[IWAR] OUTAGE East Coast, US

From: 7Pillars Partners (partnersat_private)
Date: Wed Feb 25 1998 - 17:15:50 PST

  • Next message: O'Flaherty, Patrick: "(no subject)"

    Phone outage hits East Coast
    
     NEW YORK (AP) -- Businesses in major East Coast cities,
     including hospitals and the New York Mercantile Exchange, were
     thrown into turmoil Wednesday by a telephone outage that caused
     scattered interruptions of services.
    
     The problem, which began shortly before 2 p.m. EST, was traced to
     a breakdown in equipment owned by Illuminet Inc., a privately held
     company that provides signaling and other services to phone company
     networks.
    
     The outage was reported by phone customers of Teleport
     Communications Group Inc., a regional supplier of local telephone
     service to mostly big businesses in 66 major cities. It relies on the
     Illuminet services.
    
     Also affected were mobile-phone customers of Bell Atlantic Corp.
     and AT&T Corp., which use Illuminet's network to complete their
     wireless calls.
    
     Phone problems were ``spotty'' but were being reported ``all over the
     city,'' said Sunny Mindel, a spokeswoman for the New York City
     mayor's Office of Emergency Management.
    
     Phone service was gradually coming back in the afternoon, said
     Nancy Jackson, a spokeswoman for Olympia, Wash.-based
     Illuminet.
    
     Among those reporting outages were the New York Mercantile
     Exchange, the world's largest market for trading oil,
     Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital also in Manhattan, and WMAR-TV
     in Baltimore. Traders, doctors and business executives were forced to
     rely on alternate means, such as using mobile phones.
    
     ``It's a major phone problem. It's chaos, total chaos,'' said a woman
     working the switchboard at Columbia-Presbyterian, who declined to
     give her name. ``We've had at least 400 calls already from inside the
     hospital trying to call out.''
    
     At the New York Mercantile Exchange, ``People on the trading floor
     can't make outgoing calls. If you get an order you can't execute it,''
     said Bob Yawger, a broker at E.D. & F. Man International Futures
     Inc. in New York. He said there also were problems with incoming
     calls.
    
     Trading at the Nymex was forced to close early because of the phone
     outage.
    
     Jackson, the Illuminet spokeswoman, said the trouble occurred when
     fiber was cut in the company's network in Illinois, causing problems in
     signaling centers in Matoon, Ill., and Rock Hill, S.C.
    
     Illuminet had another outage last October, when service was
     disrupted for about 12 hours to mostly medium-sized and large
      businesses and resulted in trading suspensions on the Nymex.
    



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