one time they did manually use Morse Code to call for additional assistance or otherwise report status to borough headquarters. (this info may be a bit out of date, it has been 5 years since I worked on their system) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20181230035614.GA4912@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2018 22:56:14 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: CenturyLink Outage Disrupts 911 Services So Company Tweets: Drive to Fire Station for Help Seriously, what were they thinking? By Minda Zetlin What would you do if a failure by your company disrupted the lives of millions of people, and put millions more into potential danger by disabling emergency response systems? I'm guessing your first response wouldn't be to publicly say how wonderful your company is. Unless you were CenturyLink. The seventh largest telecom provider in the U.S. has done little more than brag since its more-than-24-hour-long outage began early Thursday morning. The outage had real consequences. It spread right across the country, from New York to California. It knocked out 911 services in at least five states, Arizona, Washington, Idaho, Missouri, and Massachusetts. In Boston, a man whose house was on fire was unable to phone for help, and wound up pulling an old-fashioned 1852-era fire alarm on his street. Fortunately, that system was still operational and it sent a Morse code signal to the local fire department, which arrived and put out the fire. https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/centurylink-outage-disrupts-911-services-so-company-tweets-drive-to-fire-station-for-help.html -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20181230040722.GA4951@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2018 23:07:22 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: US, Washington state investigating CenturyLink internet outage, 911 failures telecom] BOISE, Idaho - Federal and Washington state officials said Friday that they have started investigations into a nationwide CenturyLink internet outage that disrupted 911 service. … Regulators in Washington state also said they were opening an investigation into an outage of its statewide 911 service. The state Utilities and Transportation Commission said interruptions began about 8:30 p.m. Thursday. The commission's regulatory services division director, Mark Vasconi, said the system appeared stable Friday but the agency was monitoring it. https://q13fox.com/2018/12/28/us-washington-state-investigating-centurylink-internet-outage-911-failures/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20181230041556.GA5127@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2018 23:15:56 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: CenturyLink vendor again blamed for multi-state 911 outage By Tad Vezner The CenturyLink vendor responsible for a major 911 outage in 2014 was also responsible for the multi-state disruption that led to an untold number of unanswered emergency calls Wednesday, officials said. "I have never in my 30 years experienced an outage such as what we experienced yesterday," Dana Wahlberg, director of the Department of Public Safety's emergency communication networks division, said during a press conference Thursday. https://www.twincities.com/2018/08/02/cause-of-911-outage-in-minnesota-remains-unknown/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20181230040242.GA4930@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2018 23:02:42 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: CenturyLink Outage Should Be a "Wakeup Alarm" for America! I would call this outage by CenturyLink a 'Wake Up' alarm for America. Many could not use 911! Why is CenturyLink being so secretive as to the cause? Do they not know the cause? Then why not say so! Its interesting that we have not heard from the D.C. politicians on this! The FCC says it is going to start a probe of the failure. In Boston a 1852 Fire Box was used to alert the Fire Department of a fire because 911 was not working! That is a huge statement on how we so much rely on all this modern day technology that failed us this week BIG TIME!, whereas an 1852 Fire Box saved the day in Boston! https://www.fggam.org/2018/12/centurylink-outage-should-be-a-wake-up-alarm-for-america-1852-fire-box-saves-the-day-in-boston/ -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <20181230045351.GA5719@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2018 23:53:51 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> Subject: Centurylink Network Maps Here's a Centurylink page that lists the cities and Points of Presence that the company serves. http://centurylink-business.com/demos/network-maps.html# -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) ------------------------------ Message-ID: <c52c2b50-4a05-409f-b1d4-40050f07a47c@googlegroups.com> Date: 29 Dec 2018 13:02:29 -0800 From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> Subject: Don't wait for the beep: Voicemail is going the way of the dinosaurs. The San Jose Mercury News reported that with the prevalence of mobile phones, texting, chat apps and email, voicemail just isn't what it used to be. Voicemail is now viewed as inefficient. And for many, that feeling extends to phone conversations in general: these days, a phone call often requires advance scheduling. The frantic pace of life and work is pushing out phone-based voice communication in favor of text, chat, email and other options seen as more efficient. for full article please see: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/05/13/how-the-death-of-voicemail-is-changing-the-way-we-connect/ When we used a Teletype for timesharing in high school, we thought it would be neat if we could each own one, and leave each other written messages. The unit with the built-in controller allowed automatic unattended answer. (But later we got cheaper units without the built-in unit.) Of course, in those days, renting a teletype was too expensive for a kid at $100/month. Ironically, this was the communications situation Western Union sought to have back in the 1960s--everyone owning a teleprinter to send and receive messages, carried by WU. Unfortunately, it took 50 years for the technology to evolve to become affordable, too late for WU to survive. In 1956, Bell introduced its answering machine: https://books.google.com/books?id=7UgEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA82&dq=life%20%22if%20a%20machine%20answers%22&pg=PA83#v=onepage&q&f=false (side note: on pg 90 of the above magazine, there is an ad for Howard Johnson's roadside family restaurants. Despite being a casual place, note all the customers are in suits or dresses. Also, the full service gasoline station on pg 11.) ------------------------------ ********************************************* End of telecom Digest Mon, 31 Dec 2018