Local TV station WHDH (Channel 7) Boston is reporting that ALL telephone service is out in Littleton MA (including 911) due to y2k glitch. Littleton Fire Chief on the phone actually said that! He said, "y2k came early". Littleton had the exact same problem last week. Telephone Co. is Bell-Atlantic. Said they are working on the problem.

They are announcing the telephone numbers of nearest towns to Littleton and advising people to use cell phones or pull file alarms in case of an emergency.

I'm afraid this is just the tip of the iceberg.

-- flb (fben4077@yahoo.com), December 20, 1999

Answers

Thanks for the post. I do hope some of the telecomm ex "Bell System" types who have weighed in here in the past will see this. In October there were a lot of posts about how the telephone system was tested using ITA simulations and the like. My comments and concerns about the impact of all the mergers and acquisitions, the convergence of voice and data, the fact that the network cannot be tested end to end real time, the multitude of equipment and software release levels, and the experience level of today's local and long distance telco employees and how they are being stretched fell on deaf ears.

Local and E-911 services are far more complex than they were when I worked for the "system" in the '70s and'80s.

I remember reading something on Gary North's site a year or so ago that recommended people have a cell carrier and a local service carrier from different suppliers. Unfortunately, the idea has merit

-- Nancy (wellsnl@hotmail.com), December 20, 1999.

Why did it come early? Are they upgrading software? Just curious.

-- Larry (cobol.programmer@usa.net), December 20, 1999.

Most likely either that, or clock drift in some piece of forgotten equipment.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), December 20, 1999.

flb, I'm afraid this is just the "tip" of the facts. Sure would like to see some reliable info on this, since a y2k "glitch" isn't likely to have caused phone outages (especially in 1999), since the hardware is doubtful to be forward looking, lol..

Upgrade problem, maybe. Related in some way to y2k remediation, maybe. Distorted story, likely.

Regards,

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), December 20, 1999.