Re: Seattle 56k/ISDN busies/recordings

[Robert Dinse <nanook@eskimo.com>]

On Tue, 22 Feb 2000, Eric T. Jorgensen wrote:
> 
> We've gotten a few calls lately about busy signals and telephone
> recordings ("Your call did not go through.") on the
> Seattle/Everett 56k/ISDN lines.  These lines are reaching
> saturation at peak times again, and technicians are aware of the
> matter and working to add more lines soon.  No specific ETA at
> the moment but typically when this occurs, waiting a few minutes
> and redialing will get an answering line.
> 
> There are monthly statistical reports on these lines, and more
> lines will be added shortly. 
> 
> ~ Eric

     I am getting inconsistant messages here from Megapop.  When I go to the
connection monitor it shows ports available.  The recent status report showed
capacity for Seattle to be adequate.  For some reason the technicians are
telling you something different than the status report and for this reason I am
CC'ing this both to the outages list, so our customers are aware of what we are
running into, the MegaPOP tech support address and to our customer service
representative there.

     Hopefully Dave or someone there can give me the official word on what's
going on.

     Not having enough lines though should not result in a "Your call did not
go through" recording, that sounds more like an equipment malfunction or
translations problem in the telco. 

     Not enough lines should result in busy signals ONLY.  Not enough trunks in
the telco should result in re-order ONLY.  The telco putting traffic controls
in would result in "All circuits are busy now" recordings, not "Your call did
not go through" recordings.  The latter I am pretty sure is some sort of
equipment failure. 

     Hopefully Dave or someone there can elaborate and give us more information
on what is going on.  The only thing I've been able to find relevant in the
Current Status section of the NOC web page is this:

                            Busy Signals

               Location:    009 - Seattle, WA
               Time:        10:00   2/14/2000   CST
               Status:      ONGOING
               Situation:

               We are currently experiencing busy signals when dialing
               into the Everett area. This is not due to modem capacity or
               equipment error. We have contacted the Telco provider to
               check on the issue. Any further updates will be posted. 

     This was posted on the 14th and nothing posted since, this indicated that
it wasn't a capacity issue, but nothing followed that explained what it was,
and since the problem is apparently still ongoing it's obviously not fixed. 

     The "Latest News" section on the web site does not have any information
about specific locations except refers us to contact our CSR's.

     Dave, please let us know what is happening and what is being done to
correct the situation so that we can relay the information to our customers. 
Thank you. 

     Eric, Aaron, Catherine; when you get these reports please try to get both
the number called from and the number called.  If this is a telco translation
problem or equipment malfunction it may affect only calls from specific central
offices and having the originating number will help us identify that if that
happens to be the case. 

     Eskimo North customers: Please provide us with both the number you are
calling and the number you are calling from when you encounter call failures. 
If they are telco problems this will help us pattern them and narrow down the
source.

     Thank you.