Seattle, WA Busy Signals and Vancouver BC Data Issues

[Robert Dinse <nanook@eskimo.com>]

     Here is the latest on what is happening with respect to both Seattle and
Vancouver.

     Just some background here; since they replaced the defective box, I have
not been hearing complaints about the recordings, just the busy signals in
Seattle, and slow data in Vancouver BC.

     Some background for those that may not be familiar with the terminology, a
"PRI" refers to an ISDN PRI (Primary Rate Interface) line.  Your basic home
ISDN line is called a BRI and contains two "B" channels that carry voice or
data, and one "D" channel that carriers control information for call setup and
such. 

     A "PRI" carries 23B plus one D channel over a T1 facility.  A conventional
channelized T1 has 24 channels but they steal the 8th databit for signalling
which decreases the data rate to 56k (and this is why in some areas you can
only get 56k per channel on an ISDN call).

     Essentially, PRI's are the phone lines used to provide service.  MegaPOP
is using ELI for the present Seattle POP.  They are having difficulty getting
additional PRI's from ELI in a timely manner and so a second POP is being built
using a different data provider. 

     The orders for PRI's from ELI are still in effect and they will grow the
existing POP as soon as they can get those installed.  But they are building a
second POP at the same time so that they will have more than one way to add
capacity.  They have done this in other locations as well, notably Los Angles,
San Francisco, and a few other places. 

     The busy signal in and data problems in Vancouver, BC, should be resolved
early this week according to this note.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 09:58:17 -0600
From: David Zortea <dave@megapop.net>
To: Robert Dinse <nanook@eskimo.com>
Subject: Re: US West? (fwd)

Robert,
Not sure if anyone from Support had already responded to you about 
this, but from what I have come to understand of the situation, there 
is more then one issue at work here. Originally, the Seattle problem 
was believed to be specific to the modem cards, but after a swap out 
and the problem remained, it was determined that the box itself was 
faulty. A new one was configured and shipped and is set to be 
installed today. That should help to a certain extent. There is still 
a matter of getting delivery on the additional PRI needed to relieve 
capacity. That is the issue that I am still attempting to get answers 
on. As soon as Nick arrives in today I will hit him up on the latest 
time-frame he may have received from our dialtone provider. Meantime, 
he is also vigorously pursuing the vendors involved in getting our 
new Seattle POP site installed and turned up. I will try and get the 
latest he has on that as well. Ultimately, we all believe that this 
new site will be a far superior solution and offer us the best 
possible chance and keeping up with and STAYING AHEAD of growth once 
and for all.

As for Vancouver BC, all the equipment was shipped and is going 
through customs as we speak. We have an engineer set to fly out on 
Monday for an install in the early part of next week. This will will 
be a very large volume of PRI as well as an upgrade to a full DS3 for 
data that should sustain us for a long, long time to come.

Thats as much as I know of the situation at the moment. I will be 
happy to follow up with more as I am able to gather any other details 
about Seattle. We'll all be happy when our alternative POP is finally 
running and have a more reliable source for quick turnaround on PRI. 
Its been struggle, to say the least, at managing our current dialtone 
provider for circuits in a timely manner.

Respectfully,
Dave Zortea