DC Callers Hit Long-Distance Glitch

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bell Atlantic disconnected, apparently accidentally, some circuits it uses to route AT&T calls to and from telephone customers in the District of Columbia.

Spokeswoman Sandra Arnette said the problem started Monday around 9 a.m. EST and lasted about four hours. During that time, Arnette said, AT&T customers calling to or from Washington might have encountered a message stating that all circuits were busy.

Arnette said the cause of the disruption was under investigation. She said human error appeared likely.

-- Llama man (llama@cool.net), December 13, 1999

Answers

Based solely on what you've provided, I see no likely connection to Y2K.

This type of glitch is as easy as a few fat fingers when typing on a network routing console. Because routers share routining information, incorrect configs can quickly be disseminated across a network, affecting a number of routers.

The 4 hour time to fix is quite reasonable given that it probably took them a bit to figure out which piece of equipment was as fault, find the configuration error, reconfigure it properly and wait for the corrected routing information to propagate across the network.

This, of course, is just a stab in the dark based upon my experience. Often, you won't know you've fat-fingered a config until people start complaining...

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), December 13, 1999.

Woopsie!

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 13, 1999.

In the last two to three weeks there was a thread where someone who was on the corporate MIS staff posted that he had been disturbed about what a trusted contractor had told him. He listed two stories about firms that were in major trouble per the contractor and the second was about an unnamed phone company with the initials "BA" (wink, wink) [sic]. Seems they were unstable and rebooting every 24 hours. He anticipated greater problems at rollover.

Look, whether you are a polly, doomer, or lurker we all hate these hearsay posts where someone quotes someone who quotes someone etc. ad nauseum.

Is there some way for Sysman or some other savant to search the historical threads and call up that post? [Hint: Search "B.A."]

-- Dana (A_Non_O_Moose@xxx.com), December 13, 1999.

I can vouch for the problems in DC this morning. The message started out as 'Circuits Busy'. This went on for an hour, then the message changed to 'Equipment problems - message 1002'. Quite frustrating.

Sincerely,

-- Uhhmm... (JFCP81A@aol.com), December 13, 1999.